5 Steps to improve your IELTS Speaking Score

No money to join the costly IELTS courses, don’t worry. Here are five steps to improve your score at home. In this post, I will show you step to improve your IELTS speaking, all are the advice of the IELTS examiner. So, Let’s get started

Step 1: Find the topic and develop the ideal

Don’t worry because it doesn’t mean you have to do too much at first. To find topics, there are so many lists of common topics for IELTS speaking. All you have to do is to research them on the internet. As an idea, you don’t have to write down your entire answer, either. You just need to think about the ideals you want to talk about when you think of a certain topic. For example with the topic of interests, your ideals could be:

• What’s your hobby?
• How much time do you spend on that hobby?
• Do you think hobbies are more and more important?
• What if a person spends too much time on his hobby?

For example IELTS Speaking Test Samples Full Part 1,2,3: Topic 8 – Hobbies, Childhood, and Childhood room

Step 2: Get the list of vocabulary

The second step is to find a list of high-scoring vocabulary words for that topic. For example, with the topic of hobbies, the word “like” is a word that is already quite popular and does not score very well. You can replace it with

• I’m interested in
• I’m keen on
• I’m a big fan of
• It’s my cup of tea
• I’m really into

To find out that vocabulary, let’s check “The IELTS vocabulary for Hobbies”, you will get a bundle of words.

Step 3: Record yourself

Next, record yourself. From the questions and vocabulary, you already have, answer each question in less than 60 seconds. Keep your phone by your side and record your answers. Recording instead of writing. When writing, you will pay too much attention to grammar. When you speak, you will have a certain fluency. By recording yourself, you can find out your weakness. Knowing your limitations will be an extremely important step toward improving your score.

Step 4: Listen and Check

This is the most important step which is to listen again and self-assess your answers. Not just a simple self-assessment, you need to depend on the following 4 factors, These are also the factors that the examiner will rely on to score your speaking test including:

• Fluency
• Pronunciation
• Vocabulary
• Grammar

These 4 factors will be evaluated equally, 25% score for each one. Specifically, for each factor, please answer the following questions to self-assess your answer.

First, about fluency, answer the following questions:

• What is the length of your answer?
• Can you develop a long answer? Can you maintain the answer as long as you can? The length of the answer can reflect your fluency.
• How many filler words do you use like Uhm, oh…
• How many times do you keep silent or hesitate?
• You can have good fluency if you can keep your speech smooth. The less time you use Uhm, oh, or hesitate in your speech, the higher score you can get.

Second, in terms of pronunciation, you should ask yourself

• Do you pronounce the word correctly?
• Do you pronounce each sound correctly?
• Do you have intonation in your speaking?

Third, let’s check your vocabulary

Check the range of your vocabulary by answering:

• Do I paraphrase or do I keep using the same words?
• Are there any words that appear more than three times in my answers?
• Do I make mistake in using collocation?

If your answer is repeated too many times for a certain word, try to use synonyms. For example, instead of saying “I like”, you should replace it with “I’m keen on”, “I quite enjoy”, etc.

Another thing to look at is the grammar:

Again, you’ll need to check the “range” of the grammar. As for tenses, for example, are you using tenses flexibly in your answer? You’ll probably get simple questions, but that doesn’t mean you’ll just use simple tenses in your answers.

The next factor is “sentence structure”. Ask yourself if you are using a lot of compound and complex sentences, or if most of the sentences you use are simple. You can try to combine the simple sentences you used in the recording into compound sentences, your answer will be greatly appreciated.

Don’t forget to check whether đo you make any mistakes in your sentence.

Step 5: Practice and record again

Finally, what I always tell you in all my videos is to practice every day. Don’t worry, because I’m always here to answer your questions and give you advice on improving your English.

Thus, 5 steps for you to improve your IELTS speaking score by yourself are:

1. Find the topic and develop the ideal
2. Get the list of vocabulary
3. Record yourself
4. Listen and Check
5. Practice and record again

I have also put together elements and questions to help you self-assess your speech in the following table.

Learn more:

• IELTS Speaking part 1 Ban 9 samples
• Phrasal Verbs for IELTS Speaking
• 19 Useful Idioms To Help You Get Band 8.0+