IELTS Speaking Tips: The Long Turn
This is the second of three articles about the IELTS speaking Exam. You can find tips here for IELTS Speaking Part 2: The Long Turn.
Look out for the final part coming soon about Part 3 of the Speaking section. Part 1: The Interview is here.
Firstly, some general tips about the speaking section:
- Don’t stop speaking until you are told to stop! Do NOT just answer the question and stop. You get NO marks for silence.
- IELTS Speaking questions get used more than once. Look at the numerous questions that you can find online and practice saying your own answers in the correct time limit. If you don’t get exactly the same question, you have a good chance of getting the same subject in your exam.
- Practice, Practice, Practice! Lots of IELTS candidates have a great level of reading and listening in English, but they haven’t done enough work on speaking. Speak out loud in English as much as possible. Read an article from a newspaper out loud. Read your practice essays out loud. Pretend you are in an exam and get a friend to ask you Part 1: Interview questions and answer them out loud. Practice makes perfect!
IELTS Speaking Exam Summary – PART 2: Long Turn
Time: About 3 – 4 minutes (including 1 min for preparation)
What happens: The examiner will give you a card with a subject written on it. You will have 1 minute to prepare your answer. BEWARE – 1 minute is NOT a long time! Then you will have to speak for around 2 minutes about your subject without any help from the examiner.
Possible Subjects: Anything! Here are just a few examples:
- People – someone who has influenced you (teacher, family, friend, sportsman, celebrity, author etc), someone you would like to meet, your favourite person from history
- Technology – something that you couldn’t live without, does technology make our live easier? Would you like to live without emails?
- Places – your favourite place in the world, somewhere that you dream about going to, a place that brings back fond memories, best place for a holiday, describe your hometown, what recommendations would you have for a tourist visiting your country, a place that has had a major impact on you
- Personal – what is your favourite film genre, song, book, something that would you like to achieve in life, a diificult time in your life and how you got through it, healthy lifestyle: Do you have one?; How could you be healthier? What are the disadvantages of not being healthy?
- And many more subjects!!!
Example Question and Answer:
1) What is the favourite thing that you own?
MY (1 min prep) NOTES:
Laptop: sth fav shouldn’t be shouldn’t be technological – explain
when + why did i get it / uses? friends, work, family, music, / why is it so important
How do you think this answer could be made better? Leave your ideas in the comments section below.
PROBLEMS
1) If you don’t know anything about the subject you have to talk about. If this is true, then tell the examiner and he can give you another question. However, if you get a topic like ‘films’, but you would rather talk about music, do NOT say you don’t know anything about film: the next topic you get might be about a subject that is even worse for you. (It would be better to talk about films and mention how the incredible soundtrack affected you.)
SAY: I’m sorry, but I really don’t know anything about …. Is it possible to have another subject, please?
2) If you get lost in your answer and forget what you want to say. Look at your notes that you made in the 1 minute preparation time.
SAY: Now, what did I want to say about that. Oh yes, (now you can remember) so, as I was saying…
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Posted by Bren Brennan on Sep 20 2011. Filed under IELTS.
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Hi Bren
How are you doing? I have one question:
Do we say ” Five Year Warranty” or “Five Years Warranty”
Thank you for your help
Youness
Yo Youness!
Five year warranty – without the ‘s’
Think of it like this…warranty is a noun, so 5 years are acting like an adjective, describing a noun. When a number is an adjective, then it doesn’t have an s
Ex: My dog is 8 months old / I have an 8 month old dog.
See the difference?
BTW (by the way), I’m 2 Fonky!!! :) How are you and how’s France?? 2 Frenchy??? :)
Yes,
Very clear answer, as usual. Just like with your interesting courses, dear Bren!
Many thanks
Bren
Here in south of France near Montpellier we still have a nice weather! It’s worth coming to visit this side of Europe; You will be most welcome here.
I’ll be your guide here if you come :-)
Dear Mr.Bren,
Could you please tell me is it possible that my marks would go down if I look down my notes only one time in the Speaking test?
Thanks a lot,
Candy
No, you won’t lose marks…as long as you obey the first rule that you should always remember – Don’t stop speaking unless you are told to stop! :)
Your tips in part 1 and part 2 are fantastic, but I don’t see any speaking part 3 response already, could you please tell me why? Hopefully you will post this.
Thanks a lot,
Candy
Candy, SGI is not just an IELTS school; there are lots of other classes. So, our blog represents this and is not just restricted to IELTS. We publish a post every day from Mon – Fri and the first 2 parts of IELTS speaking were only published last week. Part 3 will be arriving this week. I hope your patience is rewarded and you get something useful from it later this week. :)
candy, Here are 2 blogs on Part 3 of the IELTS Speaking that I think you’ll be interested in
Blog 1: Tips on how to score highly in each category
Blog 2: Sample Questions and answers
I took ielts one time before but I could not get the required score and I am planning to take it in November, I hope with your help to pass this time. My weakness point is reading and speaking.
The tips are great and the advice matches the tips. However, I do run into problems where students just want to use book expression instead of collocation as keep in touch or drop them a line or two, as we use in American English. What I need is a location or blog site that has the British ones. This may sound a little on the laughable side of speaking, seriously speaking in China if its not in a book to learn they cannot relate to it and most of my terminology is from reading and writing over the years. any help would be greatly appreciated.
Ernie
[...] my next blog in the series of how to succeed in the IELTS Speaking test, I show you how Part 2: The Long Turn will progress into your Two Way Discussion with the [...]
Hi Bren,
I wish I read this article before taking the IELTS! =)
I try to read your articles almost every day and I’d like you to know that they are of great help to me as a non-native speaker of English who wants to improve and learn more each day! Thank you so much indeed.
And I’ll advise my friends asking for tips about IELTS to read your article!
Çiğdem
ex- SGI trainee
Wow! Thank you for such a lovely comment, Çiğdem.
I’m really, really glad that the articles help you…that’s the only reason I write them, so it’s great to hear that you are improving. It seems that your English is pretty good already though, I think :)
Thanks again so much…. and keep reading! :)
Thank you :)
I’ve been teaching English for a few years, so I’m trying my best for my professional and self-development. I think that’s how a teacher should be :)
What’s great about your articles is that they are a part of ‘Everyday English’ and that’s why they mean more than books to me!
I know enough about English grammar, phonology, morphology etc. anyway, but this blog is a great way for me to keep it practical rather than theoretical :)
And yes, I’ll keep reading!
Çiğdem