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Okay, so you want to own a Starbucks.
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You walk in every morning, you hand over $6 for a latte, and somewhere in the back of your mind you think, whoever owns this place is printing money.
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The line never stops.
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The same faces show up every single day.
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And the coffee itself, the actual coffee, probably costs less than a dollar to make.
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You do that math quickly enough, and suddenly the idea of owning one of these seems like the smartest investment you've never made.
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But here's the thing nobody tells you at the front of the line.
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You cannot actually buy a Starbucks franchise.
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In the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and most of the world's wealthiest markets, Starbucks does not sell franchises.
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There is no deal you can sign, no check you can write, no application you can submit to become an independent Starbucks owner, the way you might with a Subway or a McDonald's.
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And yet the company operates more than 41,000 locations across 90 countries.
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It generated $37.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025.
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Someone is clearly making money here.
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The question is who, and how the whole machine, actually works from the inside.
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To understand that, we need to follow the money, starting with a single cup of coffee.
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When Starbucks reports its numbers to investors, the revenue comes from three places.
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The first and largest is company-operated stores, locations the corporation owns and runs directly with its own employees.
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In fiscal year 2025, those stores brought in $30.7 billion, which is roughly 83 cents of every dollar Starbucks earns.
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The second source is licensed stores, which are locations run by partner companies inside airports, hotels, hospitals, and grocery stores.
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Those generated $4.3 billion.
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The third is what the company calls other revenue, primarily its global coffee alliance with Nestlé,
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through which Starbucks earns royalties on packaged coffee and ready-to-drink products sold in supermarkets around the world.
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That added another $2.1 billion.
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So coffee beverages, cold drinks, food items, and packaged goods are all revenue streams.
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But the loyalty ecosystem, the mobile app, the preloaded gift cards, the rewards points, is what keeps those revenue streams flowing reliably.
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It is not a marketing program, it is a financial system.
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More on that later.
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The critical thing to understand right now is this.
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The coffee is not the product, the experience is.
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And the experience is extraordinarily expensive to build and run.
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Take one drink, a 16-ounce flavored latte in a major American city.
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It retails for approximately $6.
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When you hand over that money, most people assume most of it is paying for the coffee inside the cup.
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That is not what is happening.
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The actual coffee beans in that drink cost roughly 25 cents.
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The milk costs about 21 cents.
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The flavoring syrup costs 23 cents.
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The cup, the lid, and the sleeve together cost around 20 cents.
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So the raw physical materials inside and around your latte add up to about 89 cents, less than 15% of what you paid.
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The other $5.11 is not profit, it is infrastructure.
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About $1.70 goes directly toward paying the barista who made your drink, along with a portion of their benefits.
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$1.20 goes toward the rent on the building where you are standing, and Starbucks pays premium rents because it only operates in premium locations.
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$0.36 goes to utilities, the commercial espresso machines running at high pressure all morning, the refrigeration units, the hot water systems, the air conditioning.
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$0.24 covers the gradual depreciation of all that equipment as it wears down over time.
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$0.11 covers taxes and administrative overhead.
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Add it all up and the fully loaded cost of making and selling, that one drink is roughly $4.50.
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The store keeps about $1.50 per cup as its operating contribution.
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On a percentage basis, that is a 25% margin at the unit level, Which sounds healthy until you see how many cups you need
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to sell just to cover the fixed costs of keeping the lights on.
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Because they are not paying for the ingredients.
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They are paying for a decision they do not have to make.
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Think about your morning routine.
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You wake up, you are already late, and the last thing you want to do is figure out where to get coffee.
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Starbucks removes that decision entirely.
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You already know the menu.
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You already know the prices.
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You already know exactly how your drink is going to taste.
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Whether you are in Seattle or London or Tokyo, the experience is identical.
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That consistency has enormous value to people who move quickly through their days.
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Beyond consistency, there is the status signal.
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Carrying a Starbucks cup communicates something.
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It says you have a job, it says you have a routine, it says you belong to a certain category of professional adult life.
