 So let's start off by talking about your neighborhood. Do you like the neighborhood that you live in? Yes I love it. It's really beautiful and quaint and it's by the river so whenever I feel like you know I need to unplug from life I just walk along the river and it's like really restorative and calming. Let me tell you why this student is bad nine so that you can improve your score and also give you an idea of what the examiner is thinking about when they are listening and judging a student during the speaking test because that's really the key to you improving your score. So there are four marking criteria that the examiner is thinking about when they're listening to you. Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and fluency. The first thing that the examiner will notice here will be the pronunciation. This is because your pronunciation doesn't just affect your pronunciation score it also affects the other three scores because if you think about it you could have perfect grammar, perfect vocabulary, perfect fluency but if the examiner cannot understand what you're saying none of that really matters. So it's kind of like taking a paintbrush and brushing over all of your good work if your pronunciation is poor. For this student it is bad nine because the first thing that the examiner will notice with this student is that they understand exactly what they are saying for every single word, every single syllable. They're not a native English speaker but their pronunciation is extremely clear and that's really what you should be focusing on. Not really higher level fancy pronunciation features what you should be focusing on is does the examiner understand every single word I'm saying. So far it is excellent. Is there anything you think needs added to your neighborhood? Well I suppose I do have a sense of community but more kind of events that we can get people together you know on a regular basis we get together doing like say the jubilee week you know the celebration and anything that's more national celebration but it would be nice to have something more regular sense of community I suppose. If you could move to another neighborhood where would it be? I would like to move to the beach somewhere about a sea you know because it would be it would be really nice to be in nature because the neighborhood that I live in it's great but it does feel a little bit like a concrete jungle I know the river is nearby but it does feel like it takes some time for me to get straight into nature so it would be nice to you know be say on the beachfront you know. Another thing that the examiner will be thinking about is your tense or grammatical structure that you choose to answer the question specifically are you using the appropriate structure to answer that particular question so I ask her a conditional question if you could move to another neighborhood where would it be and her response is I would like to move to the beach she uses the modal verb would to express a polite desire or wish something hypothetical normally in the future that she wishes could happen now what the examiner will do is they will ask you a range of different questions that require a range of different grammatical structures and tenses to answer appropriately and the examiner will be listening out for your answer to test your grammatical range and accuracy and let's see how that changes and how she copes with that when the examiner changes the type of question he asks her let's talk about tv what's your favorite tv show actually I don't watch tv but I um watch a lot of youtube videos you know and I tend to go into more personal development videos you know stories of transformation do you prefer to stream or watch normal tv I prefer to stream I really struggle with just mindlessly watching something without intention so before I watch something it's gotta be something that would hold my interest I actually know what it's about so yeah much prefer streaming so in this question I ask her do you prefer to stream or watch tv now this is slightly different from the question the conditional question that I asked her before what I'm asking her now is not a conditional not a desire an unlikely event that might happen I'm asking for her current preference and she states I prefer to stream this is perfect for stating her preference because we use the present symbol to state our current preference or something that is generally true it would sound very unusual if she said something like I would like to stream in the future because that's not really what I asked her I didn't ask her a conditional hypothetical type question so she's doing extremely well than choosing the exact correct tense or grammatical structure to use not only is she choosing it that is appropriate that is what I mean when I'm saying it is appropriate choosing the correct one she's using it accurately and you need to do both things if you're hoping to get about seven eight or nine I hope you're enjoying the video so far to thank you for watching this video I want to give you a free course that has helped thousands of students improve their IELTS speaking score it's called the IELTS speaking challenge and what it's going to do is take you through every single part of the test and give you strategies for part one part two and part three and also allow you to practice at home for free and get feedback it is a hundred percent free all you have to do is just look in the description below this video click on it enter your email and we'll sign you up and send you all the information thanks very much and let's get back to the video are there any shows or youtube channels that you dislike not really because if I did dislike then I wouldn't pay attention to them you know I just kind of like browse over I tend to