5 Steps for Success in IELTS Speaking

- Succeeding in IELTS speaking

can actually be really simple.

You just need to follow five simple steps.

(upbeat music)

Hello, it's Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy,

helping you become a more confident speaker of English.

Now, I know the IELTS speaking test

can be a challenging journey, right?

And for many students, it can be overwhelming.

There's so much confusing advice out there.

Sometimes you just feel lost and demotivated.

But with the right strategies,

you can navigate IELTS speaking to build your confidence

and get the score that you need.

Over the past few months,

I've been sharing some insights to different aspects

of the IELTS speaking test and the preparation to help you.

Now, whether you are new

to IELTS or even if you've taken

the IELTS speaking test several times,

today's video will help you

with the five essential steps that will help you succeed

in the IELTS speaking test.

Throughout the video, I'm gonna give you some extra tips

to make sure that you can implement these ideas as well.

Ready? Let's go.

(title pops up)

Now, a broad or a wide vocabulary is key to scoring well

in the IELTS speaking test.

Not only does it help you to express your ideas

more clearly and precisely,

but it also shows the examiner your command

of the English language.

Now, there's actually no such thing as IELTS vocabulary.

There's English vocabulary.

That's what you need.

When you learn vocabulary,

I think one of the best things to do

is to focus on different topics and learn

what I call subject related

or topic-related vocabulary you need for that topic.

And this is where IELTS vocabulary comes in,

'cause IELTS has lots of topics,

and if you focus on those topics, the most popular ones,

and build the vocabulary around those topics, like travel,

education, technology, the environment, things like this.

The key is not only studying the words,

but it's to speak out the words,

to make short phrases using them

and connect your examples

or phrases to your real-life,

your own personal life experience.

That makes the learning much deeper.

Now, you can do this on your own

or you can do it with a partner.

You actually don't need a teacher

unless you've got lots of money.

It's often more productive to do it with a partner.

You can just take the words

and each of you make a phrase

about your personal life with that word.

You can do role plays, you can have fun, right?

It doesn't have to be realistic, it's just to practice.

For example, recently,

I did a live lesson for my Gold students on inventions.

And we had words like inventive,

somebody who's good at making inventions,

to invent, think out of the box.

And what you can do is you can just, with another student,

another person, you can practice these words.

Are you inventive?

Mm, not really.

Do you like to invent things?

No.

Have you ever invented something?

Don't think so.

Would you like to invent something?

Well, maybe, but I need to think out of the box.

You see, it is just kind of lighthearted,

fun practice, but very effective.

Now, my pro tip number one,

keep a vocabulary journal where you jot down,

write down, new words and phrases

that you are learning every day.

And one example for each one.

Now I'm old school, so I actually use, you know,

literally a journal and a pen

and something small I can put in my pocket.

But you can also do this on your phone.

In fact, what I do when I'm learning French

is I do both.

So I've got a list of written words I've noted.

I then make an audio recording just saying

each word with a short phrase,

and I have that recording then of maybe 10 words.

And I listen to that when I'm going on my walk,

going to the park, whatever it is, right?

And so I'm recycling

and practicing that vocabulary all the time,

audio, speaking.

And there's a written record, multimedia.

You can take it a step further.

I mean, use AI.

Go and check out Google NotebookLM,

put in a list of the 10 words you are learning

and you can click a button and it'll make a podcast

all about those words,

just like that.

Absolutely brilliant.

So again, you are listening

and you can repeat those words as you're going, okay?

Sometimes students get nervous.

They think that there's too many words to review.

I just can't, I haven't got time.

Don't worry, right?

Relax, because a lot of the words,

you will naturally review when you look at other topics

and you have other conversations.

There's a lot of natural recycling in language.

Yes, you need to review,

but natural recycling also happens whenever you speak.

So don't sweat the small stuff, okay?

It's fine.

Great, that's it for vocabulary, next.

(title pops up)

Number two, make your speech sound natural,

like natural spoken English.

I know, easier said than done.

Here are some key things to think about, right?

First of all, don't recite English from books, yeah?

Because that's not how we speak.

Even reciting dialogues, I mean reading aloud,

because most dialogues, they're not natural,

they've just been invented.

That's not how we speak.

Much better is when you are listening

to audio or watching something, just repeat what you hear.

Repeat little phrases, repeat words,

repeat snippets of a conversation.

That is much more effective.

Secondly, spend time learning

and practicing some idiomatic language

and phrasal verbs.

In natural spoken English, we use phrasal verbs a lot.

We use a lot of idiomatic language, some idioms, okay?

So instead of saying, gosh,

I'm overworked, now actually, that's quite good,

instead of saying, I've got too much work, you can say,

I'm swamped,

I'm swamped with work.