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Behavioral economists call this the social value of consumption, and it is part of why people will wait in a 10-minute line and pay a premium,
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when a perfectly acceptable cup of drip coffee from the shop next door is available in 30 seconds for $2.50.
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And then there is the pricing structure itself.
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Starbucks offers three sizes, Tall, Grande, and Venti.
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In many markets, the Tall is priced at around $5.25.
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The Grande, the middle size, costs around $5.95.
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The Venti, the largest, costs around $6.25.
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Notice something.
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The jump from Grande to Venti is only $0.30.
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At that point, the biggest size feels almost free by comparison, so most people buy the largest option.
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This is called the decoy effect, and Starbucks runs it deliberately.
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The grande is not meant to be the most popular choice.
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It is meant to make the venti feel like a bargain.
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Now let us talk about where these stores actually sit, because location is not an accident.
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It is a formula.
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In car-dependent American and British suburban markets, Starbucks positions its stores on the the morning commute side of major roads.
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That sounds like a small detail.
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It is not.
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If your store is on the left side of the road as people drive toward work, customers have to make a U-turn to reach you on the way home.
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That friction loses sales.
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But on the morning commute side, you are simply on the way.
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You are the path of least resistance at the moment people most want coffee.
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The company targets locations where at least 25,000 to 30,000 cars pass the surrounding streets every day.
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It uses geographic software to map drive time and walk time ranges around each potential site.
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In dense urban areas like Manhattan or central London, the primary customer base lives or works within a 5-15 minute walk.
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In suburban areas, it is a 5-10 minute drive.
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That catchment area typically needs a median household income of $60,000 or more for the premium pricing to work.
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In urban centers, the stores cluster inside corporate office towers, near university campuses, in transportation terminals, and along busy retail corridors.
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And here is something that seems counterintuitive.
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Starbucks sometimes opens two stores within a few hundred feet of each other.
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Rather than cannibalizing sales, each location captures a distinct flow of foot traffic.
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Different sides of a street, different building entrances, different commuting patterns.
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The goal is to make it impossible for a competitor to find a gap in the coverage.
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Starbucks made a deliberate strategic decision a long time ago.
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In its core markets, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the company does not want independent owners running its locations.
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The reason is control.
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When you sell a franchise, you hand operational authority to an independent business owner.
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That person has their own financial pressures, their own ideas, their own shortcuts.
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They might water down the milk to save money.
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They might skip the barista training program because it costs time.
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They might fail to maintain the espresso equipment calibration.
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And the moment one location delivers a bad experience, the customer does not blame the the franchisee.
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They blame Starbucks.
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By owning and operating its stores directly, the company can ensure that every water filter is replaced on the same schedule, every espresso shot is pulled at the same temperature,
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every seasonal menu launches on exactly the same day.
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When CEO Brian Nickel launched his Back to Starbucks turnaround plan, which included removing the surcharge for non-dairy milk and simplifying an overcomplicated menu,
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he could implement those changes across thousands of locations almost immediately.
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In a franchise system, you would have to negotiate those changes with hundreds of independent owners who all have different incentive structures.
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It would take years, or it would not happen at all.
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The corporate ownership model also allows Starbucks to offer employees something that a franchise network struggles to replicate, genuine benefits.
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Any partner, which is what the company calls its employees, who works an average of 20 hours per week, or more qualifies for full medical insurance,
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stock options, and complete tuition coverage for a bachelor's degree through Arizona State University.
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Starbucks says its total compensation package averages more than $30 per hour, when benefits are included.
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That is the kind of offer that requires the financial scale of a corporation behind it.
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At the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, the company had 41,129 locations worldwide.
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Approximately 52% of those are company-operated.
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The other 48% are what the company calls licensed stores.
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A licensed store is not a franchise.
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The distinction matters.
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A licensed partner, typically a large established company, pays an upfront licensing fee to Starbucks,
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then funds the entire cost of building out the store to Starbucks' exact design specifications,
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then pays an ongoing royalty of approximately 6-8% of gross monthly sales back to the corporation.
