Shadowing Practice: Get Band 9 After Learning These Speaking Tips - Learn English Speaking with Video

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We researched the seven most popular IELTS speaking tips and tricks so you don't have to.

We're going to show you what those seven tips do and whether they increase your score or lower your score.

And we're also going to show you what IDP

and the British Council say about these seven tips so you can go and do the speaking test with complete confidence.

So without further ado, let's get into it.

Let's start off with one of the most popular speaking tips.

I want you to watch each of these students start the test and think about what tip they might be using.

Welcome to the IELTS speaking test.

Please sit down.

Hi, how are you?

My name is Priyanka, Priyanka Bhatia.

Very nice to meet you, Chris.

I was really looking forward to coming today.

You have a really nice examination hall.

Is that what you call it?

Let me give you my ID.

How's your day been so far?

My pleasure.

Would you like something to eat or drink?

You look amazing, by the way.

I really like your shirt your haircut.

It's so good.

Thank you.

Welcome to the IELTS speaking test.

Please sit down.

May I see your ID, please?

So did you spot the tip?

If you go online, you'll find thousands of tips on how to greet the examiner.

But does greeting the examiner actually improve your score?

Does it affect it in any way?

So guys, if you look at the guidance from IELTS, it talks about part one and what happens in part one.

So the examiner will ask you about yourself and general questions like work, family, studies, things like that.

But before part one, you have to come in and you have to talk to the examiner.

They'll just ask your name.

They'll ask to see your ID.

And this is where you will greet the examiner in some way.

Maybe a little bit differently to how you just demoed it.

but that's when you will greet them.

But the most important thing to know is you're not being assessed at this point.

We call this part zero.

So you have part one, part two, part three.

Part zero is when you come in, you talk to the examiner for the first time, they look at your ID,

they ask your name, all of those things.

But the exam has not started yet.

It's really important to understand that.

But many people online think that what you do in that first part actually does improve your score.

So let's see what the official IELTS website and the official sources have to say about it.

So on the official IELTS website,

it says every examiner is trained and monitored closely to be fair to every candidate and to assess your level of English.

The examiners will not give you more or fewer marks if you are smiling and laughing.

So it's quite clear what they're saying there is it doesn't matter what you do in that part zero, it's not going to improve your score.

So you can't charm the examiner, you can't be overly friendly and if you're really nervous like you demonstrated

and you're just you don't seem like you don't want to be there you can't lose marks for being unfriendly.

But I imagine it doesn't do any harm to be polite, to be nice, right?

So yes and no. Whatever helps you relax into the test and reduces nerves and stress as much as possible,

like if you are the type of person

that not greeting the examiner in a friendly way would would make you feel awkward or

and you would be thinking about like have I actually offended them

then you know greet the examiner in a normal human way

but I think that and this is advice for for the teachers out there

if you are giving students advice on how to greet the examiner

you're not giving time to things like grammar vocabulary pronunciation fluency strategy how to answer the questions

there's a finite amount of time that teachers have to teach students and students have to prepare for the exam.

So if you are dedicating, you know, even just 10 or 15 minutes showing students how, what exactly what to say to the examiner,

then you're not spending that 10 or 15 minutes giving them feedback on things that actually matter.

So on a more strategic level, I'm not criticizing teachers out there.

I'm trying to help you only focus on the things that are actually being tested when they are being tested.

And that is giving your students the best possible chance.

So is this tip right or wrong?

I think that it's wrong.

It's not going to do any harm, but there are far more important things that you need to think about.

And we'll talk about that later in this video.

So we're going to demo the second most popular tip.

I want you to watch both of them.

Both of them are trying to use this same tip.

Watch what they do and try and guess what the tip is.

Welcome to the IELTS speaking test.

Let's start off by talking about what you normally do on the weekend?

What do you normally do on the weekend?

I like to meet my friends on the weekend.

We like to go for long walks in the park.

And I like to go shopping. And I like...

to go to the garden with them.

And I like to meet them outside their house.

What do you normally like to do on the weekends?

On the weekends, I literally love to cook

and I love inviting all my friends over to my house so we can like eat together and watch a movie.

And I have this really big screen TV.

So we really enjoy watching like horror movies over there.

And I think it's the best thing to do on the weekends.

So did you spot what the tip was?

So one of the most popular YouTube videos in the world

on IELTS speaking with 13 million views talks about how important body language is and hand gestures and maintaining eye contact.

But is this actually true?

Will this improve your score?

Well, let's have a look what IDP

and the British Council have to say about this on IDP's website

you'll find an article called how to prepare for the IELTS speaking test

and in it it says that every examiner is trained

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and monitored closely to be fair to every candidate and to assess your level of English.

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The examiners will not give you more or fewer marks if you are smiling and laughing.

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It is best to relax as much as you can and communicate in a natural way.

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So what it's saying there is and this is consistent with examiner training, what they train the examiners on is grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency.

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What comes out of your mouth?

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Not really your hand gestures, your eye contact, your body language.

