How to AGREE and DISAGREE in IELTS Speaking

- Listen, most people learn how to agree or disagree

in English by learning expressions from a book, right?

I agree up to a point, but I have my reservations.

But that's not how we speak real English, not naturally.

So knowing how to agree and disagree naturally

is a key part of IELTS speaking, especially part three.

So today I'm going to show you a wide range

of simple natural ways to agree and disagree in English.

So you can get a high score in the IELTS speaking test.

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Are you ready?

Say, yes Keith I am.

Totally.

Let's do it.

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Hi, this is Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy.

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Right, questions.

In IELTS speaking, especially part three, right?

You do get a lot of questions asking you

directly what you think, right?

Do you think reading is important?

Or do you agree that reading is important?

Or even would you agree that...?

Some people say reading is important, what do you think?

Right.

So the examiner will often ask you for your opinion,

what you think, where you may want to agree or disagree,

or they directly ask you, do you agree?

Right?

And you need to say yes or no.

There are also more indirect questions, right?

Is reading important?

Should children read a lot, right?

And again, you may,

it's an opportunity for you to agree

or disagree and give your opinion.

So I'm gonna focus here on different ways

of agreeing and disagreeing, but very important, right?

My goal is to help you speak naturally.

IELTS speaking is a test of natural, conversational English.

It is not about formal English.

Not giving a presentation or a thesis presentation.

It's about natural spoken English.

So I'm not gonna give you lots of long,

complicated expressions.

Like at the beginning of the video,

I agree up to a point, but...

Because that's not really natural.

It can be, but only use long phrases

if you feel comfortable and they come naturally, right?

If you're not sure, you just say yes or no,

but of course you don't want to always be saying yes, no.

One word answers are not great.

So let me show you different ways of handling agreeing

and disagreeing, but in a really natural way.

Let's take agreeing or how to agree first.

So for example, the question,

do you think children should have a mobile phone

or do you agree children should have a mobile phone?

Yes.

The simplest answer is yes,

but actually if you want to sound

just a hundred percent more native speaker, yes I do.

Using the tags, yes I do,

is very, very common in natural spoken English, right?

Do you agree that...?

Yes, I do.

Or would you agree that children should have a mobile phone?

Yes, I would.

Those tags are really, really what?

Powerful, natural.

Yes, I do.

Yes, I would.

Okay.

But just notice you need to get the right tag.

So if the question is a bit more indirect, right?

Should children have a mobile phone?

Yes, they should, right?

Yes, they should.

Not yes, I do.

Yes, they should, okay?

If you're not sure about the right tag,

you just keep it very, very simple, right?

Should children have a mobile phone?

Yes, I think so.

The biggest mistake I hear is students saying,

I think yes.

No.

I think so.

Right?

Never I think yes.

If you're gonna say yes, put it at the beginning.

Yes, I think so.

If you want to agree strongly, right?

Maybe you agree strongly that children

should have a mobile phone.

Yes, I totally agree.

And again, the use of the adverb

is very, very, very common right?

Yes, I totally agree.

Yes, I completely agree.

Should children have a mobile phone?

Yes, I totally agree.

It seems to me that, and then you give your opinion.

Yes, I completely agree.

It seems to me that they should have a mobile phone

in case they need to call their parents in an emergency.

For sure, I mean, I couldn't agree more.

I think it's important they have a phone

in case they need to call their parents.

And notice if the question is, do you agree?

Do you agree that children should have a mobile phone?

Yes, I do agree, in my view it's really important,

they have a phone so they can call their parents

in case of an emergency.

Yep, I do agree.

Yeah, I do agree.

Yes, I do agree.

Notice, yeah, yep, and yes,

all of those are absolutely fine.

Natural informal English.

Now, other ways of agreeing strongly without using yes

or I or think, right?

You can just use simple chunks of language, right?

For example,

do you think children can make decisions on their own?

Absolutely, they're very capable of doing that.

Without a doubt, I think they can,

not only they can,

but they should make decisions on their own.

For sure, right, most children are very capable

of making decisions on their own.

Yes, I think that's absolutely right.

They can make decisions on their own.

For sure, I mean, the way I see it,

they can make decisions and they need to make decisions

on their own to learn how to be independent.

Right, so there's some very nice chunks there

that you can use to agree.

And this is agreeing quite strongly,

but what if you only agree a little bit?

Do you think we should keep all our traditions?

Yes, I tend to agree, but at the same time,

there are some traditions we should let go of.

Up to a point, but I think there are some traditions

we don't need to continue.

