IELTS Speaking Format

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IELTS Speaking Format
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Interview, Part One

• Lets talk about your home town or village.
• What kind of place is it?
• Whats the most interesting part of your
  town/village?
• What kind of jobs do people in your town/village
  do?
• Would you say it is a good place to live? Why?

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Interview, Part Two

• Describe a teacher who has significantly inspired
  you in your education.
• You should say
• where you met them
• what subject they taught
• what was special about them
• Explain why this person inspired you.

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Interview, Part Three

• Developments in education
• - (describe) changes over the last ten years in
  your country
• - (compare) your experience of education with
  that of your parents or grandparents
• - (speculate) on likely changes in the next
  fifty years
• A national education system
• - (describe) your countrys aims for education
• - (compare) expectations of todays
  school-leavers with previous generations
• - (evaluate) advantages/disadvantages of
  grouping learners by ability
• Different styles/methods of teaching and
  learning
• - (describe) teaching styles/methods for
  different age-groups in your country
• - (suggest) your preferred method of learning
• - (evaluate) advantages/disadvantages of grouping
  learners by ability

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Speaking Contexts

• IELTS? Pt 1everyday interaction? Pt 2
  extended talk --topic development? Pt 3
  express ideas, opinions on broad topics

• Academic Settings? interactive/informational
  --classes/labs --study groups --office
  hours? semi-formal --academic seminars?
  formal--presentations

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Speaking skills

• Fluency/coherence
• Lexical Resource
• Grammatical Range/Accuracy
• Individual presentation to whole class

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Research on Speaking

• A. Brown (2006)What features of speech
  distinguish candidate performance?F/C total
  amount of speechL/R no linear increase in
  sophisticationGRA little difference in
  complexity increase in accuracy

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Implications for instruction

• Fluency extended talk topic development
• Lexical Resource terminology may not be as
  important as idiom
• Grammatical range develop accuracy (but dont
  impede fluency)

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Speaking tasks

• Presentations to small groups
• Seminar discussions
• Group presentation to whole class
• Individual presentation to whole class

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Caveats

• Key academic activities cant be covered in
  tests? reflection over time? synthesis of
  different ideas? development of language w/in
  knowledge context
• Teaching to the test reduces meaningful discourse