Tips to do well in IELTS Speaking Part 1

Use a few connectors to improve fluency and coherence of your talk.

To give an opinion

In my opinion...

in my view...

To my mind...

I would say...

As far as I concerned...

To add ideas

On top of that...

Also...

What’s more...

I’d also add that...

Contrast ideas

But...

However...

That said...

Mind you...

At the same time...

Whilst that’s true...

Example to answer the question ‘Do you think it’s important for friends to laugh together?’
 

To my mind,/ it’s extremely important / because it helps us to chill out. / In fact, I haven’t been going out with my friends much recently, /but when we do go out together /we absolutely love to crack a few jokes. On top of that, / I just think /laughing is a great way /to stay healthy and positive.

Use complex grammar in speaking: different kinds of clauses and tenses and sentence structures. Some of them are present perfect, present perfect continuous, conditional sentences.

For example to answer a question: ‘Where do you live?’

I live in New York and I have been living for 5 years until now.

'Do you think history is important?’

Yes and no. / On the one hand, / it is important because I think it shapes our identity, but on the other hand, / I’ve been reading a few history books recently/ and it strikes me /that history repeats itself / but we’ve never learned much from it.

Use idiomatic expressions such as phrasal verbs, collocations. But we should use only a few of them in speaking otherwise it will sound unnatural.

Example to answer this question ‘Does your hometown have any beautiful scenery?’

Indeed it does. / As a matter of fact, / recently /I have been visiting some of the mountains near my hometown / and they are second to none. / I mean they pull in a huge number of tourists, and you can see why. I mean because the views are outstanding.

Use synonyms and antonyms in your talk. This emphasises the important of vocabulary in IELTS test. We should learn vocabulary thoroughly, paying attention to family of words, prefixes/suffixes, synonyms/antonyms/collocations and learn vocabulary by themes or topics.

For instance, we can spice up our talk as:

Instead of saying I like reading. We can say I am fond of reading, I am really into readding, I am one for reading.

Or Instead of saying It’s really good. We can say:

It was out of this world.

It was a cut above the rest.

It was outstanding.

Example to answer this question ‘Do you like to go to the zoo?’

To tell you the truth, I am not really into zoos. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and I get that zoos can be educational, but I don’t think it’s fair to keep wild animals cooped up in small cages. They should be out in the wild.

Add adverbs in your talk as absolutely, extremely, obviously…These words show that your talking is natural and flexible.

We can replace Really by absolutely, totally, completely, extremely.

Or replace quite interesting by somewhat, fairly, rather interesting.

Replace Not often by rarely, hardly ever, once in a blue moon.

Example to answer this question ‘Have you ever been to an art gallery?’

To be honest, I’ve been visiting quite a few art galleries recently because my partner is a bit of an art buff. We went to a modenrn art exhibition last week and I was completely bowled over by the paintings, they were totally out of this world.