Notice here, we often don't say,

I agree up to a point, right?

You don't need the whole sentence.

It's much more natural to just say the last bit.

Up to a point, but...

Right?

The same,

I agree to some extent.

Much more natural.

To some extent...

To some extent, but undoubtedly there are some traditions

that we should stop.

By and large yes, most of our traditions are good

and they instill some good values in families and societies.

Great, some very nice chunks there.

The other chunk that is very common is kind of.

And you may use kind of with different endings as well.

For example, for this question,

do you think children learn songs more easily than adults?

Kind of, but it's not always the case.

I mean, take my little sister for example.

Kind of, but actually some older people

are very good at learning songs.

For example, my grandfather.

Kind of, but the way I see it, that's not always the case.

Right?

I've got a little sister who...

And in some cases actually,

you may not be agreeing strongly or even a little bit.

You may just be unsure, kind of sitting on the fence.

Right?

I don't really know.

So you might say, for the question,

do you think eBooks will replace paper books in the future?

To be honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure about that.

It's possible,

but at the same time I think we will still use paper books.

That's a tough one.

In some respects yes,

but I do still feel we will read paper books in the future.

Well, it depends.

I reckon in the future,

we will use both digital books and paper books.

Okay, so those are different ways

of kind of just being honest.

I mean, you know, always remember this,

it's more effective to kind of be honest and tell the truth

and speak naturally than trying to make up

some complex language because when you're focused

on the language you get lost,

whereas when you speak naturally,

you're in the flow and it's much, much better.

Right, let's have a look at disagreeing.

And the first thing to say is,

do remember you can disagree with the examiner, right?

Very often you may feel, and often from a cultural aspect,

that you need to agree with the teacher or examiner, right?

But not in the IELTS speaking test.

You can give your honest opinion.

You are not evaluated on your opinion, right?

Whether it's good or bad,

it's the language that's important.

For example, an examiner may ask you something like,

do you think that parents are stricter now than in the past?

No, I don't.

I would say they were much stricter in the past.

Actually, I don't agree with that.

I think parents in the past were stricter

than they are nowadays.

To be honest, I don't agree with that.

I would say that nowadays parents

are not as strict as in the past.

So it's perfectly fine to disagree with the examiner

or with their question or statement, right?

Now one of the common questions is the examiner says,

some people say..., what do you think?

Or do you agree?

Okay and with this one there are some nice chunks

that you can use, right?

For example, some people say parents are stricter now

compared to the past, what do you think?

I beg to differ,

I think parents were much stricter in the past.

I have to disagree,

I think parents were stricter in the past.

For example, my father told me how strict his father was

and it's quite horrific.

That's not exactly how I see it.

I would tend to say parents are less strict nowadays.

Okay so that last one, I'm being a bit more diplomatic.

Maybe if you feel more comfortable being diplomatic

and hedging or making your disagreements softer, right?

That's not exactly how I see it.

I tend to say, or I tend to think, right?

I tend to think is just making your thinking softer,

so to speak.

Great.

If you want to be a bit clearer

than you can use the word no or not in different ways.

For example, do you think old people

value friendship more than young people?

No, not really.

I think it depends on the person irrespective of their age.

Not necessarily, I think there's a lot of young people

who value friendship as much as old people.

And a different question,

do you think old people like the same music as young people?

Not at all, I think they have very different tastes

in music due to the generation gap.

No, not at all.

Actually, I'd say the opposite is true.

I think they have very different tastes,

take my parents for example.

No, quite the opposite actually.

I'd say they have very different tastes in music.

So you can see lots of expressions there with no or not.

I'm just making it much clearer when you disagree.

That is disagreements.

Great, so you'll notice,

I think, as you listen to these questions, right?

A lot of the do you think, or do you agree questions,

they talk about differences between now and the past

or now and the future or young people and old people, right?

So be prepared for that.

Those kinds of questions I think are quite common.

We see them year after year in IELTS.

So being prepared for that and having these little chunks

of language to agree or disagree is great.

Only use the longer ones,

if you feel totally comfortable and natural,

otherwise keep it short, keep it brief,

and focus your energy on the real nitty gritty

of your answer, right?

That's where you really are gonna make a big difference.

Great, I hope all of this helps.

So listen, thank you very much for watching.

And I hope the ideas here can help you speak better English,

give better answers, and get a higher score

on IELTS speaking.

Great, that's it for today.

If you've enjoyed the video, do like it.

Leave me a comment below.

Subscribe.

And I look forward to seeing you in the near future.

Take care my friend.

Bye bye.

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