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But some people think that, you know, body language does have an impact on those things, that it can improve pronunciation, fluency, grammar, vocabulary.

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Is that actually true?

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And I find an interesting article on the IDP website called Nine Myths about the IELTS speaking test to debunk.

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And this is what they say.

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Being polite, courteous, and smiling should be part of basic manners when engaging with anyone in a conversation.

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It does help the interaction move forward.

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However, it is not part of the evaluation criteria.

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You should not worry about being overly polite, but focus on the conversation and topic at hand.

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We can also look at this video by the British Council where it says students are not assessed on appearance

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or body language.

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But if you have confident body language, isn't it going to help you speak more better?

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So I think it really depends on the teacher.

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And again, this is some advice for teachers out there.

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When I look at a lot of the feedback that is given to students in one on one speaking mock tests,

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some of them, 80 percent of the feedback is on hand gestures, body language, eye contact.

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And to the teachers out there, the students are trusting you.

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They're not IELTS experts.

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So if you do a mock speaking test with them or in the classroom, you're giving feedback and you're talking about those things,

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the students will automatically think these are important and they will focus on them.

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And then they will not focus on the really important things, which are grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and fluency.

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So it is about choosing what you teach the students so

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that the students understand the importance of each thing or what is more important than the other.

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So be very, very careful when you mention things like body language,

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eye contact, hand gestures, because the students will prioritize them because you are prioritizing them in the classroom.

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But does it affect your score?

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No, not at all.

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So what I would say is just do whatever you want to do

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that helps you speak fluently and give the best answers.

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But do realize that 100 % of your score is based on the official marking criteria.

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And IDP, the British Council, say that it doesn't matter at all.

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So prioritize that.

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So let's move on to tip number three, a very, very popular one.

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What we're going to do is one student is going to use this tip

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and the other one is going to ignore this tip and not use it at all.

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I want you to spot which one is which and think about what tip they might be using.

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What's the best way for an English student to improve their listening skills?

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I think documentaries, docu -series.

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I love long -form content on serial killers.

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I know that's quite a niche topic, and that's because I'm very easily stimulated by,

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this may sound weird, but serial killers.

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Just something about the psychological imbalance that they have.

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It may seem gruesome to some people, but to me it's quite fascinating because their thought process is very layered.

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Their thought process is very nuanced.

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It's not about good versus evil,

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as some people might think it's sometimes that they have a lot of mental disorders that stems from a very troubled childhood.

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And doing a deep dive into that makes me feel...

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like I'm able to humanize the person and maybe not justify their actions because it's not okay to kill,

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but maybe understand the human psyche and cause and effect a lot better than someone that just says someone's evil.

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For students who are learning English, what's the best way that they could improve their listening skills?

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I feel like if they research IELTS content on probably YouTube,

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there's a lot of outlets out there where they can brush up on their education.

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And I feel like that's one of the ways that has helped me a lot.

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And maybe that's something that they could do.

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So did you spot the tip?

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I want you not to think about just the tip, but how fluent was each person?

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So if we listen to Priyanka's response, it was very, very impressive, but it wasn't as fluent as she normally is.

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Why do you think you weren't as fluent?

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So you were constantly stopping and thinking about what to do.

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Why was that?

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Because I was trying to sound as intelligent

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and was trying really hard to impress you rather than just answering the question as I would normally.

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Specifically, how were you trying to sound intelligent?

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Using big words, intelligent sounding words to be able to make you think that I was more intelligent.

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So all over the Internet, you'll find advice saying don't use normal, informal language and just don't use normal everyday language.

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You need to use more formal, more academic type words.

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And that is going to improve your score.

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Let's see if that is actually true.

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So if we go to the British Council website and have a look at an article there called IELTS Test Format Explained.

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It states the content of the IELTS speaking test is the same for both the IELTS academic and IELTS general training test.

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So academic is what university students in general would do.

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And the general training test is for everybody else.

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They just want to move to a new country.

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So it's not like an academic test.

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So what does that say?

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That says that the speaking test is for both exactly the same.

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So it's not like one is, you know, the academic test requires academic language and the general training test requires more general language.

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That's not what it's saying.

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It's saying they're exactly the same and they're assessed in exactly the same way.

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But let's have a look at what IDP say.

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And a very interesting article on the IDP website is called Formal and Informal English on IELTS.

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And it starts off with, you want to get band nine in IELTS?

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You might think the above sentence will give you a low score on an IELTS test however you might be wrong.

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IELTS tests your English language skills and yes this includes both formal and informal English.

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So again this confirms what we see all the time which is the speaking test is not a formal academic test.

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It is testing your ability to communicate clearly in English

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and as we've seen with you

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because you are trying to sound more intelligent by using big words it was actually lowering your fluency score

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and you are at a band line level you have perfect fluency

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but by trying too hard it is actually lowering your score

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and it's actually a much fairer reflection of speaking in real life because like

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when you move to an english -speaking country what percentage of

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the time are you going to be speaking in a really

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formal academic way like one percent of the time maybe it's very specialist

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when when you're using that kind of language 99 of the time you're just using everyday informal language.

