IELTS Speaking

The speaking part is usually a conversation about you, your plans for the future, your past studies, the reason for which you are taking the IELTS, your country, your town. Therefore be prepared for these subjects. You should prepare something to say about them. In addition, the examiner will show you a card with an argument you are supposed to discuss. The thing you have to remember is: use easy words and expressions if you are not very confident and everything will go well. To be able to comunicate what you think is far more important than doing it with a perfect English accent. Therefore, don't worry if your pronunciation is not exactly a British one. That's not the main point. Your understanding of what the examiner says and the ability to comunicate without grammatical mistakes is more important. The conversation usually lasts 15-20 minutes and will be recorded. Don't panic about that!

The Speaking part of the test have been changed on July 1, 2001. It is now made up of three parts (this is the description of the test taken from the official IELTS website):
In Part 1 the candidate answers general questions about themselves, their homes/ families, their jobs/studies, their interests, and a range of similar familiar topic areas. This part lasts between four and five minutes.

In Part 2 the candidate is given a verbal prompt on a card and is asked to talk on a particular topic. The candidate has one minute to prepare before speaking at length, for between one and two minutes. The examiner then asks one or two rounding-off questions.

In Part 3 the examiner and candidate engage in a discussion of more abstract issues and concepts which are thematically linked to the topic prompt in Part 2. The discussion lasts between four and five minutes. 

• Tip from Ros (March 2001):

In the speaking section of the test you are often asked for your opinion about something. For example, if you are a student studying in Australia, the examiner may say; ‘What do you think of Australia?’ Most students would have an opinion about this but they often wouldn’t know where to begin. REMEMBER whenever you are asked for your OPINION about ANYTHING you can always give both the ‘positive’ and the ‘negative’ aspects of the subject in question. So your answer would go something like: ‘Well, I like Australia because the people are friendly and the pace of life is slow, HOWEVER I don’t like the hot weather and shopping hours are too short.
You will get a better score because you have made a COMPARISON about what is good about Australia and what is bad. Also you have opened the way for the examiner to ask you about the weather or shopping in your country.