not put much attention to things that I don't like or you know don't contribute to you know the betterment of me what were your favorite TV shows as a child I watch a lot of cartoons they definitely have a good dose of Fairfair retail's imagination superhero cartoons and the ones that I loved that left an impression about girl empowerment you know powerful women who look good and do their thing you know and like just yeah there is a cartoon called Jam and the Holocaust and I always found really really cool because jam is a journalist I think her alter ego is a journalist and she could just transform and look amazing at the same time you know that kind of shaped my early kind of thought of how maybe my future job could be and now I ask her about the past what were your favorite TV shows as a child and her responses I watched a lot of cartoons so she decides to use past simple here because she's talking about a specific event in the past at a specific time and it's a completed action so that's one of the occasions when it's appropriate to use the past simple so again you see that the examiner is asking a range of different questions just to test your grammatical range so you should be aware of this when the examiner is asking you a question you should be thinking about what is the appropriate tense to answer this question or the appropriate grammatical structure and they also do this with topics so a lot of students complain about like why are they asking me about birthday cakes and hats and my free time why so many weird topics that is very very intentional because it is to stop cheating because many many students memorize lists of high-level words and what the examiner will do is they will throw in an unusual topic to test your vocabulary range for that unusual topic let's see how they do that now let's talk about using your phone which apps do you use most on your phone um I suppose it is the social media app because I need to post um daily for my business I think I also love you know calm like kind of headspace kind of apps that really um enable us to just disconnect from our day-to-day you know stresses and then recenter because I think that's really important how much time do you spend on your phone per day way too much I have a little counter now that tells me whether my you know screen time has gone up or gone down and I try to reduce that but probably about three four hours a day a bit too much have you ever deleted an app on your phone I don't think I have mainly because if I don't use the app they just stop updating and then I don't do a good job at tidying them up but that gives me a reminder to do so do you have notifications turned off or on on your phone it's all off yeah I don't like any kind of like buzzing you know on my phone even my phone is on silent all the time um yeah I very ready have no notifications on at all so as you see we've switched topics now to talking about mobile phones and one of the reasons they do that is to stop cheating but the other thing that they do is they are thinking about your use of topic specific vocabulary that is vocabulary that helps you speak about this specific topic so for example she uses words like disconnect screen time updating buzzing on silent so these are very topic specific words that we use to talk about mobile phones for example we wouldn't use these words to talk about the weather or food so notice that I didn't say that she's using lots of high-level vocabulary she's using topic specific vocabulary topic specific vocabulary is far more impressive than you using the word plethora 17 times it is not about going on to youtube and memorizing a bunch of high-level words it is about being able to discuss any topic that they throw at you and this is basically cheat proof because it is impossible for you to predict what topics are going to come up and let me tell you a little secret examiner is not basing your vocabulary score on all of these memorized answers that you have or the topics that you preferred the examiner is basing their score on these answers these questions that you were not expecting because that is your real vocabulary level it is not a memorization test it is a speaking test and also the examiner is thinking about whether you're using these words and phrases accurately not just throwing in a bunch of high-level fancy words but choosing the appropriate topic specific words to help you fluently discuss that topic and she's doing that perfectly and what a lot of students will say when they look at a band nine student they'll say I don't think that she's band nine because what they believe band nine is is using lots of lots of words that they don't really understand it's actually the opposite it is using pretty simple words that are topic specific because that is a far more accurate and reliable assessment of your real language ability now let's talk about your future what job would you like to do in the future i suppose the job that i want to do in the future is kind of like the next level from what i'm doing now in the future i would like to be a speaker that talks on a wider bigger stage reaching more people within the audience about the human condition and things that we struggle with the things we need to know in order to grow as people so this is a really really interesting answer because you've probably noticed that she's not as fluent as in the previous answers so what we're going to do now is listen to her next answer and i want you to compare the answer that she wasn't as fluent with the next answer and i want you to think about why that is and will it actually affect her score will you study for any qualifications in the future well because i did actually spend a really long time in my life studying and only finished at the age of 30 i felt