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You're also using things like slang, phrasal verbs, idioms, just everyday idiomatic language that native English speakers would use.

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And that is showing actually how high level you are

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because to learn more informal ways of speaking is actually as advanced as using really, really academic language as well.

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And what I've done for you guys is I've analyzed hundreds of band nine transcripts from our successful VIP students.

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And I've put the hundred most used words into a PDF for you.

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And I put a lot of exercises in there for you and the vocabulary improvement plan,

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which shows you how to naturally improve your vocabulary in a very, very sustainable way.

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It's a complete workbook with all the things you need to improve your vocabulary.

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Download it in the description or in the pinned comment.

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So if I don't use advanced vocabulary, does that mean that I'll get a lower score?

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Good question, because that's the next tip we're going to look at tip number four.

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So let's have a look at that.

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Okay, so tip number three was about like academic formal language.

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Tip number four is using more high level vocabulary, advanced words.

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And the most common way that this is taught, if you go onto YouTube, if you go and search on Google,

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is to give students a list of advanced words, ask them to memorize them, use them in the test, and this will magically improve their score.

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So what we're going to do, I'm going to give one of you the actual list from one of the most popular YouTube videos.

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I'm going to allow you some time to memorize that list

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and we're going to ask you to answer a question normally and then using the list.

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Can you tell me about your home?

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please, the house that you live in?

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I live in a one bedroom apartment in the city center.

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It's cozy.

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It's nice.

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I don't like houses that are too big.

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So I liked my home for that very reason.

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My bedroom's quite spacious, quite big for a house in the city center.

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It's rustic, all neutral colors inspired by Kim Kardashian.

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And it's just, it's my safe haven.

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I love the way it feels.

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It's comfortable.

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Can you tell me about your home, like the house that you live in?

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My house is where I feel very serene.

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And it is in a multi -storied building, high -rise skyscraper building.

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And the artwork in my house is futuristic

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and very modern and, yeah, my kitchen.

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Okay, let's move on to the next question.

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So how did you feel in both answers?

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So compare how you felt, what was going through your mind?

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When I was speaking normally, the first answer that I gave,

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I felt like I was just answering a question and having a conversation with a friend.

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It didn't feel forced.

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It didn't feel like I was trying to think about, I was just remembering what my house looks like and telling you about it.

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But in the second answer,

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I wasn't really focusing on the truth as much as I was trying to use as many big words to impress you.

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And then I couldn't think of the big words to impress you because not too many to do with your home.

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And that made me kind of even more nervous and trip up on my words.

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And how did you feel when I stopped you?

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How would you feel if I kept doing that?

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I felt like I knew I was messing up as I was doing it because I was struggling to find the words.

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And then when you stopped me, I was like, oh, yeah, it hurt my confidence for sure.

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Yeah.

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And that would make your fluency even worse.

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So it would be a downward spiral.

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Yeah.

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The next question would be worse.

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Yeah.

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And that's exactly what we find when we're training students, that when a student comes in and they have terrible fluency,

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we can spot it immediately what they're trying to do.

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Like we will literally just stop them and say like, have you memorized the list?

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Are you trying to regurgitate that list?

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They're like, oh, I don't have to do that.

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It's like, yeah, just speak normally.

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And they're so afraid of speaking normally because they think that normal speech means a lower score, but it's the exact opposite.

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If you're just talking normally, that's what the examiners are actually testing.

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Like, can you speak normally to people in an English speaking country?

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That's exactly what they're testing.

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So that's what gets higher scores.

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It is not a vocabulary memorization test.

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It is a speaking communications test.

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So let's have a look and just confirm this with the British Council.

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And in that article called Lexis and Vocabulary, it says many candidates memorize impressive lists of vocabulary,

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but often end up using them in the wrong way because they haven't understood them properly.

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So by all means, if you can use a topic specific high level word from time to time, like when we were discussing your home,

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that's fine as long as you know how to use it.

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But as soon as you start to try and use vocabulary that's beyond your level and you're not comfortable using, that's when it affects your fluency.

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So you lower your fluency score and your vocabulary score.

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So you're making vocabulary mistakes and that is lowering your fluency score, which is doubly wrong.

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Double whammy.

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Double whammy.

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Let's see what IDP have to say about this.

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So in their article 10 tips, IELTS speaking, they state quite clearly, don't use big and unfamiliar words.

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Very, very clear what they say.

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They say you might want to impress the examiner with big and complex words in your speaking test,

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but to be safe, avoid using words you are not familiar with.

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There is a higher chance of making mistakes by either mispronouncing words or using them in the wrong context.

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So we talked about a double whammy, vocabulary and fluency, but pronunciation, that's another 25 percent so 75 %

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and we often find this with students who think

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that they know the word but they don't know how to pronounce the word

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so the meaning might be wrong the pronunciation might be wrong

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and they've spent like the first few uh how do i say this

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and then so it's you're just making it way more difficult than it needs to actually be

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but vocabulary is a big part of islet speaking tests

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So if we use simpler words, isn't it going to affect the score?

