These must be some of the best kept IELTS speaking secrets

Peter Travis from Splendid-Speaking.com, has a podcast dedicated to advanced learners of English students who want to develop their top speaking skills and communication strategies.

In this podcast Peter shares:

-Practical advice for the IELTS Speaking part 2.
-Great tips for learning and employing idiomatic expressions.
-Tips to gain fluency.
-How can an IELTS student structure their talk.
-Keys to using and understanding idiomatic expressions -like the palm of your hand.

Advanced IELTS Speaking


Why a student may have problems speaking fluently
-Students may sacrifice fluency to obtain accuracy and not take risks, however this isn’t a balanced approach.

Best approach:

-Understand that proficiency (advanced ability) consists of both accuracy and fluency.
-Be prepared to separate them, i.e. concentrate on fluency practise for one session, then accuracy in the second session.

Being fluent takes time because it consists of having the knowledge of the language, learnt so well it flows, without thinking (those horrible unwanted pauses).


Tips to gain fluency.

-If you suffer from pauses a little trick is to use fillers: uhmm let me think, that’s a good question.
-Paraphrasing, if you don’t know the word in English just describe it: Lawnmower = something that cuts the grass. This helps you keep speaking without having to worry about finding the correct word.
-Allow yourself to make mistakes.
-Talk to yourself, decide on a specific area e.g. accuracy using the past tense.
-Focus on when to use the pauses correctly: at the end of sentences, at the end of clauses, etc.

How can an IELTS student structure their talk.

-Use the question, use the four parts as prompts, this makes it easy for the examiner to follow.
-If possible use anecdotes, set the scene, where and who you were with, what happened and why it’s significant to your topic.
-Although it’s a semi-formal situation, remember it is spontaneous.
-Consider it as a job interview.

How can a student make their talk more interesting?

-Be prepared to talk about yourself and to share.
-Possibly relate your story to topical events in the news at the time (only if it all connects; your topic, your story and the event).

Keys to using and understanding idiomatic expressions -like the palm of your hand.

-The receptive skill, understanding their meaning, for this you can use a dictionary
-Using them appropriately, not using them just because you know them.
-The best way to understand them is to personalise them, associate someone in your life to the idiomatic phrase, now the phrase has a feeling, this can also be done with phrasal verbs.

Peter’s recordings range from: Using an Anecdote to make a point, Making a Spontaneous talk, and Expressing and Justifying Opinions.

All all the podcasts are listed on splendid speaking: here

You can find Peter at www.splendid-speaking.com

Also try an IELTS speaking test here.

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