The IELTS Speaking test score is a very important aspect of the Immigration to Canada process and scoring good on the test will help you get one step closer to your dreams. Most immigration advisors will inform you that in order to have a good overall point score in terms of immigration you will need to score at least 8 bands on the IELTS Speaking test on an overall band scale of 9. Now this is much easier said than done considering the fact that it simply unnatural for most people to speak non-stop for one particular topic for 2 minutes unless they have previous experience or are fond of public speaking and oration.
Speaking to strangers in it self is a daunting task for many, doing so under exam considtions might prove to be too much for a lot of the candidates preparing for the exam. Yet, there is still hope. Knowing the format of the IELTS Speaking Exam can help you in many ways, not only will you be prepared for your exam you will also feel more comfortable and relaxed and overall score better. In this blog post we are going to discuss what the IELTS Speaking exam criteria are, how they are being assessed and how to score well on them.
The IELTS Speaking test is split into three sections overall and lasts for about 15 minutes in total during which an examiner will assess four main skills: your fluency and coherence, grammatical range and accuracy, lexical resources and pronunciation.
Fluency and Coherence refer to the test takers ability to form continues, relevant and complex sentence with a clear thought process and be able to deliver these sentences properly without having too many pauses in between. Grammatical Range and Accuracy refers to a candidate’s ability to exercise theoretical knowledge that they have learned in English to practical use in everyday life such as using the correct tenses and verb forms in the context provided. The Lexical Resources section refers to the candidates ability to understand everyday vocabulary and gives them a chance to demonstrate any extra effort they have put into learning English in the form of hard words that might not be used in everyday life but they have instead consumed them actively from a wide variety of resources and are now using them in everyday life. Lastly, the criteria that confuses the most number of test takers is Pronunciation, put in simple terms it means a person’s ability to make the listener understand what is being said in a comprehensible manner without mispronouncing words and leaving too many gaps in speech and causes strain on the listener.
In the next blog, we will discuss what the different parts of the speaking test are and what they entail. I hope you found this interesting and helpful. Stay tuned by subscribing to this blog with your email and if you have any questions, please drop us an email at info@ftiuae.com and we would be very happy to answer them!