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Yes and no. So there's two approaches that we suggest students do.

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It's called the moon landing strategy.

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So during the moon landing, what they would do is before they went to the moon, they would try and break everything.

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They would take lots of chances and they would stretch all the equipment to breaking point.

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But once they got to the moon, they played it safe.

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So during your IELTS preparation, try and stretch your vocabulary as much as possible.

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Take risks, try and learn new words.

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But also what you need to realize about vocabulary is the most used words in the English language are common everyday words.

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And mastering those words are just as important as learning more advanced vocabulary.

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Like you are both band nine speaking students.

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If we analyze your speaking transcripts, only 5%, say, of the words that you use are C1,

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C2, like high -level words.

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And that's the same.

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You can analyze hundreds of band 9 transcripts from real band 9 students.

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2, 3, 4, 5 % of the words are actually high -level.

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But the difference between a band 6 student

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and a band 9 student is a band 6 student hasn't mastered the lower -level words yet.

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and they're trying to use higher level words at a higher frequency but unsuccessfully.

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Whereas a band 9 student, those A1, A2, B1, B2 level words,

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they've fully mastered them, they can use them normally without making mistakes and then from time to time,

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you know, four or five percent of the time when they need to,

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they're throwing in one of those higher level words but only when they 100 % know them.

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And to the teachers out there, I know that many of you give your students long lists of high level words

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and that's because your students want them and you think

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that you're helping them

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but you know always think about what do the students want

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versus what the students need students will tell you they want lists of words

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they want samples they want templates things like that

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but is it actually improving their score you're not their friend

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you're their teacher you're not there to be popular you're there to be effective

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so you know by all means help them sustainably improve their vocabulary

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but really do encourage them on test day to only use the vocabulary

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that will get them a higher score which is the vocabulary they fully mastered already.

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But what about for the the common topics?

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Do you think it's a good idea to memorize bigger vocabulary for those common questions?

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Well that's actually tip number five.

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Let's look to see if there are actually any common topics because if there are that would help us.

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So if we look at the IELTS official website, they have an article there called IELTS speaking test topics.

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And they do give examples of some questions that come up again and again, but they don't give any common topics.

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And if we look at the IDP website, there's an article which states in part one,

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the examiner will ask you about yourself and general questions from common topics like work, family, studies, interests, and hobbies.

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And this is actually true.

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You've probably noticed that

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when we do our mock speaking tests the first questions are normally every day getting to know

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you chit chat questions like your home your family uh your

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interests what you do at the weekend these same topics do come up again

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and again but you've probably noticed

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that i also have asked

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you guys questions like this is music an important subject in

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schools in your country in schools in my country are there any celebrities that you do not like.

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So can you remember any weird questions that I asked you before?

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Weird questions?

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Weird topics, topics you weren't expecting.

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Will AI replace actual teachers?

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Yes, that's what I wanted to say as well.

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Will AI replace teachers?

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Yeah, they might ask you something like that, like really quite advanced, like about AI, for example, or in part one,

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they might ask you a completely random topic, like do you like hats or what do you think about birthday cakes.

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So what we find and what examiners see every day is when they ask students questions that they're expecting, like tell me about your home,

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tell me about your family, what do you do at the weekend, they give very good answers because they are prepared for those common topics.

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The strategy that examiners use is then they'll throw in a random topic, like let's talk about birthday cakes,

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let's talk about hats, let's talk about gardening, let's talk about jewelry,

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And they will judge your English level really on how you react to those questions that you were not expecting,

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not the topics that you were expecting.

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And they will try and see, is there a huge difference between tell me about your family or do you work or study?

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And how often do you wear hats?

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Because that's testing your real English level.

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So if you go and work in an English speaking country, they're not only going to be asking you about like,

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tell me about your family and your career.

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Thank you they'll be asking you about more common topics.

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And if you can't speak about those rarer topics, then your English level isn't that high.

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So telling students, prepare for these common topics, it sounds good.

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Again, if you're a teacher, I'm not criticizing you.

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It sounds like you're coming from a good place.

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You have a good heart.

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You're trying to help your students, but you might actually be leading them towards lower scores because the key is to prepare them for all topics,

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not just the common ones that come up again and again in part one.

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So that's part one.

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What about part two and part three?

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So part one, there are those common topics.

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They could probably start off with do your work

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or do your study and then talk about either your home or your neighborhood, your likes and dislikes, and then throw in a few random topics.

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So you need to be prepared for those.

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Parts two and parts three, there are no common topics.

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Even if you look online and you find like common part two topics, common part three topics, these articles I don't want to be too critical

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but they're not true you have to expect the unexpected in part two

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and part three so overall there's no harm in preparing for the common topics

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that might come up in part one but do remember

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that you need to be able to answer questions on any topic

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but there's one thing that you should never do when you're preparing common topics can

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Can you guess what it is?