Idiomatic language.

The thing is, do be careful.

Don't overuse idioms because we use them,

but they have to be

context-specific and suitable.

If you use too many, it doesn't sound natural.

So here is my pro tip number two for you.

When you come across nice phrasal verb,

when you come across idioms, if they sound complicated,

put them in your passive box.

So you've got two boxes,

there's a passive box and an active box of language.

Your passive box are things

that when you hear and see,

you'll understand.

The active box are things that you can actually use as well.

So when you discover idioms

and you think, oh, it's a bit complicated,

I don't really know how to use it, fine, study it.

Put it in the passive box.

When you come across, come across,

discover, idioms that sound simple

and easy to use, put them in your active box.

Use those, practice those, focus on those.

This will help you make sure you are confident

when you're using idioms and not using too many.

Pro tip number three,

when you're studying natural language, like idioms,

study idioms for specific topics.

We spoke earlier about specific IELTS topics like education,

health, transport.

Focus on idioms you can use for that topic.

This is what I do, again,

in my Gold live lessons for students on the course,

we look at specific idioms to talk about that topic.

It just helps make it more practical to use these idioms.

And then when you are in a conversation,

just take one idiom, just one,

and maybe it's in your notebook,

and try and use that in your conversation.

Don't try and use five, just choose one,

have it and see if you can use it naturally

in your conversation.

Where can you find these idioms?

Well, on my YouTube channel here,

there's lots of live lessons with idioms.

There's lots of videos of idioms.

I do have a video, a video, an idioms course,

"150 Idioms," around 30 IELTS topics.

Link down below if you are interested.

In the meantime, let's move on

to step number three.

(title pops up)

Right, step number three, build fluency through practice.

It's key, right?

Fluency is about being able

to express yourself and speak smoothly

without too many hesitations, uh, or pauses.

Pauses are good and necessary, but not too many.

One effective method for this is what I call

the slow down and speed up method.

So what you're doing is when you're saying

a phrase or say an answer for a question,

you say it normally.

You then say it again, slowing down,

and then you say it again, speeding up.

And this really helps you control everything.

You can also record yourself doing this.

Let me give you an example.

Let's take a question,

you know, where do you live?

I might say, I live in Santander.

It's a coastal city.

There's a lot of tourists come here.

It's very popular and I like it.

Number two, I slow down.

I live in, live in, I live in Santander.

It's a coastal city.

It's very popular.

A lot of tourists come here.

I really like it.

And what's happening in this step

is you are actually becoming

much more aware of, particularly, word stress,

sentence stress, and linking.

And you can really control your pronunciation

and fluency and you'll become

more aware of phrasing:

where you pause naturally in a sentence.

Step number three then is you then speed up.

This is more difficult,

but, I come from Santander, it's a coastal city.

There are a lot of tourists who come here.

It's really popular.

I really like it.

Don't worry if the answer changes a bit,

but you can see what's happening.

You're then speeding up.

This cycle, you can go around again and again,

slow down, speed up.

It's really powerful, okay?

Now, in addition, why not try shadowing?

I think, it's again, a really good technique

for fluency and for intonation.

So you take an audio, maybe 20 seconds

or 30 seconds, you listen and as you are listening,

you say what you hear.

You are like a fraction of a second behind them.

So you're listening and you're saying it on top.

It's great for focus, intonation,

and it does help your fluency,

I think, in my humble opinion.

Another thing you can do for fluency

is use signposts, connectors,

what we call discourse markers.

These small phrases

or templates, they just help you connect your ideas.

Firstly, next, on the other hand,

and then, so, but, that said,

to sum up, things like this,

I mean, don't obsess about them.

This is not IELTS writing.

They don't need to be perfect.

Most of them will be very simple,

but they do help your fluency and coherence,

which is making sure your ideas flow

with some kind of logic.

That's the idea.

My pro tip number four is practice with a partner,

even recording both of you, together,

answering IELTS questions, but,

and this is the key thing,

use this opportunity to focus on communication,

not on accuracy.

Don't worry about mistakes.

Mistakes are good, it's fine, but that's not the focus.

The focus is communication and fluency.

So just talk.

Just speak out, talk to each other, communicate.

Forget about the mistakes.

The mistakes are on holiday.

It's a holiday mistake.

No, it's a mistake holiday.

We don't worry about them.

We just focus on communication

and this will really help you with your fluency.

The more you practice,

the better and the more natural you will sound.

Let's move on.

(title pops up)

In IELTS speaking, you need to use

a wide range of grammar, but use it accurately.

There's that balance, right?

You want to build both accuracy and the range.

The first step for that

is to make sure you've got

your basic grammar foundation solid and that you can use it.

Here's the thing.