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In return, the licensed partner gets to use the Starbucks name, receives its products and ingredients through supply chains controlled by Starbucks,
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and must comply with Starbucks' standards on everything from the equipment used to the color of the walls.
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HMS Host, the company that operates food and beverage concessions in airports across the United States and Europe,
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runs licensed Starbucks kiosks in terminals from Los Angeles to Heathrow.
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Marriott International runs licensed cafes inside its hotel lobbies.
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Target runs licensed counters in the front of many of its stores.
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In all of these cases, the host company bears all the capital costs and operational labor.
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Starbucks collects royalties and product sales without owning a single piece of furniture inside those locations.
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It is a low-risk, high-margin revenue stream layered on top of the core business.
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Here is what a single day looks like inside a company-operated store, because the daily rhythm is where profitability is either made or destroyed.
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The morning rush starts at 6.30 and peaks between 7 and 9.
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During this window, every operational decision is about throughput.
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Speed.
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The number of drinks completed per minute.
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On a strong morning, the average US.
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Starbucks location handles around 847 total transactions in a single day, and a significant portion of those come in this two-hour window.
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The baristas are not making artisan coffee during the morning rush.
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They are executing a precisely sequenced assembly process designed to minimize wait times.
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By 11 in the morning, the pace drops.
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This is the window where the store shifts toward food.
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Breakfast wraps, croissants, lunch sandwiches.
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Food items that can push a $4 average transaction to $9 or $10.
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In the afternoon, the traffic shifts again.
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Younger customers, more customized cold drinks, more mobile orders.
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By 7 in the evening, the store is managing closing procedures and machine maintenance, which is essential for keeping equipment functional.
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Skip the maintenance for a few weeks, and an espresso machine that costs $40,000 starts delivering inconsistent results.
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Volume is everything.
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The rent is the same whether the store serves 200 customers or 1,000.
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The utilities cost roughly the same.
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A large portion of labor is fixed to minimum staffing requirements.
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The store only wins when the number of transactions pushes past the break-even point fast enough, and then keeps going.
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That brings us to what is genuinely the most important expense in this business.
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The people making the coffee.
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Store operating expenses.
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The costs of running the physical stores, which are almost entirely labor, reached $17.06 billion in fiscal year 2025.
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That is 45.9% of the company's entire net revenue spent purely on keeping the stores operational.
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No other line item in the business comes close.
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Starbucks says its average hourly wage for store partners is $19 per hour.
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In high-cost markets like California and New York City, Local laws have pushed entry-level barista pay to $17 to $23 per hour depending on the city.
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When you factor in health insurance, stock options, retirement contributions, and the Arizona State University tuition program,
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the company's own figures suggest the total compensation package averages more than $30 per hour for eligible partners.
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And yet that is precisely the conflict point right now.
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More than 12,000 workers at approximately 700 stores across at least
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45 states have voted to unionize with Starbucks Workers United as of mid-2026.
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The union argues that starting wages in 43 states remain at $15.25 per hour,
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far short of what workers say they need to cover basic living costs in major urban markets.
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The union is pushing for a minimum floor of $17 per hour, guaranteed minimum staffing of three workers on the floor at all times,
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and more predictable scheduling so that baristas can consistently qualify for health benefits.
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Starbucks has disputed several of the union's characterizations of the current situation, but the underlying tension is real.
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The company spent $500 million in additional labor investments under the Back to Starbucks strategy to address chronic understaffing,
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a problem that was directly causing long wait times and customer dissatisfaction.
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labor costs reduce margin, understaffed stores lose customers.
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The company is trying to thread an extremely narrow needle.
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Now, for the most brilliant thing Starbucks has ever built, and it has nothing to do with coffee.
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The Starbucks Rewards Program, which had 34.6 million active members in the United States as early fiscal year 2025,
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is functionally a financial product.
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When you load money onto the Starbucks app or a Starbucks gift card, that money does not go directly to pay for coffee.
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It goes onto the company's balance sheet as what accountants call a stored value card liability,
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which is just a formal way of saying Starbucks is holding your cash until you decide to spend it.