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Speaking a language other than English?

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No. Okay, let's find out what that thing that you should never do is.

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So if we look at the British Council article, Eight Ways to Boost Your IELTS Speaking Score,

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it states while it certainly pays off equipping yourself with relevant vocabulary,

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uncommon phrases and collocations, it's important to avoid memorizing large chunks of speech.

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So the thing that you should never do is memorize whole answers

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or as it says chunks of speech even parts of sentences.

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You should never memorize those and let's look at why it is

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so important because it is a very common strategy amongst many students.

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Let's look at how damaging it can be to actually memorize answers.

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So the first reason

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you should never do it is examiners are actually trained to spot memorized answers as part of their training.

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But if an examiner has been doing their job for more than a couple of months,

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it becomes very natural for them to be able to spot memorized answers.

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A lot of students say, how can they spot it?

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If you're doing the same thing again and again all day, every day, it becomes extremely easy.

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And it's easy to spot the difference between a memorized answer and a normal answer.

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And the other thing is that it can be quite insulting

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because if you memorize an answer and you give it to the examiner, what you're basically saying to the examiner is like,

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I'm trying to trick you.

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I'm smarter than you.

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I'm trying to outsmart you.

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You're not.

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And it's quite insulting.

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You know, the examiner isn't going to give you a lower mark for feeling insulted,

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but they definitely will give you a lower mark because you've memorized answers.

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So that's more, you know, whole sentences or whole paragraphs or whole answers that students memorize.

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But let's go down to a more granular level of memorizing phrases

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or parts of sentences if you think about it

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which phrases are the ones that examiners hear the most filler like connecting words probably definitely

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that would be a type of word that they would hear

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but the ones

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that they will hear the most are the ones contained in the most popular youtube videos

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that are teaching memorization really yes so the more popular the person teaching it

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or the more popular

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or the higher up on Google it is the more it's clicked on the higher frequency the examiners hear

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that and the more likely the examiner is like okay you just memorize this

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so you need to be very very careful with this strategy especially

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I think a lot of students see the number of views on a video

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or they see like this is a big popular teacher therefore

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I can trust them the opposite is true the more it is used,

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the less likely it is to be effective and the more likely it is that the examiner will spot it immediately.

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Believe me, it's very easy to spot.

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Could you give us examples of like five words off the top of your head that are very commonly thrown around?

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Yeah, nowadays in modern life, day by day, plethora, ubiquitous.

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Ubiquitous, wow, okay.

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And examiners will also play a really sneaky trick on you

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if they think that you're memorizing stuff they will throw in a completely random topic a question

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that they know you haven't prepared and they'll throw that at you

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and they'll base their score more likely on the answer to

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that answer so that's how they deal with that and

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because they know that you might have okay I've prepared an answer for this prepared answer for

437

that or I've memorized this like okay let's talk about tonight.

438

You know, how AI will replace teachers in the future?

439

I have not really thought of it.

440

You know, so if your answer to that, I haven't really thought about that.

441

You've just proved to the examiner.

442

I can only deal with questions where my memorization techniques will work.

443

Memorization and communication are two completely different things.

444

Memorization and intelligence are two completely different things.

445

And again, some of you come from educational backgrounds where you're taught rote learning,

446

and many of you believe that memorization does equal intelligence.

447

For IELTS, that's not the case.

448

In the Western world, that is not the case.

449

We do not really learn through rote learning and memorization.

450

We learn in a completely different way.

451

So not criticizing any countries or cultures or anything like that, but you need to be aware of the system that you're trying to apply to,

452

which is the Western world.

453

But what if they throw a question at us that we genuinely don't know anything about?

454

How would we handle something like that?

455

That's a good question.

456

I think this is why students memorize answers and memorize chunks of language and things like that because of this fear.

457

They fear what if I get a topic I know nothing about.

458

So the first thing to remember is it's not a test of knowledge.

459

It's a test of speaking.

460

So let's do a little demo.

461

Tell me about an Indian dish that you love and how do you cook it?

462

An Indian dish that I love would be chicken and rice.

463

It's a sort of curry and I like it spicy and a lot of people in my family love it too.

464

So it's usually, we all like spicy, so it's usually the same taste and it has been for a lot of years.

465

We put some potatoes in there and we eat it with plain boiled rice.

466

It's delicious.

467

Now tell me about an Irish dish and how you cook it.

468

I don't know.

469

Okay, imagine we're in the speaking test.

470

What would you say?

471

I don't know much about Irish food, so I haven't cooked an Irish dish, but I would love to know.

472

Exactly.

473

So you haven't just said I don't know.

474

You've explained to the examiner, I'm not from Ireland, I don't know anything about Irish cooking, but I would love to know more about it.

475

That will send a signal to the examiner that, okay, they don't know much about this topic.

476

It's not a speaking problem because they were able to clearly explain why they know nothing about Irish cooking.

477

They were able to clearly communicate that and the examiner will then go, okay, she probably knows more about another topic.

