Body Language and the Speaking Test

Although it is never mentioned in the assessment criteria for speaking exams, your body language will count for a great deal. Being aware of how you project your body image and interact with the examiners will help boost your score. In short, this popular TED Talk argues that your body language may even shape who you are. Looking confident will help you feel confident. Try some of the techniques suggested here: you may be surprised at how effective they are.

IELTS Speaking Criteria

Familiarising yourself with the assessment criteria is one way of boosting your score on almost any exam, as it enables you to give the examiners what they are looking for. Here is a useful guide to the Speaking Criteria from IELTS Advantage, a user-friendly site that anyone preparing for IELTS should know about.

Official speaking sample video and commentary

Video address on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcaIOTRV64g

Download IELTS scale and video comments and worksheets

Suggested speaking topics and sample answers

All links below are from: http://ieltsliz.com/ielts-speaking-free-lessons-essential-tips/

1. Tips: How I got Band Score 9 in IELTS Speaking
2. Linking Words for IELTS Speaking
3. Tips: Which part of the speaking test is most important?
4. Tips: Asking the examiner questions
5. Tips: How long should my answer be?
6. Tips: Should I speak fast or slow?
7. Tips: Using wonna and gonna
8. Tips for Speaking Part 2 – Will I get a low score for speaking less than 2 mins?
9. Tips for Speaking Part 2: Difficult Topics
10. Tips: Going Off Topic
11. Video: Speaking Part 1: Common Questions
12. Video: Speaking Part 1: Common Topics
13. Video: Speaking Part 1: What’s your favourite…?
14. Video: Speaking Part 1: Dictionaries Topic
15. Video: Speaking Part 2: How to start your talk
16. Video: Speaking Part 3: Comparing Urban and Rural Life
17. Video: Greeting the Examiner & ID Check
18. Video: How to develop your IELTS speaking at home

Sample speaking test by the British Council and band descriptors

Assessment criteria

Versions of the assessment criteria for Writing and Speaking have been developed to help stakeholders better understand the level of performance required to secure a particular band score:

Downloads

IELTS task 1 Writing band descriptors35.35 KB

IELTS task 2 Writing band descriptors 35.28 KB

IELTS Speaking band descriptors (22 Dec 2015)161.11 KB

Taken from:
https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/find-out-about-results/ielts-assessment-criteria

Also visit this page to calculate your score more accurately:

https://www.ielts.org/ielts-for-organisations/ielts-scoring-in-detail

Sample Speaking Session: Band 9

3 helpful videos on IELTS speaking

Mock IELTS Speaking Test #1 (Version 1): Amazing vocabulary and structure in the answers provided

IELTS Speaking Score 8.5 with Native English Speaker subtitles: To get acquainted with the beginning of the procedure

IELTS BAND 7 vocabulary for speaking test (part 1): Vocabulary tips

The amazing future candidates!

Some speaking questions answered by Germanos

Part 1

Which magazines and newspapers do you read?

Nowadays I don’t really read any newspapers often, except sometimes that I want to be informed about the political and financial problems of my country , and that’s because I find them really expensive and apart from that I can easily find them online on the web.

What kinds of article are you most interested in?

I really enjoying reading articles from magazines with scientific content and that’s mostly because I love mathematics and computer science. I also want to know how the market’s going, so I love reading articles about the stock market, I don’t have any specific reason why I read those articles , it’s just a personal preference .

Have you ever read a newspaper or magazine in a foreign language?

Actually, I’m reading magazines in English all the time, and not just me, but all the adults, and that’s because nowadays it’s easy to (browse them from) flick through them on the internet, it's free and fast. For instance when I wake up in the morning I like drinking my coffee browsing a newspaper on the web, it’s a nice ‘company’.

Do you think reading a newspaper or magazine in a foreign language is a good way to learn the language?

Well to learn the language from all aspects no, but when you flick though a magazine , written in English for example , you can sometimes understand, people's culture and their everyday activities. However, (comma) reading an English magazine also allows you to know the people's slang, which is really hard to get acquainted with alone. In conclusion, (comma) reading a magazine can be beneficial and simultaneously can harm you, if you are trying to learn English only from them.

Part 2

Describe a restaurant that you enjoyed going to. You should say: 1) where the restaurant was, 2) why you chose this restaurant, 3) what type of food you ate in this restaurant and explain why you enjoyed eating in this restaurant.

If I remember correctly it was two years ago, the restaurants’ name was china town and it was located in syntagma (Athens) .From the first second that I saw it , it was amazing, the service was excellent and fast. (Full stop) Imagine that the waitress was filling our glasses with water all the time and her reactions were really fast. It had great salads with many vegetables, and the two most exciting dishes was duck with sweet sauce and vegetables, and a soup filled with shark fin, the last one was delicious. Other than that, I really like their ‘traditional’ beer, the Chinese beer. In a nutshell the atmosphere was amazing and I would like to visit them again in the near future, it was worth every penny.

Some of part 3 questions

Some people say that food in an expensive restaurant is always better than food in a cheap restaurant – would you agree?

Well, I have never considered this matter before, but I’m inclined to believe that sometimes expensive restaurants are believed to be better due to pricey materials and ingredients they use in order to cook the food that they serve. I also have to mention that we might sometimes pay more for the trademark of the restaurant than the actual ly food that we order, and that’s because some restaurants are luxury and we need to choose them on more special occasions like birthdays or weddings. So in conclusion I disagree.

How important is it for a country to be able to grow all the food it needs, without importing any other from other countries?

That’s a tough question to be answered, but the true question is, can a country grow all the food it needs alone? I guess the answer is no, because this is nearly impossible. For example here in Greece as a Mediterranean country we has the advantage of growing vegetables thanks to the right conditions but we don’t have all kinds of fruits that we might need, like the African ones, so we are forced to import them from our neighbors. All in all, (comma) the more food a country grows, the wealthier it gets.

Speaking Practice

http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/prepare-your-test/free-practice-tests/speaking-practice-test-1

The Speaking test is 11-14 minutes long and is in three parts.

Part 1	You will answer questions about yourself and your family.
Part 2	You will speak about a topic.
Part 3	You will have a longer discussion about the topic introduced in Part 2.

The Speaking test is the same for both IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training tests.

How to improve your speaking score by using better vocabulary

Watch the video by the British Council: http://youtu.be/LQQE2hWrl98

Splendid help by Splendid Speaking

• Topic vocabulary for IELTS
• IELTS Speaking task sheets

Would you say it is a good place to live?

Yes,I would definitely agree that my hometown offers satisfactory living standarts to its residents.First of all,Heraklion is near the sea and has a sunny climate during all the year.Additionally,it is a peacful place and very clean too.Heraklion has a relatively low crime rate which is very important for someone who wants to lead a peaceful life.Finally,there are many places with natural beauty making you feel better and willing to explore your surroundings.

What kind of jobs do the people in your town do?

Most of the people occupy with the tourist industry which is developed on Crete.They mostly work in hotels,bars and restaurants.Other people own their own shops,such as souvenir shops,clothes shops and other kinds of shops.There are also entertainment facilities,like Talos Plaza and Technopolis in which many people can seek employment.

What is the most interesting part of your town?

Heraklion has many interesting places.A very picturesque place is the Venecian castle of Cule at the port of the city,with years of history and a tremendous architectural value.A lot of people visit this place every year.Knossos is an beautiful place,too,when it comes to archeological places.

HOMETOWN.What kind of place is it?

First of all my hometown is Heraklion.It is a picturesque city near the sea.It has 150000 citizens and it is the 4th biggest town in Greece.Heraklion is on the island of Crete.