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Home / Language / IELTS / Improve your IELTS Speaking score / Wrap-up and tips for Part 1 of the IELTS Speaking Test

Wrap-up and tips for Part 1 of the IELTS Speaking Test

Testing specialist, Jose, gives some useful tips and advice to achieve a higher score for Part 1 of the IELTS Speaking test.
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0.3
<v ->Well done, Ming Wei.</v> <v ->Thank you Jose, this has been really good advice.</v> I feel more confident now. <v ->I’m glad that you feel better now.</v> And I can actually see that you implemented advice quite well, and your performance really improved. And the best part is that you realized that pronunciation was not the main point to improve your answers. Now, I’d like to give you some more tips for part one of the test.
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Tip one: show enthusiasm. Show that you are interested in the question the examiner is asking you, and show that you are willing to communicate.
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Tip two: develop your ideas. Try to say interesting things about yourself. You can do this by avoiding yes/no answers. You should develop your answers by explaining, suggesting, giving opinions, and providing examples. Your answers should be about 20 seconds in length.
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Tip three: let the examiner interrupt you. Don’t worry if this happens more than once. In fact, this is a good sign, as it means that you are speaking at length.
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Tip four: stay on topic. Be careful, and make sure your answers are relevant to the questions.
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Tip five: avoid asking questions to the examiner. In this part of the test, do not ask the examiner questions like, what about you? The examiner will not respond.
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Tip six: correct yourself. If you are speaking, and realize that you’ve made a mistake, don’t be afraid to correct yourself. Do this in a confident way. Instead of saying, oh I made a mistake. You can say sorry, that’s not what I meant. Or, let me say that again.
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Tip seven: Ask for clarification. If you didn’t understand a question, it is okay to ask the examiner to repeat it again. Once again, be confident when doing so. Instead of saying, what? Or, repeat please. Use appropriate language, like, excuse me, can you repeat that? Or, do you mind repeating the question please? However, keep in mind that in part one, the examiner will just repeat the question. They will not paraphrase it, or explain it.

Well done for completing the first week of Improve your IELTS Speaking Score.

Discussion

In this video, Jose provides several tips for Part 1 of the test. Which tip did you find most useful? Do you have any other tips for this part of the test that you would like to share with everyone else? Write your answers in the box below.

Speaking Practice

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It is time for you to implement all the strategies you have learnt in this section. We have prepared several questions for Part 1 of the test for you to practise. Go to this Padlet link and follow the instructions.

Stay tuned and we will see you for Parts 2 and 3 of the IELTS speaking test in Week 2 here on FutureLearn.

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This content is taken from Macquarie University online course
Improve your IELTS Speaking score
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