Tips about Speaking test
It is very ironic to be writing about this one particular skill and have you all read it. I was planning on doing this in a video or an audio recording, but the time factor is not on my side lately.
So talking about speaking in general, it is something that any ESL speaker does every moment while living in an English speaking country or setting. Almost everybody would feel comfortable and confident to talk even though they would make few mistakes here and there. However (and I don’t use this word when I talk but let's say that I do :P ) when it comes to speaking or talking in English proficiency tests, things are very annoying and hard to the most of us.
In all of the three tests, speaking is the most intimidating part, yet there are things that you can do to overcome it and get good results. Of course, the first thing to do is to find your comfort zone when it comes to speaking. A good thing to do is to train yourself to pay attention to the conditions and settings when you speak very good and you think you have no problems, at least what makes you think so.
I am talking about body language and situations, but unfortunately I wont bore you with what time you can be alright with talking or how to be dressed or sitting. I will point out few things (related to the test in general) that if taken into account will improve your performance. So let's start with what really happens in each test.
IELTS speaking test part is the most clichéd test. It is a face-to-face interview or conversation if you like to call it. You will be talking to a human examiner ( it won't be a robot or an speaking bird though I think talking to a parrot might be more fun ) who in most if not all cases will be from England. In such situations, people find it an issue to speaking to a stranger and in this case this stranger will be asking about yourself and your opinion about things that you have no clue about and to make things fun, they will be marking and judging your speaking. What can you do about that? you can start with preparing for that by talking to strangers (not on the street that would be creepy) in social settings, let's say in parties or parks, and you will have to know a thing or two about ice breaking ( I hope you won't bring ice and start breaking it while trying to talk to anybody and please Google ice breaking and if it was about real ice then you are looking in the wrong place ) then you can start talking to people in places where you share a common interest like when you go see your sport live on TV in sport bars or when you are watching among the crowd. The hardest place to try to do this would be the bus or the train, but once you get it rolling or start right, you will have a good time and you might end up with getting to know a new friend.
Getting to CAEL and TOEFL, things will get interesting and tricky. Nowadays, we spend some time of any day talking in the phone to someone we know or don't. talking about things we know or planned about topics we are familiar with and In some cases it would be the total opposite. The things we say could be things we know by heart or lies we make for fun or for any reasons we see good enough for us to lie ( I am not with lying so don't get me wrong now and wait for me to explain my point later and I hope I don't forget ). What happens in the speaking part of a CAEL and TOEFL is no different than what have been said earlier except for the part that you are going to speak to a recorder through a headset while baring with an annoying timer. The best things you can be doing to help you with this situation is to try to use voice chat mediums to help you get comfortable with talking in a headset to computer (or somebody though I found talking to a recorder and listening to that is fun and strange too ). Since those questions are timed, using a timer or setting a time to be able to convey (say clearly and loudly a good amount of information) an answer to the question is a good strategy to get used to watching a countdown timer while talking. the pressure of the timer can make people nervous and that would either let me speak slowly and sometimes not to be able to speak, or it makes them speak so fast that they won't make sense. In both cases this would cause you lose marks and not just in CAEL or TOEFL, but even in IELTS.
The speaking test is not just to test if you can answer a question correctly, it is also to see if you can speak clearly and you can be understood by any listener if different situations while talking about anything. And before I forget, when you are asked a question about something you don't know, it is ok to lie as long that lie is something that can be bought or sounds legit. Yes, honesty is not taken into account in marking your answer. Other things that I just remembered to say are, you can get use of any tips you can find about public speaking when it comes to learning tricks to buy time to think about an answer or how to get rid of bad habits that shows that you can't answer a question or that you are nervous such us saying "umm.." every two to three words.
To sum up, you have to talk first to know that you can't then you can learn how you can. I am out of breath now because I said every single work I typed in my mind and now it hurts by the time I am finished with this article.
By IQ
So talking about speaking in general, it is something that any ESL speaker does every moment while living in an English speaking country or setting. Almost everybody would feel comfortable and confident to talk even though they would make few mistakes here and there. However (and I don’t use this word when I talk but let's say that I do :P ) when it comes to speaking or talking in English proficiency tests, things are very annoying and hard to the most of us.
In all of the three tests, speaking is the most intimidating part, yet there are things that you can do to overcome it and get good results. Of course, the first thing to do is to find your comfort zone when it comes to speaking. A good thing to do is to train yourself to pay attention to the conditions and settings when you speak very good and you think you have no problems, at least what makes you think so.
I am talking about body language and situations, but unfortunately I wont bore you with what time you can be alright with talking or how to be dressed or sitting. I will point out few things (related to the test in general) that if taken into account will improve your performance. So let's start with what really happens in each test.
IELTS speaking test part is the most clichéd test. It is a face-to-face interview or conversation if you like to call it. You will be talking to a human examiner ( it won't be a robot or an speaking bird though I think talking to a parrot might be more fun ) who in most if not all cases will be from England. In such situations, people find it an issue to speaking to a stranger and in this case this stranger will be asking about yourself and your opinion about things that you have no clue about and to make things fun, they will be marking and judging your speaking. What can you do about that? you can start with preparing for that by talking to strangers (not on the street that would be creepy) in social settings, let's say in parties or parks, and you will have to know a thing or two about ice breaking ( I hope you won't bring ice and start breaking it while trying to talk to anybody and please Google ice breaking and if it was about real ice then you are looking in the wrong place ) then you can start talking to people in places where you share a common interest like when you go see your sport live on TV in sport bars or when you are watching among the crowd. The hardest place to try to do this would be the bus or the train, but once you get it rolling or start right, you will have a good time and you might end up with getting to know a new friend.
Getting to CAEL and TOEFL, things will get interesting and tricky. Nowadays, we spend some time of any day talking in the phone to someone we know or don't. talking about things we know or planned about topics we are familiar with and In some cases it would be the total opposite. The things we say could be things we know by heart or lies we make for fun or for any reasons we see good enough for us to lie ( I am not with lying so don't get me wrong now and wait for me to explain my point later and I hope I don't forget ). What happens in the speaking part of a CAEL and TOEFL is no different than what have been said earlier except for the part that you are going to speak to a recorder through a headset while baring with an annoying timer. The best things you can be doing to help you with this situation is to try to use voice chat mediums to help you get comfortable with talking in a headset to computer (or somebody though I found talking to a recorder and listening to that is fun and strange too ). Since those questions are timed, using a timer or setting a time to be able to convey (say clearly and loudly a good amount of information) an answer to the question is a good strategy to get used to watching a countdown timer while talking. the pressure of the timer can make people nervous and that would either let me speak slowly and sometimes not to be able to speak, or it makes them speak so fast that they won't make sense. In both cases this would cause you lose marks and not just in CAEL or TOEFL, but even in IELTS.
The speaking test is not just to test if you can answer a question correctly, it is also to see if you can speak clearly and you can be understood by any listener if different situations while talking about anything. And before I forget, when you are asked a question about something you don't know, it is ok to lie as long that lie is something that can be bought or sounds legit. Yes, honesty is not taken into account in marking your answer. Other things that I just remembered to say are, you can get use of any tips you can find about public speaking when it comes to learning tricks to buy time to think about an answer or how to get rid of bad habits that shows that you can't answer a question or that you are nervous such us saying "umm.." every two to three words.
To sum up, you have to talk first to know that you can't then you can learn how you can. I am out of breath now because I said every single work I typed in my mind and now it hurts by the time I am finished with this article.
By IQ