FLUENCY

Fluency relates to your ability to speak with a continuous flow with fewer pauses, language-related hesitation,
repetition and self-correction. Simply put, the examiners are looking to see that the candidates are “able and willing
to speak”.

Do not let your search for fancier vocabulary or grammar bring you to a stop while speaking. The goal is to produce
long turns. What does that mean? Keep talking! And do not be offended if the examiner stops you. (That is a good
sign!) However, do not ramble on, either! I will explain this more in the section on Coherence. And as a last point, if
you catch yourself making a mistake, do not go back to correct it. This is called self-correction and will cost you.
Focusing on your mistakes means that you are not fluent. So, forget about the mistakes and just keep talking.

COHERENCE

Coherence relates to three key things:

• Logical organisation of ideas.

• Cohesive devices and discourse markers.
• Topic development.

COHESIVE DEVICES AND DISCOURSE MARKERS

Cohesive devices are incredibly essential in your IELTS test preparation and refer to any word or phrase that
connects ideas.

To improve your Coherence score, you should develop a flexible command of cohesive devices. You know that the
questions in Part 1 are about you. So, any discourse marker that helps you establish that can help, for example:

• In my opinion
• Honestly speaking
• To tell the truth

In part 2, you will need to speak for 2 minutes without stopping, which means more connectors are needed. Think of
your starters, mid-talk connectors, and finishers. Practice with a variety of connecting devices at home.

What are discourse markers then? Well, very simply they are words or phrases that signal to the listener either what
type of information you are going to give next, or how you feel about that information. There are literally dozens of
these in English.

Adverbs that signal how you feel about what you are going to say next:

• Unfortunately
• Luckily, Thankfully
• Obviously, Clearly, Of course
• Naturally, Understandably
• Stupidly. Foolishly
• Honestly
• Amazingly

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A phrase that signals the type of information you are going to give next:

• Basically
• In fact
• As you know
• On the whole
• Generally

A phrase that changes the topic of discussion or moves it forward:

• Anyway
• Another problem, Another point, Another reason
• I just want to add

A phrase that shows you want to return to a previous subject:

• Like I said,
• Going back to
• As I was saying

As I said, this is NOT an exhaustive list of all of the discourse markers in English. However, there is more than enough
here for any IELTS test-takers to use to get a 7.0 or higher. However, the key to getting a high score for IELTS
Speaking Fluency and Coherence is being able to use these words and phrases naturally. The best way to do this is to
expose yourself to as much spoken English as you can. Listen to the British or American radio; watch TV shows;
download podcasts. You will find that all native speakers use these expressions (and more) in their speech, so
listening to them doing so naturally is usually all you need to start using them yourself.

OTHER ASPECTS OF IELTS SPEAKING FLUENCY AND COHERENCE

In fact, discourse markers are only one element of cohesion. There are other speech features that the examiners will
be listening for in your exam.

• Using referencing: Are you able to use pronouns like he / she / it to refer back to people or things you have
already mentioned. Or “this” to summarise an idea?
• Logically sequencing your ideas: Are you able to organise your ideas in a way that is easy to follow? Or is the
examiner confused because there are details missing, or you are repeating ideas?
• Giving answers that are relevant: How relevant are your spoken sentences in relation to the question given
(this usually comes into play more in Part 3)?
• Using fillers naturally: Are you able to use short phrases like “um” or “you know” or “like” between content
words to “fill” the short pauses between your ideas?
• Using pausing naturally: Do you PAUSE naturally to show when one idea has ended and another is about to
begin? Or are you able to end a turn in Part 3 to give the examiner chance to ask another question. This is
called turn-taking and is a feature of high-level candidates.

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TOPIC DEVELOPMENT

Any answer should have a beginning, a middle and an end. So, when your examiner asks you what your favourite
colour is, do not just say “yellow”. As unnatural as it is, remember that you need to show “willingness to speak”. So,
follow these 4 steps:

1. Never answer with just one word. Make full sentences. “My favourite colour is yellow”.
2. After answering each question, explain your answer by adding more details or paraphrasing your previous
statement. “I can’t really explain it, but I remember that ever since I was little, I was drawn to anything
yellow”.
3. Keep talking! If you can’t think of a real example, you can make up a childhood memory or a piece of news.
Remember, even if it is fake, it is acceptable as long as the language is correct. The examiner is not there to
fact-check you; they just want to assess your English language skills! “I remember one time I stood in front of
a store full of yellow items in the window, and I was begging my mom to buy them for me. I was 6, and the
store was a hardware store full of power tools! But I wanted them because they were yellow!”
4. Don’t talk forever. That is very important. If you want a high mark in Coherence, you should know when to
wrap it up. To finish your answer, repeat your main answer to the question again: “So, I guess when I say
yellow is my favourite colour, I am not exaggerating!”