478

Let's talk about something else and then you'll demonstrate how great your English is.

479

And remember, your answer doesn't hinge on one bad answer.

480

That's why they ask you a range of different topics and three different parts.

481

So always be honest with the examiner if you don't know anything about that topic.

482

Don't do it if you don't feel just, oh, I don't really prefer that topic or it's a little bit uncomfortable.

483

If that's the case, you know, just give the examiner as much as you know and be very open.

484

I don't know a huge amount about this topic, but here's what I would say.

485

That is far more impressive than somebody who memorizes answers for topics they're expecting.

486

And then you ask them about something like

487

Irish cooking and they're just like, I don't know.

488

So always think about that.

489

And it's also unusual that the examiners will ask you multiple topics

490

and multiple questions about things that you don't know anything about.

491

In general, they will ask you things that the vast majority of the whole world will be able to answer some top,

492

give some kind of an answer.

493

And it's also usually in part three, right?

494

Where they ask you.

495

Yeah, like part three is where they're trying to really stretch you.

496

So part three, if they're asking you more difficult questions, it's because they think you're good.

497

It's because they think you deserve about seven, eight or nine.

498

They have a range of different questions that they can ask you

499

and if they're asking you increasingly difficult difficult questions that's a good sign

500

because they know that you can cope with those

501

and they're maybe thinking does this person deserve an eight

502

or 8 .5 or nine let's ask them really difficult questions they don't

503

if they think you're like a band five band six they won't ask you

504

that many difficult questions in part three so be happy

505

if you if you get them oh good to know

506

so for the next tip we're going to play a little game i'm going to ask the same question to both students.

507

One of them will answer it normally.

508

The other one will try and use the tip as much as possible.

509

Again, I want you to try and think about what they're doing.

510

Think about the tip, what it might be, and the difference in the level of answers.

511

How do you think education will change in the future?

512

I believe everything is going to become more digital

513

and people are going to rely more on devices and gadgets for studying instead of

514

pen and paper and books like it used to be back in the days

515

And also I feel like they'll find their educational materials online instead of in books like we used to have.

516

How do you think education will change in the future?

517

Oh, I'm over the moon that you've asked me this question because I'm a teacher myself.

518

I think the reason people criticize today's education is

519

because there's this concept of the grass always being greener on the other side.

520

In the future, the focus will perhaps be a lot more on critical thinking rather than memorizing information like we have,

521

unfortunately, we have today.

522

But I think the icing on the cake with education in the future is that although it's a double -edged sword,

523

people will be able to focus on things that are more important.

524

and day by day things will get better.

525

I think it will improve for the better.

526

You know what they say, you got to make you got to make hay while the sun shines.

527

So did you spot that tip?

528

Let's analyze both answers and think about the idiomatic language used in each answer.

529

So for this one, here's all of the idioms and here's the ones that she used correctly.

530

And what we did with this answer was I gave her a list of the most common idioms

531

that are taught on YouTube and online to IELTS students.

532

And what I did with this student was I said, just answer the question normally.

533

We didn't tell her about idioms at all, but let's look at the idiomatic language that was used in her answer.

534

And let's look at the ones that she used correctly.

535

So that's just two answers.

536

You know, a lot of teachers do teach use idioms and that's going to increase your score.

537

Is this actually true or not?

538

So where this comes from is if you actually look at the official marking criteria for a band seven,

539

it says uses some less common and idiomatic vocabulary and shows some awareness of style and collocation with some appropriate choices.

540

So it does actually say in the marking criteria, it does talk about idiomatic vocabulary.

541

But where most people who talk about this go wrong,

542

or where most teachers who give students lists of idioms to learn is idiomatic language

543

and idioms are not necessarily the same thing.

544

So idiomatic language does include idioms, but it also includes more informal language like phrasal verbs, slang, colloquialisms, things like that.

545

And if we look at the definition of the word idiomatic in Collins Dictionary,

546

it says idiomatic language uses words in a way that sounds natural to native speakers of the language.

547

And if we look at the Cambridge Dictionary definition, it says containing expressions that are natural and correct.

548

So to summarize what idiomatic means, it's language that native English speakers would normally use.

549

It's different from what learners of English would use because learners of English are normally using textbook English.

550

But if you listen to like when you guys are you guys have traveled to English speaking countries, do people sound weird?

551

Like do they sound like how you would hear them in a textbook or is it different?

552

It sounds a lot more informal, a lot more conversational, daily slangs and things.

553

It doesn't sound forced or.

554

Yeah, it's a lot of people we work with

555

and we help them get the score that they need and they move somewhere like Scotland or Ireland and they're like,

556

thanks very much for helping me get a band seven, but I have no idea what these people are saying.

557

And it's like, oh, it's just because they're using English, but it's a different form of English.

558

Like if you were in the pub with me and my friends, you wouldn't understand a word I'm saying most of the time.

559

I don't speak like this to my friends.