like i had had enough of structured education i believe the best education that you give yourself is experiential and i learned a lot of what i know now through doing because it is in being in something and really practicing the skills that you learned more effectively so this is a really really important insight into what the examiner is thinking because the reason why she wasn't as fluent for answer 12 is i think that she was just really overthinking it she had to really think about the answer whereas with the answers where she was a lot more fluent she didn't really have to think about the content the things that she was going to say because if you think about it your brain is like a computer what happens to a computer when you have too many programs open at the same time it slows down and it can crash and this is one of the main reasons why students get a lower score for fluency they are overthinking the content they are overthinking the ideas and let me give you some really really good advice this is probably the number one most common advice that we give our vip students for helping them improving their fluency you are not being judged on the quality of your ideas you're not being judged on the content in the speaking test remember you're only being judged on fluency grammar vocabulary and pronunciation there's nothing in there that says there are more scores for high level ideas you must answer the question that's part of fluency and coherence but as long as you're answering the question it can be very very simple easy ideas so does that mean that she doesn't deserve a bad nine no the examiner is not judging you on one bad answer and it wasn't even a bad answer it was a very very good answer the examiner is judging you on the totality of your performance every single answer that you give they are judging you on your overall performance for fluency a lot of students think that if you make one tiny little mistake that that automatically brings your score down that is not how the speaking test works at all so in the test if you get a question that you're not comfortable answering just pick something that is easy to talk about because that's going to help your fluency and also don't panic if you give one bad answer don't panic and destroy the rest of your test just keep going and know that you're being judged on all your answers not just one answer this video is sponsored by us isle advantage and the isle VIP course the isle VIP course is the most successful isle course in the world that is a fact because we have more than seven eight and nine success stories than any other isle course in the entire world we do that by simplifying the whole isles process supporting you with some of the best isles teachers in the world and being with you every step of the way until you get the score that you need to thank you for making it this far in the video i want to give you 10% off our VIP course all you have to do is just look down in the description you will see our special link that you need to get 10% off just click that and you can sign up if you have any questions about the VIP course always feel free to get in touch with us chris at islesabantage.com is my email address we answer 100% of the questions that we get hope that you become a VIP if not enjoy the rest of this free video that's the end of part one so now we're going to move on to part two i'm going to show you a cue card yeah you'll have one minute to prepare you can make notes during that one minute i'll let you know when the one minute is over and then i would like you to speak for up to two minutes about the topic on the cue card is that clear yeah okay there's the cue card and i will time you part two gives the examiner the freedom the space to really listen to your performance because they're not constantly thinking about asking the next question what you're saying it gives them kind of two minutes just to sit back and really focus on different aspects of your performance and the challenge for students is speaking fluently for up to two minutes that's really the biggest challenge when it comes to part two so let's have a listen and see how she does okay please begin when you're ready sure so a website that i really enjoy visiting is youtube and the reason for that is because i believe that i'm more of a visual and experiential learner so for me if you were to give me an instruction to do something i might only catch like a very small snippet of it because my mind might not retain everything that you have said and so in order for me to then you know tackle the task i would need to see you know what that topic is about and see and learn in a more kind of condensed way and i find youtube really interesting and very captivating for that reason it engages my attention and what i like to learn on it is interviews with experts you know things that people could break down into chunks you know more kind of conversational style and i find interviews and explanation about human behavior especially from neuroscience experts you know really captivating and it's something that i find you know helps me with my work too so it is a very quick way to learn about something and that's why i spend so much time on it way more than i even spend on books because if you ask me to read a book it's not exactly the same you know and you ask me to read a video then i could retain a lot of the information because it's not just what is said i'm also seeing the person's expression you know and also the emphasis of something that they say through the tone of the voice so it helps me really digest and you know and enhance my learning and i visit the website every other day you know or actually whenever i need to understand more about something that goes straight to youtube um why like it thank you