When you practice, try to speak for 15-20 seconds for each answer in Part 1, 2 minutes for Part 2, and over a minute
for each Part 3 question. This gives the examiner a chance to keep to the standard timing without having to interrupt
your flow.

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Some Common Spoken Discourse Markers

Sequencing - the first thing, first of all, firstly, the next one, moving on to the next reason, secondly,
Ordering thirdly, subsequently, on top of that, later, after this, finally.
Information

Adding Information another thing that comes to mind, also, and, besides, additionally, another good example
of this is, another reason for this, and one more thing.

Indicating Opinion & unfortunately, however, actually, to be honest, definitely, essentially, frankly, basically,
Attitude clearly, I'm afraid, if you ask me, sadly, thankfully, in fact, seriously, as a matter of fact, in
my view, from my point of view.

Comparing similarly, in the same way, equally, likewise, in a similar fashion, if I compare it to my
country.

Contrasting however, although, instead of, despite, on one hand, on the other hand, in the opposite
way, in contrast, whereas.

Giving Examples a great example of this is, for example, for instance, a personal example is, in other words,
a striking example of this, a classic example is, a clear example of this can be seen, such as,
illustrated by.

Stalling let me think about that..., I haven't thought of that before, well..., actually, basically.

Result as a result, because of this, therefore, consequently, so, then.

Generalising generally, broadly speaking, as a rule, on the whole, it is often said that..., in most cases,
the vast majority of, a small minority of.
A Note

View as a noun

View as a noun means a belief, opinion or idea about something:

• I don’t have strong views on religion. (Or I don’t have strong views about religion.)
• What are your views on climate change? (Or What are your views about climate change?)

We can introduce our ideas with in my view or from my point of view:

• In my view, everyone should stay in school until they are 18.

• Not: In my point of view …
• I spent two months working in England. From my point of view, that was the easiest way to learn English.
• Not: In my point of view … or On my point of view …

Warning:

We use from my point of view to express how we see something or how it affects us personally.

When we are expressing our beliefs or opinions, we use in my opinion or in my view.

Compare

From my point of view, driving is not a good option. I get very In my opinion/In my view, in 100 years’ time
tired if I drive more than about two hours. people will still be wearing jeans.

A general opinion about the clothes people will

How the speaker is personally affected by something.
be wearing in 100 years’ time.

We can use point of view as a noun phrase in the singular or plural:

• If you ask people how the economic crisis affects them, you will get many different points of view.

We can also use view to refer to what we can see from a particular place:

• The view from my window is amazing.

• We booked a room with a view, but our room was overlooking the car park.

View as a verb

We also use view as a verb to mean ‘hold an opinion’:

• How does your company view unions? (What is the company’s opinion of unions?)
• Changes are often viewed with suspicion.

In formal contexts, we can use view to mean ‘watch or look at something’:

• The DVD can also be viewed on your PC.

View can also mean ‘look at a house when you are thinking of buying or renting it’:

• We’re still looking for a house. We’ve viewed ten places already and we didn’t like any of them.
Lexical Resource

Flexibility

It is important to vary your vocabulary when you’re writing or speaking is being assessed, and one way to do that is
to use different parts of speech of a word. For example, if you hear a verb in your Speaking test question, you can
reply with a noun or an adjective. Here is a sample question:

“Do you prefer fast food or traditional food?”

Instead of answering with “I prefer fast food because…”, you can try:

Actually, I have a preference for fast food for the reason that …”

Well, I’d say I have more of a preference for traditional cuisine because …”

Personally speaking, I find traditional food more preferable given that …”

In these examples, you can see the candidate use the noun form (preference) and the adjective form (preferable)
instead of just copying the word ‘prefer’ which is used by the examiner.

Collocations

Good use of collocations is important in your IELTS Writing and Speaking tests. Collocations are how particular words
and phrases are grouped together. Using the previous example of ‘preference’, we need to think about which other
words belong with it when we use it. In this case, the verb ‘have’ belongs with it (along with the article ‘a’), plus the
preposition ‘for’.