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As of fiscal year 2024,
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customers had loaded approximately $1.87 billion onto Starbucks cards and app accounts across the United States and its international markets.
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That is nearly $2 billion sitting in Starbucks accounts, earning essentially no return for the customers who loaded it,
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but available for the company to deploy in its operations.
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It is, in practical terms, an interest-free loan from millions of individual customers to one of the largest retail corporations in the world.
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And then there is something even more remarkable.
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Not all of that money gets spent.
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Some customers load $50 onto a gift card, use $30 of it, and then forget the card exists.
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Others reload their app in a moment of enthusiasm during a a promotional event, and then barely touch the balance.
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When the historical likelihood of a customer ever using a specific portion of their remaining balance drops low enough,
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Starbucks is permitted to recognize those forgotten funds as what the company calls breakage revenue.
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In fiscal year 2024, Starbucks recognized $207.6 million in breakage revenue, $187.6 million from company-operated stores,
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and $20 million from licensed stores.
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That revenue required no ingredients, no labor, no rent, no utilities.
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It was simply money that customers loaded and never came back to collect, flowing directly to the company's bottom line.
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Beyond the breakage, the app dramatically reduces payment processing costs.
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Every time a customer swipes a credit card for a $5 drink, the payment processor takes a small percentage plus a flat fee per transaction.
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By encouraging customers to preload larger amounts, $25 or $50 at a time, Starbucks collapses multiple individual transactions into a single card load.
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It pays the processing fee once instead of 5 or 10 times.
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Across billions of transactions annually, that arithmetic adds up to tens of millions of dollars saved.
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Now, let us talk about what happens when things go wrong, because this business is not as stable as those long lines make it look.
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Start with the raw material Starbucks depends on, Arabica coffee beans.
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Starbucks buys roughly 3% of the world's entire annual coffee crop, sourcing from more than 400,000 farmers across 30 countries.
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The company operates 10 regional farmer support centers globally, and owns a 600-acre research farm called Hacienda Alsacia in Costa Rica,
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where agronomists develop disease-resistant coffee varieties.
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That infrastructure gives Starbucks deeper insight into supply conditions than almost any other buyer in the market.
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But it cannot control the weather.
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Brazil produces roughly a third of the world's Arabica supply.
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When drought hits Brazil, global coffee prices spike.
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When unexpected frost damages the crop as it has multiple times in recent years, prices can move violently in a matter of weeks.
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As of August 2025, the most active Arabica futures contract on the Intercontinental Exchange reached $3.84 per pound,
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near historic highs, partly due to climate conditions in producing countries and partly due to new American tariffs on Brazilian imports.
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Historically, Starbucks protected itself against this risk by locking in prices through fixed-price contracts,
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sometimes committing a billion dollars or more at a time to secure supply at known costs.
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But in recent years, the company dramatically reduced that hedging.
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By the end of fiscal year 2024, fixed-price purchase commitments had dropped below $200 million.
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The company shifted toward contracts, where the final price is determined later, based on market conditions at the time of delivery.
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That shift saved money when coffee prices were falling.
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It exposed the company to pain when coffee prices, as they did through 2024 and 2025, kept rising.
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The Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report cited elevated coffee pricing as a meaningful driver of higher inventory costs
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and reduced operating cash flow.
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Labor instability compounds the commodity risk.
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The ongoing unionization movement, if it results in a national collective bargaining agreement with significantly higher wages
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and mandatory staffing minimums across all organized stores would add meaningfully to the already heavy labor cost structure.
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Starbucks has not settled a contract with Workers United, despite negotiations that began in early 2024.
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Every quarter without a resolution keeps that uncertainty alive.
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And then there is China, or more precisely, what China used to be.
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For years, Starbucks counted on China as its largest and fastest growing international market, with thousands of locations in major cities.
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But intense domestic competition from local chains like Luck and Coffee,
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combined with shifting consumer sentiment and a challenging macroeconomic environment, drove consistent underperformance.