560

So what the official marking criteria is saying

561

when it talks about idiomatic language is

562

that a person out of band seven uses some of the language that a native English speaker would use, but they don't use it completely accurately.

563

There are some inappropriate choices.

564

There may be some inaccuracies, but they're attempting to use the same type of language that a native English speaker would use.

565

Now, this is completely different from how idioms are taught how

566

idioms are taught by a lot of people is give students a list of idioms, memorize them, use as many as they can.

567

And what this does is, as we saw in your example, even though Priyanka is a band nine student,

568

she made lots and lots of errors and she was much less fluent than she normally is.

569

And if we look at the IDP website, they have an article on their website called How to Use Idioms and in it it states,

570

in English we use idioms and phrasal verbs to express ourselves.

571

This idiomatic language is used frequently in our everyday communication, so it's very important that we understand what idioms are and how to use them.

572

So is this saying...

573

Use lots of idioms and you'll get a high score.

574

Well, it goes on to say, we mentioned that native English speakers use idioms naturally.

575

And the key word there is naturally.

576

Learning a list and trying to insert as many as possible is the opposite of natural.

577

If you listen to two native English speakers talking on a podcast

578

and you counted the number of idioms in an hour and a half of them speaking,

579

it might be 10 in the whole hour and a half.

580

We do use them, but it is quite rare what is more common is using more informal language slang phrasal verbs things like

581

that idioms are actually not that common

582

that brings me on a really good exercise

583

that you could do is you know you really love serial killer podcasts like pick one where it's maybe one or two

584

conversational english is best for this so maybe two

585

or three uh people talking about the topic and listen

586

and try and notice not just the idioms but the slang

587

that they use normally that will be things that you don't really understand or maybe local language that they're using

588

or phrasal verbs write down something

589

that you don't understand don't write down all the things

590

you do understand this is already in your in your brain

591

but anything you don't understand just note it down

592

and then most youtube videos have transcripts where you could actually go

593

and look at the transcript look at it in context guess what

594

that means and then do a quick google search check what it means

595

and then over time just add in you know my little

596

list of slang phrases my little list of phrasal verbs my little list of idioms

597

and then try and use them

598

when you're practicing your IELTS test just get some practice questions

599

and then listen back record yourself on your phone listen back

600

did you actually use them appropriately did you use them accurately

601

or are you overusing them or are you mispronouncing them and

602

that way that you can just naturally up your idiomatic language and improve over time.

603

Most people don't want to hear that, they just want a list, but lists are going to lower your score, not improve it.

604

So the last tip is all about speaking part two.

605

Speaking part two is the part that a lot of students fear and they worry a lot about,

606

so we want to definitely help our viewers with that.

607

I'm not going to tell you what the tip is, I'm just going to give you both a question, the same question.

608

One of you is going to use the tip and the other one is not going to use the tip.

609

In the real test, what the examiner would say is, look at the cue card, you have one minute to prepare,

610

you can make notes, and I'll then ask you at the end of one minute to speak for two minutes.

611

Something I worked on that I found to be a difficult task,

612

both academically and in my workplace is being able to speak slow enough.

613

I speak very fast, naturally.

614

You may not feel that way in the conversations that we've had because I've had to work on that quite a bit.

615

It was difficult for me.

616

My brain works quite quickly and it can bounce off things things quite from one topic to the other.

617

So I really had to make an effort to slow that down so that I don't sound like a train. So the way

618

that I would work on it is by giving myself a beat before I say something

619

and giving myself a beat after I say something.

620

Although I have the next 10 sentences already figured out in my brain, I realized that it

621

It just sounds a lot more coherent if I'm able to verbalize my thought and realize that there's no hurry.

622

I have nowhere to go.

623

I've got nothing else to do.

624

So I give each sentence enough time and importance.

625

When I felt that how I felt when I'd completed the task,

626

I felt like it really improved my communication because it's not only what goes on internally inside your brain.

627

It's not just enough for you to understand something, especially when you're in your place of work.

628

It's very important on how you communicate that thought to someone else

629

and how you wait to hear what they have to say and then formulate a thought and communicate it back.

630

That's sometimes even more important than the original thought that you had.

631

Very good.

632

So exact same question, but I want you to do it slightly differently.

633

I don't want you to make any notes.

634

I want you to follow this bullet point, talk about that, then talk about this bullet point, then talk about this bullet point,

635

then talk about this bullet point in that order and only talk about those bullet points.

636

So you have one minute to just think about that.

637

Don't make any notes, just talk about the bullet points.

638

What task did I do?

639

The task that I had to do was understand what I was studying instead of just memorizing it.

640

Why this task was very difficult.

641

It was very difficult because usually when you're trying to memorize something, you tend to forget and that puts a pressure on you.

642

How you worked on this task.

643

I took my time to understand each and every sentence instead of just memorizing it.

644

Explain how you felt when you had successful...

645

I felt like I was having much more knowledge.

646

Good.