Most students I think make a big mistake

is that when it comes to grammar,

they mainly focus on studying, learning the rules,

reading and practicing with exercises,

written exercises, right?

Your gap fill exercise, for example,

or transposing exercise, and that's fine,

but really then what happens

is they come to speak and they make mistakes.

They can't speak it out

'cause they've learned it

through reading and writing, whereas,

that's good, but I think you should mainly practice

through speaking, not through written exercises.

So yes, I mean, discover the grammar through context,

discover the rules and maybe a teacher can help you,

or most course books will show it to you,

but then practice it through speaking mainly

'cause that's how you're gonna get

more confidence and use it more accurately, okay?

One of my courses,

the "Fluent Grammar Course for IELTS Speaking,"

it does this, it's a course

where you learn grammar through speaking and listening.

There's no writing at all.

So naturally, when you come to use it,

you've been learning it by speaking,

of course you can use it when you speak.

That's the key.

That's how you make sure

you can use grammar when you're speaking,

not just have it up here.

Okay, let's move on.

(title pops up)

Step number five is to boost

your confidence in speaking.

Confidence is crucial in IELTS speaking, right,

in English conversations, communication,

it's all about confidence,

particularly true in the IELTS speaking test.

The key to confidence is practice,

consistent, repetitive practice.

It also does help if you familiarize yourself

with the different IELTS question types.

You can find these on my website.

I've got lots of videos on YouTube.

Just search for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

You'll find different question types for the test.

It can also help.

There are many ways to build confidence.

The first way is just talking.

I mean, talk with a mirror.

It can help.

Talk to the mirror, to yourself.

Talk with AI.

For goodness sake, there are no excuses anymore.

ChatGPT, Gemini, there are lots of apps developed.

Most of them you can try for free

and just practice speaking with them.

Just that idea of not communicating,

but just practicing your speaking,

stringing a sentence together and use AI, right?

Another thing to do, I think,

is to do more practice where you are improvising

rather than reciting or reading aloud.

I think what some students do is they have a question,

they have an answer, they repeat it again

and again as many times as possible.

I suggest you don't do that.

I suggest you have a question, you give a natural answer,

and then every time you answer, you give a different answer.

Change your answer, build your flexibility,

and build your ability to improvise.

It's much more important.

Another thing you can do is take a topic like education,

take five words from your notepad

and talk for 20 seconds.

You've got topic, five words.

Then just talk, 20 seconds.

Then, do it again, but for 40 seconds

and then do it again,

but for 60 seconds,

and just practice this speaking and developing

your ideas and speaking for a longer-term.

And remember when you're doing this,

it's okay to pause and to take time to think about

what you're going to say.

That's fine in IELTS.

You can take time and pause.

We're not looking for perfection,

we're looking for fluency and confidence building.

My my next pro tip

is try practicing with strangers, right?

There are lots of language platforms out there.

You can practice or find a speaking partner.

On my Gold course,

we have breakout rooms where you meet other people

on the course, speak with them around the world.

But that idea of speaking

to a stranger is gonna help build your confidence,

ideally someone of the same level, right?

What you do is you begin to learn

how to communicate with other people.

You become culturally aware of other people

and their cultures, how they talk, how they think,

and just going out of your comfort zone a little bit,

because the truth is, in real-life,

and in the IELTS test, you will be out of your comfort zone.

And if you are not used to that,

you are gonna be nervous and you won't perform well.

If you've spoken to lots of other people around the world,

you'll be used to it

and you'll be much more confident as well, okay?

So global connections, more confidence.

Let's move on.

So final thoughts.

Remember, preparing for IELTS speaking

and becoming fluent in English

or more fluent, it takes time, it takes practice,

and it takes patience.

Another thing to remember

is the exam for IELTS speaking.

Exam technique is only about 10 to 20%.

The other 80%

or more is about speaking good English.

It's your overall speaking ability.

That's where you should focus your time, right?

So focus on your vocabulary, speaking naturally,

building your fluency,

having a solid grammar base you can use

and building your confidence

and then you'll be well on your way

to getting the score you desire for your IELTS speaking

and becoming a more fluent speaker of English.

Remember, you know, the key to success,

it is practice, but it's also a positive attitude.

Always look at what you can do.

Don't look at what you can't do.

Don't think I can't do that.

I make mistakes, I can't.

No, this is what I can do.

This is what I can do,

day by day, getting better.

That positive mindset is really important

for your motivation as well.

So keep going.

Thank you so much for watching this.

If you want to get more guidance

or more resources, you can check out

the links below to the website, to the courses,

and if they're right for you, go ahead and use them.

In the meantime, have a great day

and I'll see you maybe in the next video.

Take care my friend. Bye-bye.

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