Could do with some advice... speaking test

[Dutchgirl]

Hi there,

First of all, thanks for maintaining this magnificent website! I found it after looking through a bunch of useful youtube videos, which I suppose also find their source here.. so yeah, I believe thanks are in order!

So, the thing I am probably most worried about (and that's saying a lot, because I am worrying about a lot of things regarding my IELTS exam...) is the speaking part. I just taped a part 'just like that' (I kind of looked into the question and immediately started to reply without really thinking all too much about it beforehand, so this is probably the "natural" answer one would get - although in the real test more nerves will be involved) and I was wondering if anyone could be as kind as to comment on it and possibly give me a grade indication I could aim for? I sometimes think my answers might be too shallow, or at least the language I am using might not be 'academic' enough...

I am homestudying and no-one in my social environment has taken the test so far, and unfortunately I also don't have the possibility to follow any courses here before I have to set off to take the test so this is basically the first thing I've found that will give me an indication on my progress...

You can listen to my ramblings here (doesn't require downloading):
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1YmwelD4W8p
The small pause in the middle is actually my voice recorder starting over, sorry for that. Hope someone can help me out My exam is due in a couple of weeks and I'm very worried.

Oh... I also never know how to 'naturally' end my talk, which I guess is quite evident from the mp3 So any recommendations on this would be welcomed as well.

Thanks in advance!

Kind regards,

A Dutch girl

[Larry]

Hello,

First of all, I think if this answer is typical of your answers, you have nothing to worry about for the speaking test.

There are really only two small corrections I would make. First due to a little L1 (your first language) influence forester and forest sounded a little like fur-est rather than four-est. But everything else was quite easy to understand. Also the question asked you how you traveled there but I don't believe you covered that in the answer (you may have and I just missed that). Really though, those are pretty small issues.

Your fluency and coherence were quite good. You had a varied lexical resource with all words being correctly used. There was a limited grammatical range but that is because the question lends itself to just past tense. Your grammatical accuracy was great. Lastly, your pronunciation was quite easy to understand. I would say you could easily get an 8 with this answer probably higher.

Don't worry about your answer being academic enough. The speaking module is the same for the general and academic tests, so they don't test you on how academic your answers are. And don't worry about your answers being shallow, remember they are looking more at your English usage than your actual answer. As long as your answers adequately answer the question they won't take off points.

You said you immediately started talking after looking at the question, but this was a part 2 question so on the test you'll actually have 1 minute to prepare. Part 3 questions you won't have any time to prepare though.

Also, about naturally ending your talk, I thought your ending was quite natural. In this situation a native speaker might also say "Yeah." to indicate they are done then do a little conclusion. Just like you did. You could also just end it with some downward intonation or say something like "It was a great trip" and then don't say anything else. For other types of questions you can end them by repeating that question as a statement "That is why I think....". But really I would just keep doing what you are doing, it sounds natural.

Hope this helps!

[Ryan]

Hi Dutchgirl,

I also think you are going to do well on the exam. As Larry points out, you clearly speak with fluency and use fitting vocabulary to communicate your ideas. For an off the cuff response, I felt this demonstration was exceptional.

A couple of constructive points:
-"In the end of 2012" should be "at the end of 2012".
-I think there is some distortion when you say "for a management plan for a small community". It sounds to me like you say "smanagement".
-At the very end, you say "we don't have tropical forests in Holland _______". I am unsure what the last word is supposed to be. Evidently? If it is "evidently", this would be unfitting. Using evidently here is awkward because it makes it sound as though you are surprised to hear yourself say that Holland lacks tropical forests.

Aside from these minor issues, I really think it was a near flawless response.

[Dutchgirl]

Hi there!

Thanks tremendously for your kind and fast responses, as well as your constructive tips! I feel a little more at ease knowing this, and probably the main obstacle to overcome will be my nerves, then, at least for this part. Although it never hurts to improve, of course, so I'll be working with your suggestions. I never realised the thing about my "o", I think I do it more often than I am aware of...! And I'll be using the word forest a lot in the future, so thanks for the suggestion!

I didn't realize "evidently" is not possibly the way I am using it (yes, I was indeed trying to say evidently ). Would "obviously" have been a better choice, or does that also sound a bit awkward in this context?

The thing with the ending is, I feel it always sounds a bit "forced" whatever topic I talk about, if you know what I mean. I think saying "..yeah" would also sound a bit forced, but maybe it's just the reality of the situation, that in this context it will always sound a bit constrained? The examiners won't mind that much then?

Thanks again!

[Larry]

Glad we could put you a bit more at ease. Props to Ryan for catching the word "evidently" I totally missed that. "Obviously" would work in that context because no one thinks that there are rain forests in Holland.

I don't think the examiners mind if you end it a little awkwardly, as long as it sounds natural. Native speaker often end answers to non conversational questions (e.g. interviews / surveys) with a "yeah" then silence. Or at least I often do . Chances are though, that as soon as you slow down or seem to be at a stopping point they'll ask you another question.

[saqibali]

A good practice as well as a good feedback, addressing the request fully.