Shadowing Practice: How to Start Speaking in IELTS Part 2 - Learn English Speaking with Video

So you're doing your IELTS speaking test and suddenly you get to part two.

Talk about a topic.

Now it gets more difficult.

What do you talk about?

How do you start?

How do you keep going for two minutes?

Let's find out.

Hello, it's Keith again from Keith Speaking Academy and this YouTube channel English Speaking Success.

Here to help you become a more confident speaker of English.

Now, many students I know find IELTS speaking part two, the most difficult part of the test.

I mean, you have to speak for one to two minutes on a new topic you've just been given.

I mean, that's probably even difficult in your native language, right?

You may not know anything about the topic.

You may not know how to start speaking.

And you may think, I can't speak for two minutes about that.

Well, don't worry.

In this video, I will give you some ideas,

phrases and strategies so you can navigate part two and show your real level of spoken English and shine.

Also, there is a PDF you can download to get the phrases and to practice more and more on your own, right?

Let's dig in.

Now, the beginning of part two, right, you are given one minute to prepare your talk,

and the examiner will give you the topic or the card.

Oh, thank you.

That was lucky.

There's an examiner in my office.

When you get the card, look at the question carefully, pick out the keywords, look at the bullet points,

normally three, and then find the example you're going to talk about as quickly as possible.

Doesn't have to be perfect.

Good enough.

Check the bullet points if you can talk about those.

You don't have to, but they can help.

And then prepare the first line or the first sentence you're going to say.

Have that prepared so you start confident with a bang.

Don't give this back to the examiner.

Use this, keep this.

When you start speaking, use your cue card or task card to help you talk.

Great.

And then let's see what happens.

So at the end of your one minute preparation, the examiner will invite you to start talking.

invite you.

You can start talking.

Oh, thank you.

And then you begin.

Now, to research this, right, I went back and I watched all of the part two model answers

that I've created for the gold course and my gold live lessons.

There's over 50 of them to identify the most common patterns and phrases that I use.

So what I'm going to show you now are those most common phrases and patterns.

Now, I also noticed in addition to these phrases,

sometimes I just start talking and I go with the flow without any of these phrases.

That sometimes works.

So in this part, you have to speak for one to two minutes.

I advise you to keep speaking as much as you can, two minutes or even beyond.

It doesn't matter if the examiner cuts you off after two minutes or before.

Just keep talking, okay?

And another tip is be direct.

Get to the point.

Make it clear what you're going to talk about, right?

Remember I said, have your first sentence prepared.

That is to help you get really focused.

Don't rabbit, don't waffle, don't go around the houses, be direct.

Let's have a look at some phrases and some examples.

Now, some typical questions are, describe a place that, describe a thing that,

do, do, do, or describe a person who, do, do, do.

The place might be a city, a building, a country.

The thing could be a book or a film or a photo.

A person might be a teacher, a colleague, a famous person, right?

Describe a city that you have visited.

Describe a film that you have enjoyed.

Describe a famous person who you would like to meet.

All of these are possible.

Now, my favourite opening for these kinds of questions is the blank I'd like to talk about is blank.

The city I'd like to talk about is Madrid.

The book I'd like to talk about is one thing.

The teacher I'd like to talk about is my primary school teacher, Mr. Jones.

Good old Mr. Jones.

So, you can say the blank I'd like to talk about is, or the blank I'd like to tell you about is,

or the blank I'd like to describe is, da, da, da.

And the reason I like these is because it shows that you can use emphasis in English.

You could just be more direct, right?

You could say, I'd like to talk about blank.

I'm going to tell you about blank.

Let me tell you about blank.

Those are great, direct, but the emphasis is even nicer.

The blank I would like to describe is da-da-da, nice.

And here's one I've noticed that I like describing a person.

And it's the person I'd like to talk about is none other than my brother, my uncle.

Non other than is used to reveal a sometimes surprising identity of a person or possibly a thing as well.

Right.

The film I'd like to talk about is none other than Mission Impossible, for example.

Right.

OK, good.

Let's move on.

So I've mentioned people, places and things.

You may also be asked to talk about events.

And typically the question is, describe a time when you got lost or describe a time when you were bored.

Now, you can use all of the previous phrases, the starting phrases, absolutely fine.

But so you could say, well, let me tell you about a trip I took to Japan.

Let me tell you about.

But my most common starting phrases for this kind of question are the following.

100

And they are about setting the scene.

101

I remember once when I was living in France.

102

I recall once when I was living in France.

103

There was this one time when I was living in France.

104

And all of these are used to set the scene and then go and talk about how you got lost.

105

For this kind of event, really, really nice.

106

Now, you may be thinking, OK, what if I have never got lost?

107

What if I don't know what to say here?

108

The options are make it up, invent something.

109

it's fine.

110

Examiner doesn't care.

111

They just want to hear your English.

112

You could say that you've never got lost and then talk about someone you know who got lost.

113

Oh, I remember once my little brother got lost.

114

You could explain that.

115

It's fine.

116

And if you don't have any experience at all,

117

you could talk about what you think it would be like to be lost.

118

It's not the best, but it's better than nothing.

119

Because what you can't do is say, I've never been lost.

120

Can I have a different topic, please?

121

Because the answer is no, you cannot change your topic.

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So say something.

123

Use one of these three techniques to say something.

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Oh, by the way, if you are enjoying this video, do remember to subscribe so you can find out about new and upcoming videos on this channel.

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Let's move on.