Therefore, the full collocation of the noun form is:

have a preference for

As for the full collocation of the adjective form, you can use:

find (something) more preferable

Less Common Words

One way to show the examiner you have a wide range of vocabulary is to use vocabulary that is less
common. However, please remember that it is not a good idea to use vocabulary like this repetitively.

Let’s look at the sample question from earlier and compare these two responses:

1. I prefer traditional food because it is much tastier than …

2. I am quite partial to traditional food because it is much tastier than …

What you ‘prefer’ and what you are ‘partial to’ have the same meaning, but in the second example, this is more
useful in your response because this collocation is not used very often. Please note that whenever using fewer
common words, you should always ensure you are using them in the right context.

One of the challenges of Task 1 in the IELTS General Writing test is when you have an informal letter. Quite often,
less common vocabulary tends to be formal, so the difficulty here is to think of less common language that is
informal instead. The second challenge here is to make sure the informal language you do choose is appropriate as
well.

Here are two different sentences which say the same thing, but the second one has less common informal language.

So, if you are still really interested in visiting my hometown anytime soon, give me a call.

So, if you are still itching to visit my neck of the woods anytime soon, give me a buzz.
What is Grammatical Range?

First, what does “Grammatical Range” really mean? Range refers to showing a wide variety of different language
structures.

Sentences with only one subject and one verb are simple structures. Whereas sentences with more than one subject
and verb are complex.

Look at the two possible responses to a question below:

• Examiner: “What is one of your happy childhood memories?”

• Candidate 1: “I went on a family vacation to Miami and it was so fun.”
• Candidate 2: Driving to Miami with my family was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I would
love to take that trip again if I could.

While both candidates give correct responses, we can see that Candidate 2’s answer is better, but why?

Candidate 1 spoke in a full sentence with two clauses. This shows they can use simple sentence structures and join
ideas together with connecting words.

Candidate 2 used a gerund as a subject, and a past tense clause combined with a future tense clause. They then
went on to use a second conditional sentence. This is an example of a complex sentence that examiners are looking
for when they mark IELTS Speaking candidates on Grammatical Range.

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Some More Example of Complex Grammar Showing Range

Basic Grammar Complex Grammar

These days, people of all generations can be found active

on social media, because it helps them to connect with
These days everyone is on social media. friends and family across physical and time differences.

Instagram has become increasingly popular over the past

Instagram is popular with many people these days. several years.

If students have part-time jobs, they can earn money. By having a part-time job, a student can be self-sufficient
Then, they can use this money to buy school supplies and can purchase not only school supplies but also
and uniforms. a uniform.

If people exercise every day, they will have good physical By exercising daily, people have the potential to stay
and mental health. fit both physically and mentally.

If English language learners watched TED talks on the Were English language learners to watch TED talks on
internet, they would expand their knowledge. As a YouTube, they would be able to expand their content
result, they would be more intelligent. knowledge, thus becoming more intelligent.

What is Grammatical Accuracy?

The IELTS Speaking examiner looks for a variety of language structures, and a high level of accuracy. This means you
should balance your attempts at complex language with how many grammar mistakes you make. Everyone makes
small errors, even fluent English speakers. However, if your grammar mistakes make it difficult to understand your
meaning, they will lower your score on the IELTS Speaking test.

Another potential problem is if you make systematic grammar errors. This means that you make the same mistake
many times. It implies that you do not know the correct language to use. Consider the following two responses:

• Examiner: “How do you like to celebrate your birthday?”

• Candidate 1: “Celebrate my birthday is so fun for me because is my special day.”
• Candidate 2: “Celebrating my birthday is so fun for me because is my special day.”
• [Correct: Celebrating my birthday is so fun for me because it is my special day.]

Both candidates make at least one mistake, but Candidate 2’s answer is better because they make fewer mistakes.

Candidate 2 shows a better understanding of English grammar and makes fewer mistakes. Although they forget a
subject (“it”), they correctly use “celebrating” as the subject in the first clause.

Candidate 1, however, fails to use a subject in the first and second clauses, showing a lack of grammatical
knowledge. Try to avoid making the same error repeatedly or too many mistakes in general.
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How Can I Score Well in Grammatical Range & Accuracy?

Now that you know how the IELTS examiner evaluates your grammatical range and accuracy, how can you improve?
Make sure you are familiar with and can use the following structures. This is not an exhaustive list, but should be
enough for band score of 7.