647

So the people at home, think about those two responses think about

648

which one was more developed who got to the two minutes without any problems who sounded more fluent

649

and generally which answer felt better to you so

650

if we think about those two answers in the strategy

651

that was used one of them was using the most common tip for part two of the test

652

and one of them wasn't this answer she just answered it with freedom she kept talking about the main topic

653

but she didn't really focus on the bullet points she used some of them

654

but she didn't rigidly stick to them and she was able to speak freely

655

and naturally without using the bullet points as a crutch whereas

656

if we compare it with you like this these are both band nine students

657

you got a band nine in the real test

658

but what I did was I told you I forced you to use the most common tip

659

which is talk about bullet point number one then talk about bullet point number two then three then four

660

and only do that how did it feel answering

661

that question in that way using because

662

when you do part two you normally do very very well you didn't do so well

663

that time why do you think

664

it was i felt a certain pressure to do exactly what is um in this tips

665

and i also felt a lot more robotic yeah did see you were looking at each one

666

and then you also didn't get to the two minutes

667

so for you that wouldn't be a huge problem because you're a band nine student,

668

I would just go like this and you would continue to talk.

669

But for someone at a band six, band seven level, if they get to the end of the bullet points, they just start to panic like,

670

oh my, I have nothing else to say.

671

And then that can destroy the rest of their test.

672

So telling students, you must talk about bullet point number one, then two, then three, then four, it does more harm than good.

673

Can you actually use the bullet points that are given as

674

a guideline and still have your own notes and refer to the bullet points and the guideline?

675

Absolutely.

676

That's exactly the strategy that we teach.

677

So we teach students that the bullet points are there to help you, but some of them, there might be one in there,

678

like for example, they often say, how did you feel?

679

Some people like me, I don't like talking about my feelings.

680

So even as a native English speaker, I'd be like, I don't know.

681

And I would start to sound very bad.

682

But like what happened with you, if you stick rigidly to the bullet points, some of them, like for example,

683

there might be one that says like, talk about your phone.

684

What brand is it?

685

Like, oh, it's Apple.

686

Like, what else am I going to say about that?

687

That's three seconds out of two minutes.

688

So often people will get to the end of the bullet points after 45 seconds or 60 seconds.

689

And then it's like, oh, I have a new mountain to climb.

690

I now have to think about more things to say.

691

So what we teach students is look at the four bullet points.

692

Which of them are you comfortable talking about at length?

693

It might be four, it might be three, it might be two.

694

And then look at the topic at the top.

695

What other things do you feel more comfortable talking about?

696

For you, you're a great storyteller, so it could be the story of that.

697

You probably like talking about your feelings and how I read it.

698

So maybe it was that.

699

But whatever you feel comfortable talking about, add in those bullet points as you did and that gives you complete freedom for the two minutes.

700

And if you want more details on how to use that strategy, I've put it in the PDF with the 100 most common words,

701

practice questions, transcripts from successful students, and you can use those to improve your score.

702

Get it in the description and the pinned comment.

703

If you've enjoyed this video on speaking tips,

704

you probably need help with writing tips as well click this video if you need help with writing tips

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Get Band 9 After Learning These Speaking Tips”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: student, topic, examiner, speaking, word. This video has 704 sentences and 8709 words to shadow. The speech runs for 49:05. The speaker talks at a natural 177 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
examiner noun	/əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/	A person who investigates someone or something.
vocabulary noun	/vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/	A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning.
bullet noun	/ˈbʊlɪt/	A projectile, usually of metal, shot from a gun at high speed.
informal adjective	/ɪnˈfɔɹ.m(ə)l/	Not formal or ceremonious.
greet verb	/ɡɹiːt/	To welcome in a friendly manner, either in person or through another means such as writing.
naturally adverb	/ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/	In a natural manner.
formal adjective	/ˈfɔɹməl/	In accordance with established forms.
verb noun	/vɝb/	A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
pronunciation noun	/pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/	The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken.
everyday adjective	/ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/	Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions.
intelligent adjective	/ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/	Of high or especially quick cognitive capacity, bright.
communicate verb	/kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/	To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) to someone; to make known, to tell.
assess verb	/əˈsɛs/	To determine, estimate or judge the value of; to evaluate; to estimate.
transcript noun	/ˈtɹæn.skɹɪpt/	Something which has been transcribed; a writing or composition consisting of the same words as the original; a written copy.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
come up verb	To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly.
sit down verb	To assume a sitting position from a standing position.
write down verb	To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something.
bounce off verb	To test (ideas) on someone.
end up verb	To bring to a conclusion.
find out verb	To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
look forward to verb	To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Is that what you call it?
How's your day been so far?
Would you like something to eat or drink?
What do you normally do on the weekend?
Why do you think you weren't as fluent?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If you go online, you'll find · if there are that would help
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to be · used to have
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has not started · has helped · we've seen
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being assessed · is trained · being tested

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 197 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, dish /dɪʃ/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/
Long words — get the stress right: examiner /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, intelligent /ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like topic, examiner, vocabulary.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Get Band 9 After Learning These Speaking Tips - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?