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By fiscal year 2026, the company had classified its Chinese retail operations as held for sale
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and was in the process of restructuring how it operates in that market.
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A major strategic retreat from what was supposed to be its biggest growth engine outside of North America.
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So what does one store actually generate?
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Let us do the math.
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A healthy standard company-operated Starbucks in the United States generates approximately 1.78 million dollars in gross annual revenue.
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That sounds like a lot.
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Then the expenses start.
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Cost of goods, the coffee, milk, food, packaging, and all the supply chain logistics behind them.
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Runs about 31% of revenue.
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That is $551,800 gone before a single employee is paid.
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Store payroll, including wages and the benefits package, takes another 28.4%.
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That is $505,520.
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Rent at a prime location costs roughly $10,000 per month.
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That is $120,000 a year simply to occupy the space.
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Utilities, maintenance, equipment depreciation, local store marketing overhead.
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When you add those together, you spend another $158,000.
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What is left after all of that is approximately $444,680 in net operating profit at the store level.
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That is the number before corporate overhead, interest costs, and taxes are applied at the company level.
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Now here is the important comparison.
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Building a new Starbucks costs approximately $450,000 in capital expenditures.
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The construction build out, the espresso equipment, the fixtures and furniture, the technology systems.
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At $444,000 in annual operating profit, a well-performing store pays back its entire construction cost in roughly two years.
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That is an exceptional return on invested capital.
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It is the primary reason the company has spent decades building rather than franchising,
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Because the returns from direct ownership are significantly better than the royalty income from licensing would be.
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Two scenarios.
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Because that $444,000 number depends on everything going right.
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Optimistic.
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Coffee prices stabilize, the morning rush stays busy, the neighborhood keeps growing, and the store hits or exceeds average transaction volumes.
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Under those conditions, the math holds, the store generates close to its projected operating contribution, and over a 10-year lease,
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the corporate treasury collects something in the range of $4 million in net operating profit from a single location that cost $450,000 to build.
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That is genuinely excellent.
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Realistic, Arabica prices stay elevated, which pushes the cost of goods above 31% of revenue.
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The local labor market forces higher starting wages than the budgeted average.
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A competing cafe opens nearby and pulls 10% of morning customers.
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A slow season, like the extended sales decline
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that produced seven consecutive quarters of falling comparable store sales between early 2023 and late 2025,
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reduces annual revenue by 8 to 12%.
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Under those conditions, the operating contribution drops from $444,000 toward $200,000, or below.
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The payback period doubles.
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The store is still profitable, but far less so.
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The difference between a good year and a bad year at a single store can be more than $200,000.
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Multiply that across 18,000 US, locations, and you understand why a single percentage point change in comparable
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store sales moves the corporate earnings statement by hundreds of millions of dollars.
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The most direct path, if you are a large institutional operator, a hospital network, a major university, an airport concessionaire, a hotel group,
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is to apply for a licensed store agreement.
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Starbucks evaluates the foot traffic at your location, the operational capacity of your organization, and whether your existing business complements the Starbucks brand.
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If approved, you fund the entire build-out to Starbucks' specifications and pay a monthly royalty on every dollar of sales.
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You bear the costs.
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Starbucks takes the royalty and sells you all the ingredients.
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It is not a path for an individual wanting to open a neighborhood coffee shop.
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For everyone else, the most accessible form of ownership is buying shares of Starbucks stock on the NASDAQ under the ticker SBUX.
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When you own shares, you own a proportional claim on the company's earnings, its global store network, and its dividend payments,
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without managing a single employee or worrying about whether the espresso machine needs calibration.
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As of fiscal year 2025, the company returned $2.8 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
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The stock ownership is not as viscerally satisfying as the idea of owning the actual store.
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But it is real.
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For professionals, there is also the internal path.
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Starbucks has publicly stated its goal of filling 90% of leadership roles through internal promotions.
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A career that begins as a shift supervisor can, over years, lead to regional management and above.
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And for commercial real estate developers, there is an indirect play.