that's the end of part two so as you can hear and see she had no problem talking about that topic for the whole two minutes so what i'm going to do now is break down the structure that she used so that you can practice using this structure because she did a very very good job of taking the topic and then structuring it out in a way that made it very easy for her to speak fluently for up to two minutes so the first thing she did was she answered the question directly so she said a website that i really enjoy visiting is youtube so this tells the examiner that you've understood the question and you are coherent you're answering the question it is also helpful for you because what you're going to do is make sure that you're answering the question by stating the answer right away you don't have to do it this way there are many many different ways that you could fluently answer the question for two minutes but this is one way second thing that she did was she then briefly explained why why she thinks that so she says the reason for that is because i'm more of a visual and experiential learner so she's not going into a lot of detail but she is explaining the main points of her answer then what she does is she goes into a lot more detail so for me if you were to give me an instruction to do something i might only catch like a very small snippet of it because my mind might not retain everything that you've said so she's going into a lot more detail so the fourth thing she does is she gives real examples so she talks about interviews with neuroscience experts so this structure is kind of like a pyramid all right at the top answers the question then says why and then goes into a lot more detail and then she gives more examples this is an excellent way to answer speaking questions because it is a very natural way and it is a very fluent and coherent way to answer that and it helps students and then what you can do is you can add on a couple more bullet points so if you get to the end of your examples you can throw in a few more bullet points related to that main topic so practice that at home it's really going to help you another thing that she does extremely well here is that she relates everything to her real life and her real experience this helps her fluency because it is much much easier to talk about things from your own experience from your own life it is much more difficult to speak fluently about something outside of your own experience outside of your own life and make it up then to relate it back to something from your own life and many of these part two questions will be about quite vague topics such as you talk about a book talk about a website talk about a holiday that you went on so it's about a book or a website pick something that is a hobby of yours or a passion of yours that you know a lot about or it could be related to your actual profession your job if they're asking you about a holiday talk about a real holiday that you went on or it might be somewhere that you know very very well you know for example you could be living in London but you are from Ghana you could be talking about I like to go back to Ghana on holiday because you know all of those places and you can talk about them freely and easily and that's also going to help you with your vocabulary because it is much much easier to talk about topic specific vocabulary use that appropriately use that accurately if you're talking about your job where you're from a passion a hobby something you know a lot about and now we're going to move on to part three okay so you've talked about a website that you enjoy let's continue to talk about websites so let me tell you a little secret about part three that not many students know the examiner has a range of different questions and if they think that you are band seven eight or nine they're going to ask you more difficult questions than compared to students that are a band five or six for example because what they're doing in part three is they're really stretching your ability so if you get really difficult questions you should be happy about that and we do ask her some very very difficult questions in part three let's see how she copes with this what are the most popular websites in your country um in my country I suppose the most popular websites are more around um debates and you know questioning of of things I suppose the podcast is also you know making a big headway you know because people are really developing an appetite to listen to conversations life I liken it to being a bit of a warrior you know like just kind of being a fly on the wall when like this conversation is taking place that you would have otherwise no access to but now it's freely available on anyone's you know fingertips she starts off by saying um in my country I suppose the most popular websites are around debates and you know questioning of things and many of you are commenting right now she does not deserve a bad nine because she said um or ah or you know too many times well there's um's and as or what we call audible pauses so you're pausing to think but there's sound coming out of your mouth um and these are totally normal and if you think that that makes you a bad speaker then you probably think these people are terrible speakers um um I think for me um I uh it's also very natural to use fillers like like and you know so it's in my mother you know I think I think you know too you know so if we look at the official marketing criteria here what it says for band nine fluency is any hesitation that occurs is used only to prepare the content of the next utterance and not to find words or grammar so what does that mean in plain English so what this means is that band nine students when they aren't thinking about what to say next there are