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Now, another technique in addition to the above is to repeat the same verbs and tense as the question.

127

And you can do this for any question actually, but it works particularly well for activities like sports or hobbies or things.

128

For example, if you're asked describe a blank that you blank, you might get something like, well, these questions.

129

Describe a water sport you would like to do.

130

Describe a skill you have learned.

131

Describe a film you have watched.

132

Describe a book you would recommend.

133

There are different tenses there and the tense in the question is key to your answer.

134

So a really clever way is just to repeat the tense back.

135

And the phrase would be, well, Well, a blank I blank is blank.

136

Blankety blank.

137

For example, well, a water sport I would like to do is surfing.

138

Right?

139

I would like to.

140

We're just repeating it.

141

Well, a skill I learned as a child was painting.

142

We're repeating learnt in the past tense.

143

Well, a book I would recommend is called Clara and the Sun.

144

Would recommend, we're repeating that conditional tense.

145

Very, very simple, but it will help you focus.

146

And it's really easy for the examiner to follow you.

147

And this is great because it's so simple.

148

You don't have to think too much.

149

Just listen to the tense and repeat.

150

Wash and repeat.

151

Wash and repeat again.

152

Alternatively, another tip is to answer these questions you can set the scene.

153

You can say quite simply, a while back, I, plus the past tense.

154

For example, talking about a book, a while back, I read a book called Clara and the Sun.

155

And you go on to describe it.

156

A while back, I watched a film called Inside Out, and then describe it.

157

Another tip for items like films and books and photos where there are so many you can choose from,

158

you could actually focus on the favorite one.

159

And you can say, one of my favorite blanks is, and then talk about it.

160

One of my favourite books is, one of my favourite films is, just notice the noun is always in the plural.

161

One of my favourite books, paintings, photographs, right?

162

Great.

163

Final tip.

164

If you get a topic that you don't like, for example, books, right?

165

You just don't like reading, possibly.

166

You can use that to your advantage.

167

It's an opportunity to talk about that.

168

You can say, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of books or reading, but if I have to choose one, I would like to talk about...

169

Right?

170

So, even difficult situations can be an opportunity to show your English.

171

Let's move on.

172

So how do you keep going for two minutes?

173

Well, there are two options, I think.

174

One is you use the bullet points in the question, and that will help you develop your answer.

175

Typically, they will be things like when, who, how, why, that kind of question.

176

But remember to develop your answer.

177

So if you're talking about a person and it says, who is the person?

178

Don't just say, oh, well, it's John, my teacher.

179

Give some more details, say what they do, what they look like, their appearance, their personality.

180

Develop that a bit.

181

If it says, when did this happen?

182

Don't say last week.

183

Give a bit more the background or the setting.

184

Oh, it was last week when I was on holiday in France.

185

I'd been there for about two days and suddenly this strange thing happened.

186

Okay.

187

Also give examples because examples is where it's going to help you develop your answer more and more.

188

Describing people, use adjectives, use adverbs, embellish your answer.

189

So that's the first thing.

190

Follow the bullet points.

191

The second option is to go with the flow and you just start speaking.

192

There's no real structure and you're just speaking and speaking.

193

That also works very well, especially if you are a slightly higher level.

194

That focus on communication, just be natural is also really, really good.

195

Now, a general tip is the key to being able to speak for two minutes is practice.

196

It's not easy even in your mother tongue, right?

197

So when you get these topics and you're at home practicing, just practice giving an answer for 20 seconds.

198

and then later try speaking for 30 seconds and then later 40 seconds

199

and day after day make it longer on the same topic

200

or different topics just build up that habit or that skill

201

that muscle of speaking for a longer time each day build

202

it up slowly you will be able to do it another useful tip is to record yourself.

203

As you're giving your answers and you're practicing speaking, record yourself and listen back.

204

It's really going to help you.

205

It'll give you great insights to your speed.

206

Are you too fast, too slow?

207

To hesitation, to the vocabulary, the grammar, your ability to communicate.

208

It'll really help.

209

So try that as well.

210

So what do you think?

211

Do you have any more tips or ideas that you could or phrases that you want to share, leave them in the comments below.

212

Let us know.

213

As I mentioned earlier, there is a PDF you can download for free with these phrases if you want to practice.

214

There's a link below.

215

Just click on that and you can get it for free.

216

Thanks for watching the video.

217

Oh, by the way, if you want to know more about the gold course where I took these phrases and model answers from.

218

There's also a link down below in the description.

219

You can find out about it there.

220

Great.

221

Now, if you're not able to invest in a course, here's a tip just for you.

222

Download the PDF and practice reading and memorizing some of these phrases.

223

Then choose three of the phrases.

224

Find a list of part two questions or task cards on the internet.

225

They're out there.

226

And then practice using these three phrases for different questions.

227

See which ones work, which ones work better, which ones may not work, and just practice that.

228

And that's it.

229

This kind of practice of starting to speak is invaluable.

230

Do you know, if you've been watching the Olympics, the guys who run the 100 meter sprint,

231

do you know how much time they practice just starting, just getting out of the blocks, that first second?

232

It's ridiculous.

233

A huge amount of time.

234

Time invested in the start is really important and and it's invaluable for your IELTS speaking too.

235

So go and try it out.

236

See what you think.

237

In the meantime, I'm gonna see you in the next video.

238

Take care, my friend.

239

Thank you for watching.

240

Bye-bye.

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Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

Shadowing-techniek: lees de volledige stap-voor-stap-gids →

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