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Acquiring or developing drive-thru-ready properties in suburban markets, and securing Starbucks as a long-term corporate tenant.
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The company's credit quality makes it one of the most coveted anchor tenants in the retail real estate industry.
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The store's presence drives value for the entire surrounding property.
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The biggest lesson from Starbucks is not what it charges for coffee.
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It is why customers keep paying it.
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Coffee is the physical trigger.
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It is what gets you through the door at 7 in the morning.
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But what Starbucks actually sells is the feeling of a routine that works, a small, reliable pleasure in an otherwise unpredictable day.
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The brand has built an emotional architecture around a commodity, and that architecture creates pricing power that persists even when cheaper coffee is available on every corner.
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The loyalty program converts that emotional connection into financial capital, turning customer affection into nearly $2 billion afloat on the balance sheet.
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The corporate ownership model converts operational control into consistent quality across 41,000 locations.
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And the licensed store network converts the brand's equity into royalty income without the capital cost of direct ownership.
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Starbucks is not in the coffee business.
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It never was.
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It is in the habit business.
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And the biggest lesson it teaches is this.
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Build something people choose again and again, even when the cheaper option is right next door.
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And you have not just built a product.
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You have built a business that compounds on itself.
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Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione
Questa lezione di conversazione di livello C1 si basa sul video “The Economics behind Starbucks Like Business”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: Starbucks, store, coffee, cost, location. Questo video contiene 314 frasi e 4067 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 24:51. Chi parla ha un ritmo naturale di circa 164 parole al minuto, vicino a una conversazione quotidiana. Solo il 80% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è impegnativo.
Vocaboli chiave di questo video
Le 15 parole più avanzate del video, con pronuncia e significato:
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| espresso sostantivo | /ɛˈspɹɛsoʊ/ | espresso, caffè espresso |
| barista sostantivo | /bəˈɹis.tə/ | barista |
| ingredient sostantivo | /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/ | ingrediente |
| latte sostantivo | /ˈlɑ.teɪ/ | caffellatte |
| suburban aggettivo | /səˈbɜː(ɹ)bən/ | suburbano |
| overhead sostantivo | /ˈəʊvəˌhɛd/ | costi di gestione |
| calibration sostantivo | /ˌkæl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/ | calibrazione |
| depreciation sostantivo | /dɪˌpɹiːʃɪˈeɪʃən/ | ammortamento |
| elevate verbo | /ˈɛləveɪt/ | elevare |
| specification sostantivo | specificazione, specifica | |
| surround verbo | /səˈɹaʊnd/ | circondare |
| commodity sostantivo | /kəˈmɑdəti/ | prodotto, bene |
| dramatically avverbio | drammaticamente, sensazionalmente | |
| tuition sostantivo | /tjuːˈɪʃən/ | retta |
| bean sostantivo | /ˈbi(ː)n/ | fagiolo |
I phrasal verb che sentirai
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| figure out verbo | scoprire, rendersi conto | |
| hand over verbo | cedere, trasferire | |
| pay back verbo | /peɪ bæk/ | ripagare, restituire |
| wake up verbo | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | svegliarsi |
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | you've never made · have pushed · have voted |
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | is licensed · is priced · is called |
| Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosa | billion, which is · stores, which are · people who move |
Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione
- I suoni “sh” e “zh”: calibration /ˌkæl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, depreciation /dɪˌpɹiːʃɪˈeɪʃən/, tuition /tjuːˈɪʃən/, negotiation /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/
- Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, calibration /ˌkæl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, depreciation /dɪˌpɹiːʃɪˈeɪʃən/, commodity /kəˈmɑdəti/, consistency /kənˈsɪs.tən.si/
I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:
- Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, breakage /ˈbɹeɪkɪd͡ʒ/, overhead /ˈəʊvəˌhɛd/, elevate /ˈɛləveɪt/, commute /kəˈmjuːt/
- /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: calibration /ˌkæl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, classify /ˈklæs.əˌfaɪ/
Come esercitarsi con questo video
- Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
- Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
- Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come espresso, barista, ingredient.
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.