10 tips to improve your IELTS speaking skills

The aim of this lesson is to give you different practice activities for the speaking test. While most of the activities are based on IELTS speaking questions, the idea is to improve your skills and not just practise answering questions. The reason for this is that practice tests are not enough by themselves; if you want to get better, you need to improve how you speak and that means thinking about speaking as a skill.

这课的目标是给你的口语提供多样的练习方法。大多数方法都是基于雅思口语练习，这些方法会提高你的口语技巧，而不仅仅是练习回答问题。原因是仅仅为考试练习是远远不够的。要是你还想更高更强的话，你还得注意你怎么说，这意味着将说话当做一门技巧。

1. Record yourself and then write down your answer 自己录音再写下答案

This is something everyone should try. It is almost certainly a bad idea to write your answer first and then speak it. This is because we speak and write in very different ways and it is a mistake to try and train yourself to speak in the way you write. But you can learn a lot from recording what you say and then writing that down word for word.

这个方法每个人都要试一下！先写答案再说出来绝对不是个好方法！因为说话和写作是不一样的，用写作的方式来训练口语是行不通滴~但是你可以通过录下自己的答案，再一字一句地听着写下来，这样会进步很多~

Things you can learn are:

这样你可以了解到：

Do you say enough? Do you give very short answers? In parts 1 and 3, you should say at least a couple of sentences in answer to every question.

你说的足够多了吗？答案会不会太短？在Part1和Part3，回答每个问题至少要说几个句子。

Is what you say organised? Can you see a structure to your answer? Is it possible to put in sentences and paragraph breaks? Do you have some organisation language like “The first point is..”

你是如何组织的？答案中看得出结构吗？能把句子和段落放到这个结构中吗？有没有结构性的语言？

Do you speak too slowly or too quickly? Try counting the words in your part 2 answer. Most of my answers as a native speaker are about 240 words long. You should probably aim for around 200 or so. Less than that and you are speaking too slowly, but if you have more than that, it may be that you are speaking too quickly.

有没有说得过快或过慢？试着数一下Part2 你的答案的字数，一般native speaker能说到240字左右，烤鸭们一般要写到200字左右。如果字数少于这个值，那说明你讲话太慢，如果超过了，说明你讲话太快~~

How long are your pauses? You can pause, but your pauses should generally come between sentences/paragraphs and they shouldn’t be more than 2/3 of seconds.

你停顿多久？一般应该在句子和段落间停顿，而且不超过2-3秒。

Did you answer the question?

你回答清楚问题了吗？

Is your pronunciation okay? If you can’t immediately understand what you say, the examiner won’t either!

你的语音可以吗？如果你不能听懂自己在说什么，那考官也不会听懂。

Are there some words you repeat a lot? You probably shouldn’t worry too much about content words such as “television” – native speakers will repeat those a lot when speaking. Rather you should look at more functional words/phrases such as “I think”. It’s very easy to repeat these a lot and it is also quite simple to train yourself to use more variety.

有没有重复很多词？不要担心重复实义词，即使是native speaker也会一直重复，因为你讲的就是这个东西~不过，你应该重点检查功能词汇，比如“I think” ，烤鸭们很容易老重复这些词，不过让自己练习用不同的词也不是难事。

2. Do it first in your own language 先用母语说

This is perhaps an unusual piece of advice. In the speaking, you should aim to be thinking and speaking in English as much as possible and not translating from your language to English. It can, however, sometimes help to practise the long turn part 2 in your own language first:

一般来说，最好是能用英语思维思考，并用英语回答。但是像Part2这种比较长的题目， 先用母语说可能会好一点。

some people struggle to speak in their own language for 2 minutes: they prefer short/concise answers and not longer more discussion type answers. So before you try it in English, make sure you can do it in your first language.

有的人就算用自己的语言说，也会很困难，他们会说一些短句子，而不是讨论型的长句子，所以，在你用英语表达之前，先让你自己用母语能够说清楚。

It helps you understand how long 2 minutes is and how much you need to say to fill that time.

这会帮你了解2分钟有多长，能说多少东西

if you record and listen to yourself in your first language, you will probably find yourself using quite a lot of “structure” language such as “As I mentioned before”. This is a lot of the language you need for part 2.

如果用母语录音然后听，你可能会发现自己用了很多结构性语句，比如“像我之前说到的”，这就是在第二部分你需要用到的！

3. Don’t practise the whole part 2, do it bit by bit 不要一口吃成胖子，练习第二部分，慢慢来

Some people find part 2 frightening because they are worried they can’t speak for 2 minutes. Relax. You don’t have to. It’s much easier than that, you need to speak for不要担心2分钟很长，其实你要说的不过是：20秒+20秒+20秒+1分钟！
20 seconds
20 seconds
20 seconds
I minute
This is because there are always 4 points for you to talk about on the cue card. You want to try practising talking about the first 3 points on the cue card for about 20 seconds each (the who, where, what type questions). Make sure you don’t say “last year”, but you extend that a little . Then all you need to do is talk for 1 minute on the longer question at the end that is almost always about explaining something.

这是因为在题目卡上总是会有4个要点，你可以先练习前三点分别说20秒，不要太简略，稍微扩展一点。然后用最后一分钟来解释。

4. Practise by describing photographs 通过描述照片来练习

In the exam of course you don’t get any photograph to help you. It would probably be easier if you did because when you have a photograph, you can see what you need to talk about. The idea is here that if you learn to see pictures as you are speaking, you find more things to say. I suggest:

考试时，并没有照片给你提示，如果有的话可能会容易一点，因为你就知道要说什么了~所以平时可以拿照片来练习，让自己找到更多可说的！以下是几个建议：

find a picture about an IELTS topic e.g. a picture of a wedding – describe what you see 找一些跟考试题目相关的照片
then try talking about the same topic without the picture 然后不用照片试着将同样的事情
in the exam itself, all you need to do is imagine a picture in your head 在考试中，自己想象一张图片
What I strongly suggest is that you look at your own photographs, as what you will need to speak about are your own memories. 而且强烈建议看你自己的照片，因为你需要说的是你自己的memories

5. Read then speak 先读再说！

sometimes ideas. This idea is a very simple one. When you read a passage in English, you should then try and summarise what it says speaking. The ways this works is:

先读英语，然后试着用自己的话把它复述出来。这可以训练你：

To summarise a reading text, you are going to need to use some of the words used in it

总结阅读文本，抓住关键词

If you say the word aloud, you have learnt that word better and are more likely to us fit for yourself in the future

当你大声说出来，能能学好这个词，并且以后自己用着更顺口

If the text is longer, you should find yourself having to list the different points it contains. This should help the coherence of your speaking as you will need to use language like “Firstly…then… next …”etc

如果文章太长，那么应该自己找到几个要点，如果用一些逻辑联系词会让你说起来更连贯

Two extremely good sources for this type of reading is 6 minute English and my favourite Words in the News. It sometimes helps to choose 5 words from the text you are reading that you want to use when you speak.

6分钟英语和世界新闻都是不错的听力资源。可以从中选5个词用在你的口语中。

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