Workshop 3: Speaking

1. Speaking test overview

Part 1 (4-5 minutes): Answer up to 9-10 short questions on familiar topics.

Purpose: Judge “candidate’s ability to communicate opinions and information on
everyday topics and common experiences or situations” and help the candidate
become familiar with the test environment and examiner’s communication style

Part 2 (3-4 minutes): Speak for 1-2 minutes on a given topic. One minute to
think and make notes. Possible follow-up question(s).
Purpose: Judge candidate’s ability to speak at length without prompting, using
appropriate language and organising their ideas coherently. Time to show off
fluency, vocabulary and cohesive devices like discourse markers.

Part 3 (4-5 minutes): Answer up to 8 more abstract and complex questions

related to the Part 2 topic.
Purpose: Judges “candidate’s ability to express and justify opinions and to analyse,
discuss and speculate about issues.” Time to show off: grammatical structures,
fluency, vocabulary.

2. Common difficulties for Vietnamese candidates

 hesitation (especially language-related)
 limited range of discourse markers
 limited use of idiomatic language
 pronunciation problems: final consonant sounds, connected speech, rhythm,
intonation
 topic awareness (especially for younger candidates)
 coping with unfamiliar topics / questions

3. Practical classroom activities

Fluency

• Topic lines / concentric circles

• Line up students so they have a partner
• Put a topic on the board
• Keep the time limit short – 30 seconds or 1 minute
• Change partners, change topics.
• Makes for a great warmer and a noisy classroom!
• “Try again”
• In pairs, one student asks a question
• One student answers the question

British Council Exams Team IELTS is jointly owned by the

British Council. IDP:
IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge
ESOL Examinations.
 • If the listener hears a hesitation (“umm”, “err”, “uhh”, “mmm”, [silence])
then slap the table
• Start again from the beginning
• Works best with short, simpler questions (Part 1)

• Record and count the hesitations

• Use a smartphone / MP3 recorder
• Record a Part 2 monologue
• Listen again
• Count the number of hesitations
• Repeat the task with the same answer
• Listen again
• Count the number of hesitations

• 3/2/1 (or any variation of timing where it gets progressively shorter)

• Same talk is repeated to different listeners in a decreasing time frame
• First time: 3 minutes
• Second time: 2 minutes
• Third time: 1 minute
• Keep the same content each time, focus on improving fluency
• Paul Nation (2007): The Four Strands (link at the end of this summary)

Idiomatic language

• Warmer: idiom of the day (student presented?)

• Film / song clips – student-presented?
• Poster: each student contributes one idiom to the poster and visualizes it
• Points board for each time a student uses idiomatic language feature – make
it competitive!
• Pelmanism / SNAP card game
• Match idioms with definitions

Pronunciation

• Sounds: “BBC Learning English: The Sounds of English”

• www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/pronunciation
• Rachel’s English (American pron.)
• www.rachelsenglish.com
• Connected speech: dictations, dictations, dictations
• Dictogloss
• www.listen-and-write.com

British Council Exams Team IELTS is jointly owned by the

British Council. IDP:
IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge
ESOL Examinations.
 • Stress and intonation: Total Physical Response
• Punch the stress, head intonation, etc.

Topic awareness

• simple.wikipedia.org
• Like normal Wikipedia but in “Simple English”
• 850 or 1500 words
• Usually Subject + Verb + Object
• learningenglish.voanews.com
• www.simpleenglishnews.com
• www.newsinlevels.com
• www.thetimesinplainenglish.com
• www.breakingnewsenglish.com

• Student presentations
• Give students a choice
• Keep it short – 2 minutes is good practice for Part 2
• Vlogs?
• Audio?
• Facebook Group?

4. Resources

takeielts.britishcouncil.org/teachielts
www.ielts.org/teachers.aspx
www.dcielts.com/speaking/
www.voxopop.com
www.voicethread.com
www.soundcloud.com
www.vocaroo.com
audacity.sourceforge.net/
www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/publications/paul-nation/2007-Four-strands.pdf

British Council Exams Team IELTS is jointly owned by the

British Council. IDP:
IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge
ESOL Examinations.