Welcome to this post on great IELTS speaking tips: what you didn’t know about fluency! In this post, a former examiner and experienced IELTS teacher explains three things that lots of students don’t realise about fluency as they prepare to take their IELTS test.
1. Fluency isn’t talking quickly
When you ask lots of test takers what they think fluency is, lots of them say that it means ‘talking quickly’. In fact, they’re only half right! It is true that your fluency score will be lower if you talk too slowly. This happens when the examiner thinks that your slow speaking is because of language problems. However, you are only marked down if you speak unnaturally slowly. This is not the same as talking very quickly! If you speak too quickly, this can be bad for your pronunciation and your coherence because the examiner might not understand what you are saying. You should aim to speak at a steady speed and be as clear as possible.
2. In IELTS speaking, fluency and coherence are measured together
One thing lots of students don’t realise is that coherence affects fluency scores. Coherence is how well your ideas link together. This is important for the listener to understand what you are saying. It is affected by things like transition signals. Words used to link different ideas together, including things like ‘and’, ‘but’ or ‘so’ are all transitions. If you use these too often, it can really affect your fluency score. This is most common in part 2 of the speaking test when you are not sure what to say next. Lots of test takers reach the end of a sentence, and to keep talking, they say ‘and…’. They do this again and again, until their part 2 turns into one very long sentence. Unfortunately, this is really bad for their fluency and coherence score.
The other important thing to remember is that incorrectly using transition signals, or not using them at all, can be very confusing for the listener. Students practicing for their IELTS test tend only to think of these linking words in writing, but they’re important for speaking, too!
3. Correcting your grammar isn’t always a good idea
One of the things that affects your fluency is repetition. This is when you say the same thing several times. Most students understand that if you keep repeating the same idea in part 2 or a longer part 3 answer, it isn’t good. However, repetition also happens when people try to correct a mistake. When they make a tense error, for example, they repeat the verb several times until they fix the tense, and then continue talking. If they need to use the past tense, they might say ‘When I was younger, I have… I have… have… when I was younger I HAD a really good friend who I always play… played with’. This kind of repetition is called self-correction.
It’s important for you to find a balance, but if you notice when you’re speaking that you’re often self-correcting, this will need to be fixed if you want to score in the higher bands.
So that’s the end of our post on great IELTS speaking tips: what you didn’t know about fluency! Did anything on our list surprise you? Are any of the things mentioned in our article things you already knew? Let us know in the comments! If you liked this post, be sure to read about the link between fluency and vocabulary. You can find the full public speaking descriptors here. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you found the article useful!
