IELTS Recording :)

[suzzan22]

Hello Ryan,
I recorded myself as a practice for my ielts exam and it would truly mean a lot if you gave me your feedback about it and how can I improve

http://s0.vocaroo.com/media/download_te ... Y7Zkk8.mp3

[Ryan]

Hi suzzan22,

Thank you for posting this sample.

I think your speaking is quite strong in many ways. You clearly have fluency. You sound as though you're able to speak about topics on the spot, which (as you know) is a required skill.

I feel your pronunciation could use a bit more polish. In most instances, I could make out every word that you say. However, there were a few instances where I lost track briefly of what you were getting at:
-"...balloons and sprays" (?)
-"...that were her friends ack, obviously" (?)

There are instances in this response where you repeat yourself several times as you try to think of what to say next. The two moments that spring to mind are when you are talking about friends and when you are talking about the ghost on the cake. The pauses at these moments are not natural sounding.

There are moments of grammatical weakness in this response. For example, your cue card likely asks you to describe a party that you went to (in the past), yet I can pick out moments when you refer to things using the present tense. (i.e. "It's a costume party and at the same time it's her birthday party." "It's basically like Hallowe'en, but it's not Hallowe'en." "So it's like a ghost.") At another time you say, "people that she know".

Overall, you are clearly a skilled speaker, and I feel confident you could easily score band 8 if you polish your speaking a bit further. However, I feel this recording is much more in the band 7 than band 8 area. (Of course, I'm basing this only on the Part 2 example I've seen here; the full mark would take into account your performance in the other parts.)

Thank you for the submission and good luck.