THE IELTS ACADEMIC SPEAKING: How it works

The IELTS Academic Speaking test is the shortest of the components of the IELTS test - only 11 to 14 minutes. In this short time, you have to convince the examiner who will be speaking with you of your level of English.

It is the same for both the Academic and General Training modules. The test is conducted with 1 examiner and 1 candidate. The Speaking Test is divided into 3 sections and test is recorded as it takes place:

Section 1 Section 1 begins with some general introductory questions followed by some questions on personal information similar to the type of questions one would ask when meeting someone for the first time. Finally the examiner asks a series of questions of 2 topics of general interest. (4 - 5 minutes)

Section 2 Section 2 is a monologue (1 person speaking) by the candidate. The examiner will give the candidate a card with a subject and a few guiding questions on it. Something like this:

 

Speak about a skill you wished to learn

• What that was

·        When you wanted to learn

• Why you failed to learn it
• How you take that missed opportunity

The student must talk for 1 to 2 minutes on this subject. The examiner decides on the exact length. The student has an optional 1 minute in order to prepare for his talk and is provided with some paper and a pencil in order to make some brief notes. After the candidate's talk the examiner will ask a few brief questions. ( 4-5 minutes)

Section 3: Here the examiner will ask some more questions generally related to the subject spoken about in section 2. These questions will be more demanding and require some critical analysis on the part of the candidate. (4 - 5 minutes)

·        Do you think students should learn some life skills at school?

·        What are soft skills and how important are they?

·        Why is it easier to pick up a skill when we are young?

·        Is there any shortcut to master a skill?

 

 

Question Types

The types of questions that come in the IELTS Academic Speaking Test are very general in nature and are designed so that anyone around the world, regardless of what background or culture they come from, should be able to answer them. The questions will not be overly personal and will avoid contentious subjects such as politics, sex or religion.

All the questions will be open questions rather than closed questions. An open question asks the candidate to give an extended answer, and so have the opportunity to show how good his English is. A closed question is one that can be answered by a single word or a couple of words. So, you will not get a question like:

Do you like living in your town? Answer to this question is not just ‘yes’ or ‘no’, rather, it is like Yes, I like it because, or no, I don’t like it because……It is a kind of why you like it or why you do not like it.

A student could just answer ‘yes’. Any answer like this will just be followed by the question why? So you have to extend your answer (what you should have done after the "yes" anyway). Anyway, the question is more likely to be:

Why do you like living in your town?

Here the candidate has to give an explanation and therefore the examiner hears plenty of English which will help him or her evaluate you.

Marking - IELTS Academic Speaking Test Marks, Bands and Results

In the IELTS Academic Speaking Test you will be marked in 4 areas. These 4 areas are:

·        Fluency and Coherence,

·        Lexical Resource,

·        Grammatical Range

·        Accuracy and Pronunciation.

For the first 3, you get a mark out of 9. For Pronunciation you get a 2, 4, 6 or 8. Finally an average is taken to give you your final band for the Speaking. Let's look at these areas in more detail.

Fluency and Coherence: The examiner grades your fluency, which is how easy, smooth and flowing your speaking is. To get a good grade here, any gaps in your speaking should be associated with searching for the right idea rather than hesitancy with finding the right word or structure. For the coherence part, the examiner looks at how easy you are to understand. Does your flow of ideas run smoothly, logically and with consistency? Do you communicate well?

Lexical Resource: This mark grades the range of words that you use in your speaking test and whether you use the words in the right way, at the right time and in the right place.
Grammatical Range and Resource: This mark grades your range of grammatical structures, your accuracy at producing them and whether you use the right structure at the right time and in the right place. This is the area that worries the candidates the most as it is the dreaded grammar. Remember it is only 1 part out of 4.

Pronunciation: This mark grades you on how clearly you speak English. How clearly means how comfortable you make the listener while speaking obviously, making your English understandable with an acceptable voice modulation, pronunciation, accent and the like. Unless you are English educated, you cannot speak like the English people speak. So do not imitate a pedantic pronunciation. Rather pick up one of your own which is understandable.

The Three Sections of the IELTS Academic Speaking Test

Here we will look at the three sections in more detail. Remember, the IELTS test always tries to mirror situations that you will encounter as a student or immigrant in an English speaking country. The speaking test is no different and each of the sections has a specific purpose. Like all the different modules of the IELTS, the speaking gets more difficult as it goes on. The questions that are asked in Section 1 are easier than in Section 2 and so on. This does not mean that by Section 3 they are impossible but they are more demanding linguistically.

Disclaimer

This write up is based on an authentic downloaded material. I do not have any claim on it.