How to Start Speaking in IELTS Part 2

So you are doing your IELTS speaking test

and suddenly you get to part two, talk about a topic.

Now it gets more difficult.

What do you talk about?

How do you start?

How do you keep going for two minutes?

Let's find out.

(bright music)

Hello, it's Keith again from Keith Speaking Academy

and this YouTube channel, English Speaking Success.

Here to help you become a more confident speaker of English.

Now, many students I know find IELTS speaking part two,

the most difficult part of the test.

I mean, you have to speak for one

to two minutes on a new topic you've just been given.

I mean, that's probably even difficult

in your native language, right?

You may not know anything about the topic.

You may not know how to start speaking

and you may think, I can't speak for two minutes about that.

Well, don't worry.

In this video, I will give you some ideas, phrases,

and strategies so you can navigate part two

and show your real level of spoken English and shine.

Also, there is a PDF you can download to get the phrases

and to practice more and more on your own.

Right, let's dig in.

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Now the beginning of part two,

you are given one minute to prepare your talk

and the examiner will give you the topic or the card.

Oh, thank you.

That was lucky.

There's an examiner in my office.

When you get the card,

look at the question carefully, pick out the key words,

look at the bullet points, normally three,

and then find the example you're gonna talk about

as quickly as possible.

Doesn't have to be perfect, good enough.

Check the bullet points.

If you can talk about those, you don't have to,

but they can help.

And then prepare the first line

or the first sentence you're going to say,

have that prepared.

So you start confident with a bang.

Don't give this back to the examiner.

Use this, keep this.

When you start speaking, use your cue card

or task card to help you talk.

Great, and then let's see what happens.

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So at the end of your one minute preparation,

the examiner will invite you to start talking, invite you.

You can start talking, oh, thank you.

And then you begin.

Now to research this, I went back and I watched

all of the part two model answers

that I've created for the gold course

and my gold live lessons.

There's over 50 of them,

to identify the most common patterns and phrases that I use.

So what I'm gonna show you now are those most common

phrases and patterns.

Now, I also noticed in addition to these phrases,

sometimes I just start talking

and I go with the flow without any of these phrases.

That sometimes works.

So in this part, you have to speak for one to two minutes.

I advise you to keep speaking as much as you can.

Two minutes or even beyond.

It doesn't matter if the examiner cuts you off

after two minutes or before.

Just keep talking.

And another tip is be direct.

Get to the point.

Make it clear what you're going to talk about.

Remember I said have your first sentence prepared.

That is to help you get really focused.

Don't rabbit, don't waffle, don't go around the houses.

Be direct.

Let's have a look at some phrases and some examples.

Now, some typical questions are,

describe a place that ba, ba, ba.

Describe a thing that do, do, do

or describe a person who do, do, do.

The place might be a city, a building, a country, a thing.

Could be a book or a film or a photo.

A person, might be a teacher, a colleague, a famous person.

Describe a city that you have visited.

Describe a film that you have enjoyed.

Describe a famous person who you would like to meet.

All of these are possible.

Now, my favorite opening for these kinds of questions is,

the blank I'd like to talk about is blank.

The city I'd like to talk about is Madrid.

The book I'd like to talk about is "One Thing".

The teacher I'd like to talk about is

my primary school teacher, Mr. Jones, good old Mr. Jones.

So you can say the blank I'd like to talk about is,

or the blank I'd like to tell you about is,

or the blank I'd like to describe is da, da, da.

And the reason I like these is because

it shows that you can use emphasis in English.

You could just be more direct.

You could say, I'd like to talk about blank.

I'm going to tell you about blank.

Let me tell you about blank.

Those are great, direct,

but the emphasis is even nicer.

The blank I would like to describe is da, da, da.

Nice.

And here's one I've noticed that I like describing a person.

And it's the person I'd like to talk about is

none other than my brother, my uncle.

None other than is used

to reveal a sometimes surprising identity

of a person or possibly a thing as well.

The film I'd like to talk about is none other than

"Mission Impossible", for example.

Okay, good, let's move on.

So I've mentioned people, places, and things.

You may also be asked to talk about events.

And typically the question is, describe a time when.

Describe a time when you got lost

or describe a time when you were bored.

Now you can use all of the previous phrases,

the starting phrases, absolutely fine.

But so you could say, well,

let me tell you about a trip I took to Japan.

Let me tell you about.

But my most common starting phrases

for this kind of question are the following.

And they are about setting the scene.

I remember once when I was living in France.

I recall once when I was living in France.

There was this one time when I was living in France.

And all of these are used to set the scene and then go

and talk about how you got lost.

For this kind of event, really, really nice.

Now you may be thinking, okay,

what if I have never got lost?

What if I don't know what to say here?

The options are, make it up, invent something, it's fine.

Examiner doesn't care, they just want to hear your English.

You could say that you've never got lost.

And then talk about someone you know who got lost.

Oh, I remember once my little brother got lost.

You could explain that, it's fine.

And if you don't have any experience at all,

you could talk about

what you think it would be like to be lost.

It's not the best, but it's better than nothing.

Because what you can't do is say, I've never been lost.

Can I have a different topic, please?

Because the answer's no, you cannot change your topic.

