Speaking is the most difficult of the four IELTS subjects, so you need to have corresponding methods to guide you. The following 3 methods that helped me get 8.5 in speaking will definitely help you.
The third part of the oral test is mainly an academic discussion on the topic.I often come across topics that people find very strange, such as whether self-media is beneficial to social development and whether you think it is a good thing for everyone to buy a house.
For students or those who have just started working, the difficulty is that they don’t know what to say about the content and have no opinion on the topics themselves.Although a score of 7 in IELTS does not test the logic of your content, if you don’t even know what to say in Chinese and make up stories in the exam room, you are just digging a hole for yourself.
The second difficulty is how to organize what you are going to say so that your audience can follow you better and understand your reasoning and logic about the topic., of course, the prerequisite is that your grammar and vocabulary meet a certain standard, which I will not elaborate on here.
So in the following three aspects,
Argument structure and mutually exclusive and exhaustive structures help you organize what you are going to say, or if you have a certain understanding of the topic, and give you a basic structure to help you think and develop the content.
Content accumulation helps you accumulate more content in your daily life and avoids encountering topics that you have no ideas about..
Argument Structure
Demonstration of lack of ability
- Rather than discussing, I prefer to tell stories casually.
- Often talk without focus
- Or speaking only of opinions without specific examples or evidence to support them
- If you don’t organize the outline before writing an article, the logical thinking of the article will be messy.
- Logical conjunctions are rarely used or difficult to use correctly
Remedies
- Are your opinions unclear? Try stating your opinions first and using simple sentences to make them more memorable.
- Don’t like to give specific examples, preferring to talk about general principles? Try to use For example, for instance or A is a good example. to introduce specific examples. If you can’t express the content, you can collect other people’s opinions and examples when reading, such as opinions and examples in IELTS reading, The Economist and other academic magazines.
- Do you have a habit of abusing logical conjunctions? Try to find the other words you abuse, and then ask yourself and check each time you use them: Is the sentence logically related? When practicing, you can check and modify them during self-examination, especially paying attention to the logical conjunctions you abuse.
- Can't finish the example in one sentence? Try complex sentences, especially adverbial clauses, appositive clauses, etc. that can express rich meanings. Refer to the examples in other examples and copy them in the early stage. Don't copy them all. Use synonymous paraphrase skills to paraphrase and turn them into your own sentences.
- Having trouble keeping your logic in order? Try two major logical relationships: Use the general-specific-general logical structure for the entire article or speech; and use the CER (Claim, Example, Reasoning) structure to explain the sub-arguments.
Mutually Exclusive Exhaustive Framework
Demonstration of lack of ability
- Often I don't have any ideas to analyze a thing
- I don't know from which aspects to analyze
- Not familiar with commonly used and complete logical analysis frameworks
- The analysis is imperfect and some aspects are easily overlooked
Remedies
- No idea for analysis? Be familiar with commonly used mutually exclusive and exhaustive frameworks, such as internal and external, income and expenditure, individual and collective, advantages and disadvantages, upstream and downstream, before and after, etc. You can also find more appropriate mutually exclusive and exhaustive points based on specific things. For example, age-related topics can be discussed from the perspective of young people and the elderly; consumerism topics can be discussed from the perspective of consumers and producers, or from the perspective of personal resources, company resources, and social resources.
- Are you slow in organizing and conceiving mutually exclusive and exhaustive frameworks? You can first choose commonly used simple and adaptable frameworks to practice, such as internal and external, individual and collective, and then start thinking and analyzing different topics with more precise frameworks after you are familiar with them.
Content accumulation
Demonstration of lack of ability
- Always talk about topics that are familiar to you and are afraid to step out of your comfort zone
- Difficulty integrating with people who are different from themselves
- Some content, even in Chinese, does not have any ideas or opinions
- You may know what to say in Chinese, but lack the corresponding English vocabulary to describe it.
Remedies
- Have no opinions on common things and phenomena? This often happens to students. It takes a long time to accumulate and broaden your interests and hobbies. You can try to spend 10 weeks reading academic magazines and books in fields you are not familiar with, such as The Economist and Nature.
- Do you know the point of view but don't know how to express it in English? You can try to use the existing vocabulary to paraphrase it. Pay attention to collecting vocabulary in the field you are interested in. You can refer to vocabulary memory ability.
- Don't know how to organize your content? Refer to the argument structure and mutually exclusive structure skills. You can pay more attention to the structure of other people's articles and speeches. Refer to the main idea structure skills. You can use different structures in a formulaic way first, and then use them flexibly after you are familiar with them.
The above methods will definitely help you. Don't memorize the standard answers. Since it is a discussion, there is actually no answer. The most important thing is to grasp an idea, develop the theme based on the idea, and then you can talk more.
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