utterances I don't know why they use very complex language here but the hesitation hesitation means that you pause like you know it's only to think about the content the idea not to be searching for is this the correct grammar structure to use is this a correct vocabulary to use band six and seven students tend to use these audible pauses to think about the correct word or the correct grammar because their language level is not very high native English speakers and band nine students they use these audible pauses and hesitations to try and find the correct answer the correct content the correct idea we all do this even in your native language and the examiners have been trained to understand the difference between a student that is struggling to find the correct word or grammatical structure and the student that is just thinking about the next thing to say it is very very easy to spot for examiners what will happen to society if AI or robots take over from humans in the workplace gosh um can you say that again yeah yeah I might it might I need to simplify the question of it um I get what you're saying yeah I just need to hear it again if AI and robots take over from humans in the workplace what will happen to society so she did very very well here to ask me to repeat the question this allows her to clarify exactly what the question is in her mind it also gives her a little bit of time to think about it because this is a very very difficult question um native English speakers who are AI experts would find it difficult to just come up immediately with a very very fluent answer so it is totally normal to say to the examiner in part three can you repeat the question or what does that word within the question mean the examiner will do what I did which was reformulate the question make it easier to understand gosh I mean I watch a podcast snippet of an ex-google executive and he said that that is likely going to happen and the way he said it didn't sound it didn't sound good at all you know it sounded like it was going to be a catastrophe because the way AI is being created at the moment is so unethical and it's not regulated and it's also very biased and so if we create anything from that bias point of view then people who AI is not created for might struggle you know to get the answers that they need that will truly support them you know in their lives I think we have to take a step back you know before we let this fully roll out you know into every corner of our lives I don't think we're ready yet to have AI impact or support or areas of our lives yet so this answer probably contains her highest level vocabulary she uses words like catastrophe unethical regulated biased take a step back and roll out but the really important thing and the difference between band nine and everyone else is she uses this high level vocabulary not to show off but to help her answer the question these words are not just memorized from a list of band nine words and thrown in they are part of her normal vocabulary and they are used appropriately and accurately and you've probably heard me use those two words again and again and again and you might also be thinking this is the end of the test or getting towards the end of the test and oh my god she hasn't used any idioms yet give her a band five this is a complete misinterpretation of the official marking criteria what it says for band nine for vocabulary is sustained use of accurate and idiomatic language so you'll find a lot of videos online a lot of advice from IELTS teachers saying the more idioms you use the higher your score this is a misinterpretation of the word idiomatic idiomatic does not mean idioms it includes idioms but it also includes things like informal language colloquialisms slang phrasal verbs in other words idiomatic language is language that native English speakers just normally use so let's analyze one of her sentences to show you in a little bit more detail what idiomatic means she says I think we have to take a step back before we let this fully roll out into every corner of our lives now there's no idioms in there but it is full of idiomatic language step back is a more idiomatic a more natural a more native English speaker way of saying to stop and assess the impact roll out is a more idiomatic way of saying introduce something introduce something new every corner of our lives is a more idiomatic way of saying all parts of our lives hunt 100% of our lives so you put all of these together and you get an extremely idiomatic sentence that only a band nine student or a native English speaker could accurately put together now that is very very very different from you saying something like I'm over the moon that you asked me that question because it's been raining cats and dogs today like that includes two idioms but it is nonsense and doesn't make any sense and doesn't help anyone answer the question some people believe that if ai takes over human jobs that the government should pay a minimum basic income to everyone do you agree with that that is almost like a dystopian future isn't it if our society is run by robots what's gonna what's gonna happen to people so what are the use of people you know could they then go and enjoy their lives you know whilst being on this basic income um and the question if then what are we doing here you know if we're yeah given a small wage to enjoy our lives but not really because our lives are run by robots so yes I don't really know the answer really but it makes me think about this dystopian future and that's the end of the speaking test although so I hope that analysis will help you with your practice will help you improve your score to a band seven eight or nine and if you want to hear her give another band nine performance I'd recommend this video