So say something.

Use one of these three techniques to say something.

Oh, by the way, if you are enjoying this video,

do remember to subscribe so you can find out about

new and upcoming videos on this channel.

Let's move on.

Now, another technique in addition to the above

is to repeat the same verbs and tense as the question.

And you can do this for any question actually.

But it works particularly well for activities like sports

or hobbies or things.

For example, if you are asked, describe a blank

that you blank, you might get something like,

well, these questions.

Describe a water sport you would like to do.

Describe a skill you have learnt.

Describe a film you have watched.

Describe a book you would recommend.

There are different tenses there,

and the tense in the question is key to your answer.

So a really clever way is just to repeat the tense back.

And the phrase would be, well, a blank I blank is blank.

(Keith chuckling)

Blankety blank.

For example, well, a water sport

I would like to do is surfing.

The I would like to, we're just repeating it.

Well, a skill I learnt as a child was painting.

We are repeating learnt in the past tense.

Well, a book I would recommend

is called "Klara and the Sun".

Would recommend, we are repeating that conditional tense.

It's very, very simple, but it will help you focus

and it's really easy for the examiner to follow you.

And this is great 'cause it's so simple.

You don't have to think too much.

Just listen to the tense and repeat,

wash and repeat, wash and repeat again.

Alternatively, another tip is to answer these questions

you can set the scene.

You can say, quite simply, a while back,

I, plus the past tense.

For example, talking about a book,

a while back, I read a book called "Klara and the Sun".

And you go on to describe it.

A while back, I watched a film called "Inside Out"

and then describe it.

Another tip.

For items like films and books and photos

where there are so many you can choose from,

you could actually focus on the favorite one.

And you can say,

one of my favorite blanks is da, da, da.

And then talk about it.

One of my favorite books is.

One of my favorite films is.

Just notice the noun is always in the plural.

One of my favorite books, paintings, photographs.

Great, final tip.

If you get a topic that you don't like,

for example, books.

You just don't like reading, possibly,

you can use that to your advantage.

It's an opportunity to talk about that.

You can say, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of books

or reading, but if I have to choose one,

I would like to talk about.

So even difficult situations can be an opportunity

to show your English.

Let's move on.

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So how do you keep going for two minutes?

Well, there are two options, I think.

One is you use the bullet points in the question

and that will help you develop your answer.

Typically, they will be things like when, who, how,

why, that kind of question.

But remember to develop your answer.

So if you are talking about a person

and it says, who is the person?

Don't just say, oh, well it's John, my teacher.

Give some more details.

Say what they do, what they look like, their appearance,

their personality.

Develop that a bit.

If it says, when did this happen?

Don't say last week,

give a bit more the background or the setting.

Oh, it was last week when I was on holiday in France.

I'd been there for about two days

and suddenly this strange thing happened.

Also give examples, because examples is

where it's gonna help you develop your answer more and more.

Describing people, use adjectives, use adverbs,

embellish your answer.

So that's the first thing, follow the bullet points.

The second option is to go with the flow

and you just start speaking.

There's no real structure

and you're just speaking and speaking.

That also works very well,

especially if you are a slightly higher level.

That focus on communication,

just being natural is also really, really good.

Now a general tip is the key to being able to speak

for two minutes is practice.

It's not easy even in your mother tongue.

So when you get these topics

and you are at home practicing,

just practice giving an answer for 20 seconds.

And then later try speaking for 30 seconds,

and then later, 40 seconds,

and day after day, make it longer on the same topic

or different topics.

Just build up that habit

or that skill, that muscle of speaking

for a longer time each day.

Build it up slowly, you will be able to do it.

Another useful tip is to record yourself.

As you're giving your answers

and you're practicing speaking,

record yourself and listen back.

It's really gonna help you.

It'll give you great insights to your speed.

Are you too fast, too slow?

To hesitation, to the vocabulary,

the grammar, your ability to communicate.

It'll really help, so try that as well.

So what do you think?

Do you have any more tips or ideas that you could,

or phrases that you want to share?

Leave them in the comments below, let us know.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a PDF

you can download for free with these phrases

if you want to practice.

There's a link below.

Just click on that and you can get it for free.

Thanks for watching the video.

Oh, by the way, if you want

to know more about the gold course

where I took these phrases

and model answers from, there's also a link down

below in the description.

You can find out about it there.

Great.

Now, if you are not able

to invest in a course, here's a tip just for you.

Download the PDF and practice reading

and memorizing some of these phrases.

Then choose three of the phrases.

Find a list of part two questions

or task cards on the internet.

They're out there.

And then practice using these three phrases

for different questions.

See which ones work, which ones work better,

which ones may not work, and just practice that.

And that's it.

This kind of practice of starting to speak is invaluable.

Do you know, if you've been watching the Olympics,

the guys who run the 100 meter sprint,

do you know how much time they practice just starting,

just getting outta the blocks that first second?

It's ridiculous.

A huge amount of time.

Time invested in the start is really important

and it's invaluable for your IELTS speaking too.

So go and try it out, see what you think.

In the meantime, I'm gonna see you in the next video.

Take care, my friend.

Thank you for watching, bye-bye.

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