Avoid Using Only Simple Patterns

Push yourself to use complex sentences with more than one clause. Conditionals, relative clauses, and subordination
are useful strategies for making your sentences complex.

Connecting Phrases

Join your clauses together with conjunctions (and, but, because, so, although, however, therefore, etc.). Give
information about the nouns in your sentences by using relative pronouns (which, who, that, where, when).

Adverbs

Adverbs can elevate your language by modifying verbs and adding your opinion to sentences. Try using comment
adverbs at the beginning of your sentences (e.g., fortunately, unfortunately, ideally, basically, in fact, actually, etc.).

Indirect Questions

English learners tend to avoid using indirect questions, although fluent English speakers often use them. Therefore,
you can impress your examiner by using one or two. Just remember to put the subject before the verb. For example,
“I don’t remember how old I was when I got my first pet.”

Passive Voice

Put the object at the beginning of the sentence followed by the conjugated verb “be” and the past participle. This
structure can sound more formal, as well as add variety to your sentences. It could be as simple as “I was invited to a
party” or “my sweater is made of wool”. Find out more about the passive voice.

Use a Variety of Verb Tenses

If you only use simple present and past verbs, the examiner will think those are the only tenses you know. Include
some present perfect and past continuous, for example, to demonstrate your range.

Gerunds as Subjects

Using a gerund verb as a subject is a simple way to show grammatical range. (Note: Notice the word “using” in the
above sentence is a gerund turned into the subject.)

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Pronunciation Features

You have to be able to use different features of pronunciation to succeed in IELTS Speaking. We will explore the main
features below.

Individual Sounds

Use the pronunciation chart which contains vowel and consonant sounds of English. They are arranged according to
how you shape your mouth (left to right, lips wide / round – top to bottom, jaw closed / open).

Each word in English is made up of these sounds. Learning how to pronounce individual sounds correctly is
important because this will help you identify the sounds which are difficult for you to pronounce or you have
problems with. Pay attention to similar sounds (/p/ and /b/, /r/ and /l/, /t/ and /d/, etc.), consonant clusters (sht,
cht, etc.), long and short vowels ( book, look, boot, food etc.), silent letters (knight, comb, lamb, etc.)

Word Stress

It is critical to stress the right syllables in words, Otherwise, the person listening to you might feel confused. Each
word has a certain number of syllables. One or two of them have to be pronounced more strongly than others. For
example, cerTIficate, sucCESS, eXAM, etc. Be careful with words that have the same root. Very often the word stress
changes together with the part of speech. For example, as in: PHOtograph (n), phoTOgrapher (n), photoGRAphic
(adj.), ADdict (n), adDICtion (n), Attribute (n), aTTRIbute (v), etc. Very often the word stress in verbs in on the second
syllable if there is a choice which syllable to stress.

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Sentence Stress

Like there are more emphasized syllables in words, there are words in sentences that carry most of the stress, thus
the most meaning. But which words to stress? English is a stress-timed language, which means that the stress occurs
in sentences at regular intervals, some of the words are emphasized while others are pronounced quicker and more
silently. They are content and function words. Content words are important because they carry meaning: nouns,
verbs, adjectives or adverbs. Function words are there for grammar purposes and do not carry any meaning:
pronouns, prepositions, articles. Have a look at this sentence, and try to guess which words are going to be stressed:

I’d like to go to the night market to buy some presents for my family.

All the underlined words are content words. Try to emphasize them, and you will see there is a certain rhythm in the
sentence.

Which words are you going to stress the most? Those will be sentence stresses. If you stress another word, the
meaning of the sentence might change. Try reading the following sentences and stress the words in capital letters.
What have you noticed?

I’d like to go to the night market to buy some presents for my FAMILY.

I’d like to go to the NIGHT market to buy some presents for my family.

I’d like to go to the night market to buy some PRESENTS for my family.

It’s a good idea to record yourself. This will eliminate the pressure you may feel at being asked to speak
spontaneously and will enable you to give your best version of your speech.

Strong And Weak Forms

When the words in sentences are not stressed they become weak, and their sounds also change. For example,
vowels turn into schwa, the last consonants are not pronounced at all, etc:

Tell him to go – strong forms /hɪm/ /tu:/- weak form: /tel əm tə gəʊ/

I would like some fish and chips – strong forms /aɪ wʊd laɪk sʌm fɪʃ ænd tʃɪps/ – weak form: /ɑ wəd laɪk səm fɪʃ ən
tʃɪps/

The problem is that students learning English use the strong form most of the time. That is why they often sound
very unnatural. English speakers always use weak forms, every single sentence is full of them, and students find it
difficult to understand because they are not used to them, and very often they don’t even know they exist. But now
you know how to pronounce them correctly.

