MAY 2019, ISSUE 4

The IELTS Express

Health Carousel Philippines, Inc.'s Monthly IELTS Newsletter

Demystifying Band 7.0 in

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Demystifying Band 7.0 in

IELTS Speaking
IELTS Speaking - 1
This is the fourth and final installment in this series on the IELTS Speaking test.

Confidence Matters - 2 In the previous three issues, Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, and
Grammatical Range and Accuracy were discussed. We have arrived at the final
and probably the easiest category to get a 7 in: Pronunciation. That's right! It's
quite possibly the easiest.

What does it take to get a band 7.0 in Speaking?

Here are five things you should do to get a 7 in Pronunciation:

1. Be easy to understand. Contrary to what many candidates may think, one

does not need to speak like a native speaker of English to get a 7 in
pronunciation. What one needs is to speak in a way that is easy to understand,
despite the effect their first language has on how they speak English.
2. Use a wide range of pronunciation features. This
covers pronunciation of individual sounds and other
pronunciation features such as accent, stress, and
intonation.

3. Use these features consistently. Besides the use of a

wide range of pronunciation features, you should also
demonstrate an ability to use them consistently. This
means you pronounce sounds like the voiced and
voiceless th correctly and use the proper intonation
about 80% of the time.

4. Get a lot of input.  Listening to a lot of English will

greatly help you improve your pronunciation as linguistic
input serves as a model that you can try and emulate. Not
having anything to copy is detrimental to your
improvement because you don't have anything to
compare your own output to.

5. Practice constantly. Because language is a skill, it

needs to be used often for it to improve. Constantly
practicing means spending not only minutes but hours
per day speaking the language. This does not only help
you practice it, it also builds your confidence as it gets
you used to speaking English.

Put all these pieces of advice together when preparing

for your Speaking test and you should be on your way to
getting that coveted band 7. Good luck!
Confidence Matters
Did you know that confidence plays a role in language
learning? Many people seem to fail to recognize this fact
because we all have a first language, which we acquire at
a very young age and therefore learn effortlessly.

However, learning a second language is a different story.

To make matters worse, the challenges of learning a new
language multiply as we grow older.

Many candidates fail to get band 7 in Speaking because

they lack the confidence to speak English. This impacts
their performance negatively as it manifests as
hesitation (fillers and pauses) and brings their score in
Fluency and Coherence down to a 6.

Have you ever seen a beauty pageant? Contestants in

such spectacles need to be confident in order to carry
themselves well onstage, especially when answering the
questions that will eventually decide whether or not they
will be crowned. Regardless of the substance and
grammatical correctness of their answers, most pageant
contestants exude inspiring confidence when they
answer.

Confidence matters. Build it now and you'll surely reap

the rewards later.