IELTS Speaking preparation, explained in plain English

What the examiner is really scoring

Your band score for Speaking comes from four things, and they carry equal weight. Knowing them changes how you practise, because you can work on each one separately.

• Fluency and coherence. Can you keep talking, and does your answer follow a logical order? Long silences cost you marks. So does jumping between ideas.
• Lexical resource. This is your vocabulary. The examiner listens for whether you can find the right word for the topic, and whether you can say the same thing another way when a word escapes you.
• Grammatical range and accuracy. Can you use more than one tense, and do you use them correctly? A test full of simple present sentences limits your score even when every sentence is correct.
• Pronunciation. Can the examiner understand you without effort? This is about clarity and word stress. You keep your accent, and nobody takes marks off for having one.

You are scored on all four together. A perfect grammar score will not lift your band if you go quiet for ten seconds every time you think.

Part 1: questions about you

The test opens with four to five minutes of everyday questions. Where you live, what you do, your family, your free time, food, weather, transport. The examiner is warming you up and taking a first reading of your level.

The mistake almost everybody makes here is answering too briefly. Somebody asks whether you like cooking, and the answer comes back as one word. That gives the examiner nothing to score.

Aim for two or three sentences per answer. Give the answer, then add a reason or an example. That is enough. Speeches are not needed in Part 1.

• Weak answer: "Yes, I like cooking."
• Strong answer: "Yes, I really enjoy it. I cook most evenings after work because it helps me switch off, and lately I have been trying to learn a few Thai dishes."

Part 2: the long turn

This is the part people worry about most. The examiner hands you a card with a topic and three or four points to cover. You get one minute to prepare and you can make notes. Then you speak alone for up to two minutes.

Two minutes feels long when you are nervous. It is much shorter than it sounds once you have a structure to follow, and the structure can be the same every single time.

Use your preparation minute to write single words, not sentences. Sentences take too long to write and they make you read your notes out loud, which sounds flat. Single words remind you where to go next and leave your speech natural.

1. Open by naming the thing. "I would like to talk about my grandmother's house in the countryside."
2. Answer the points on the card in the order they are printed. They exist to help you fill the time.
3. Add one detail that is personal to you. A memory, a smell, a sound. This is where interesting vocabulary appears naturally.
4. Close with how you feel about it now. "I have not been back for years, and I still think about it every summer."

Keep talking until the examiner stops you. Stopping early at ninety seconds costs you more than a few grammar slips would.

Part 3: the discussion

The last four to five minutes are a conversation about the wider topic from Part 2. If your card was about a house you remember, Part 3 might move to housing costs, city life, or how families live together in your country.

The questions get more abstract on purpose. The examiner is checking whether you can discuss ideas, compare, speculate about the future, and give an opinion with reasons behind it.

You are allowed to think before you answer. A short phrase to buy yourself two seconds sounds far better than silence, and it is what fluent speakers do all the time.

• "That is an interesting question, actually."
• "I have never really thought about it, but I suppose…"
• "It depends on what you mean by…"
• "Speaking for my own country at least…"

A practice plan for the weeks before your test

Cramming vocabulary lists in the last week rarely moves a Speaking band. Regular speaking does. Here is a routine that works even if you only have twenty minutes a day.

1. Record yourself answering one Part 2 card every day. Use your phone. Listen back once and note where you paused.
2. Read one short article and say out loud, in your own words, what it was about. This builds the summarising skill Part 3 needs.
3. Learn vocabulary in topic groups rather than as single words. Work, education, environment, technology, health, and travel cover most test cards.
4. Practise with a real person at least once a week. Speaking alone will not prepare you for being interrupted, misheard, or asked to explain yourself again.
5. Do at least one full mock test with feedback before your test date, so the room and the timing are not new on the day.

Speaking practice with feedback is the part you cannot do alone. Everything else on this list you can start today by yourself.

How IELTS speaking lessons with Mili work

Lessons are one to one, online, and built around your test date. We start with a mock test so you know your starting band and where the marks are going.

After that, each lesson mixes practice with correction. You speak, I note what is holding the score down, and we fix those things one at a time. You get your errors written down after every lesson, so you can see the pattern instead of guessing.

Most students book once or twice a week for four to eight weeks. If your test is sooner than that, we plan around the time you have.