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Linking

If you think it’s difficult to understand native speakers, that is because they link words. Very often the last sounds
and the first sounds of some words change: consonants link to vowels, vowels link to vowels, sometimes sound
double up, etc. This is done to make the language easier to say, and faster, for example:

‘I don’t know’ /I duno/

In ‘pick it up’ – you will hear something like “pi ki tup”.

‘I want to/ w/eat’ and ‘Please do/ w/it’.

Intonation

When our voice rises and falls when we speak – this is intonation. In English, there are three main patterns of
intonation:

falling intonation is very common in wh-questions, statements, commands, questions tags, and exclamations:

How many books have you ↘bought?

Dad wants to change his ↘car.

Show me what you’ve ↘written.

He thinks he’s so clever, doesn’t ↘he?

What an interesting ↘ film!

rising intonation is normally used with yes/no questions:

Do you like this new ↗movie?

fall-rise intonation is used at the end of statements when we want to say that we are not sure, or when we may have
more to add, and with questions, especially when we request information or invite somebody to do or to have
something:

I ↘ don’t support any football team at the ↘mo↗ment. (but I may change my mind in the future).

Would you like another co↘ff↗ee?

The best way to improve your pronunciation is to listen and copy. You have to speak, read aloud, record yourself,
and practice, practice, practice.

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IELTS Speaking – What You Need to Know about Part 3
You probably know that the third part of IELTS Speaking is a discussion of abstract topics connected with Part 2. At
first, some students have no clue what they can say during 45 seconds, so uncomfortable lapses of silence occur.

1. Silence Is Not an Option

This is the first thing you need to understand. If you keep silent even for 5-7 seconds, you lose your fluency. One way
to avoid this is to use fillers that give you some seconds to think.

The best strategy is to talk and let the examiner take care of timing. Just do your best to speak, speak, speak and
then stop speaking when you see that examiner is about to ask the next question. You can practice doing so on
this page, there are 30 speaking practices with special pauses for your answers.

2. Don’t Speak If the Examiner Is Speaking

Some students have an opposite issue – they can’t stop speaking and want to finish by all means even if the
examiner has already started asking the next question. It’s quite dangerous, not only because it can annoy the
examiner, but also because you can miss the next question altogether.

It’s absolutely ok if you were interrupted in mid-sentence, just forget everything you wanted to say and direct 100%
of your attention to the next question.

3. Difficult Questions Are a Good Sign

In IELTS Speaking part 3, the examiner doesn’t have precise questions, just some ideas about the topic. They will
formulate the questions adjusting the level of difficulty. E.g., if they see that a student is about 4-5, questions will
sound simpler than those for 7+ students. Therefore, if you hear “difficult question”, the examiner may think that
you are fighting for a higher band. Just stay confident and answer the best way you can.

4. Understand the Purpose of Each Question

The exam gives you plenty of chances to show off. You will be asked questions with different “functions”, such as
“evaluate”, “identify”, “suggest”, “predict”. The key thing is to understand the function before you start
answering and then use “cohesive devices” relevant to your question. That will help you to structure your answer
and to get more points for Fluency and coherence.

Here you can see some examples of questions and their purpose:

Evaluate

Let’s talk about credit cards. Do you think it’s safe to use credit cards?

If we talk about advertising in general, what do you think about advertisements?

Suggest

In your opinion, what are some ways in which the government could protect consumers from unethical advertising?

How could recycling be promoted nowadays?

Identify

Do you think there can be any issues associated with the quality of goods people buy online?

What types of materials can be recycled?

Give Pros/Cons (Advantages/Disadvantages)

What are the benefits and drawbacks of shopping in a large department store?

What do you think are the pros and cons of recycling?

Explain

Why did people in developed countries start recycling?

Why do you think more people are buying goods online nowadays?

Compare

What are the differences (and similarities) between buying something in a department store and buying something
online?

Can you compare advertisements on TV and those in magazines?

Do men and women read the same types of magazines?

Predict

Do you think more people will buy products online in the future?

Will online education replace teachers one day?