Thank you.
Welcome to My IELTS Classroom, the podcast where two English experts talk all things IELTS.
I'm Shelley Cornick.
And I'm Nick Long.
And today we're going to discuss how fluency and coherence is banded in the IELTS speaking test.
Is one more important than the other?
What are discourse markers and what other ways can you show coherence in your speech?
Good evening Nick, how are you?
Good evening, feeling very good today.
Quite a long day but ready to relax after this podcast and watch Brazil and South Korea.
I was going to say, are you being fed on a diet of the World Cup?
I definitely am.
It's been good hasn't it?
It's been fun fun.
Well, it's always fun fun when your team's winning at this stage.
We can at least say that until next Saturday, can't we?
But yes, I've had a lovely week too.
As well as the World Cup.
I've managed to put up the world's biggest Christmas tree in my flat in preparation.
I'm having a university reunion at my apartment on Saturday.
Wow.
I am afraid to think how many years it has been since I graduated from university.
I think it might be 25.
Wow, but I've got all of my old university friends coming on Saturday, so there's going to be about 14 of us in my apartment.
So I'm very excited about that.
But before we can have fun, before we can watch the World Cup or think about parties, we have to do a bit of work, don't we?
We do yeah, And the topic of our podcast today is going to be basically, how do the examiners, or what are examiners, looking at in your speaking exam when they give you a score for fluency and coherence?
And there's an interesting story, Nick, about why we're going to do this today.
Would you like to hear it?
Yes, please go and tell us.
Okay.
So two or three weeks ago, you and I recorded an episode which looked at some of the most recent cue card topics.
I think we looked at maybe five or six together.
I can't remember what they are and what they were now.
But we were discussing how you could think of ideas for those topics.
What made some of them particularly difficult?
And then at the very, very end, you and I both did a little demonstration.
So we each did or chose one of the cue card topics and we did a two minute turn.
We did. which we both actually found more difficult than we were expecting, I think, didn't we?
That's what I remember from that lesson.
Anyway, the next week I got an email from a nice student, a girl we've worked with, who said...
Shed, I've just listened to the example that Nick and you gave in the last podcast and I can't find any examples of cohesive devices in your model answers.
That's a good noise, Nick.
And then that made me think, okay, well...
We obviously didn't plan what we were going to say, did we?
No, because we did it in the same way that a student would.
I think we chose the topics for each other.
But I was pretty sure that, even without any planning or thought, you and I would naturally have used cohesive devices when we were speaking.
So that made me think.
What does this student think cohesive devices are in our speech?
Well, I bet you can guess, Nick.
So I asked the student very politely, could you tell me what do you think cohesive devices are?
What do you think she came back and told me?
I'm going to guess that the first word she said was moreover.
Exactly.
Right.
So and I think this is where the confusion lies.
So the student thought that the cohesive devices in speaking were the same as in writing.
And, you know, when I then explained, no, that's not what we're looking for, she understood.
But she did say maybe you could have a podcast episode about this, because I think you know, for non-native speakers who are just looking at the band descriptors, it can feel a bit confusing sometimes what we should actually be trying to do in our speech.
Um, and I thought good idea, and hence this podcast was born exactly.
So I thought maybe the band descriptors would be a good place to start.
Um, If we've got anybody listening who is completely new Nick to IELTS or has never listened to our podcast before, why don't you very briefly explain what the four band descriptors are, or the four areas are that the examiner will give you a score in for speaking?
So we've got fluency and coherence, first of all, which we'll discuss in a minute.
We've got lexical resource, which is your vocabulary, basically.
Grammar, specifically range and accuracy, which means...
Range is all about how much complex grammar you use and the different types of sentences that you can use.
And then accuracy is whether you can do that correctly.
And then we've got pronunciation.
Exactly.
Right.
So brilliant.
So, I mean, I guess...
On the surface.
You know.
Lexis is vocabulary, grammar is your sentence structures.
Pronunciation is how clearly you're understood.
I guess, compared to the writing band descriptors, those ones are a little bit clearer, aren't they, as to the type of things that examiners are looking for.
But in terms of fluency and coherence, I suppose that one is one where maybe a little bit of explanation does help.
So why don't we have a look, Nick?
As always, I'm going to get you to read.
Why don't you start with the descriptors for band six?
Mm-hmm.
And why don't you read the differences between six, seven and eight?
And then we can look and discuss those together.
So in fluency and coherence to get a six.
It says the student is willing to speak at length, though may lose coherence at times due to occasional repetition, self-correction or hesitation.
And the student uses a range of connectives and discourse markers, but not always appropriately.
And then for a seven it says the student speaks at length without noticeable effort or loss of coherence.
The student may demonstrate language related hesitation at times or some repetition and or self correction, and the student uses a range of connectives and discourse markers with some flexibility.
And then finally for an eight.
The student speaks fluently, with only occasional repetition or self-correction.
Hesitation is usually content related and only rarely to search for language.
And the student develops topics coherently and appropriately.
So I guess the thing you know, the first thing to discuss is based on those band descriptors and which items come first.
Nick, would you say which of the two elements fluency or coherence do you think the examiner is going to really look at first when they're just, you know, when they're deciding between a six or seven and an eight.
Will it be the fluency or will it be the coherence?
Well, it's definitely the fluency, Exactly.
So, if we look at those first items essentially, what would you summarize as the difference between a six and an eight in terms of the fluency needed to get those scores?
Well, I would say that if it's going to be a six, then it means the student is probably going to have a few false starts.
They're probably going to lose their train of thought in the middle of what they're saying on occasion.
They're probably going to repeat some of the same words and phrases in their responses.
And that can be in the terms of that can be in terms of not really having a wide range of sort of maybe cohesive language, but also that they're going to stutter, basically.
So they might say, for example, if the question is, do you like the place where you live?
They might say well, I like the place like that, for example, where they're just sort of repeating the same thing at the beginning of their response.
I mean, that was a great example, I think, Nick, of a false start, isn't it?
So you know, just to be really clear, because I think sometimes you know, because people take what we say very, very literally.
When you say they're using the same language, we're not saying you should never repeat any phrases.
Yes, exactly.
Just to be clear.
I think what you're saying is that it will become quite clear that the student has only got a limited number of phrases.
Yeah.
So let me give you another example.
If the student responds to every question with well, I think over like every question just uses that response, then obviously that's not very good in terms of fluency, because they're just using the same phrase over and over and over again Perfect.
I totally agree.
So you know, what we're really looking for is a student who can answer the questions without those hesitations.
It's normal sometimes to stutter if you're speaking quickly and you're not taking a break.
But I think a good examiner will know when that's happening because...
You're just speaking very quickly and it's got nothing to do with language.
It's just more to do with, I don't know what to call it.
Your brain is backfired.
But I think what you clearly showed is when the student keeps repeating the same words because they don't really know what to say next.
But yeah.
So I would say exactly as Nick's described.
We're looking for a student who's able to speak without long pauses, particularly to access language.
Definitely.
In terms of cohesion then, and I guess this is where students can get a little bit confused, because the six says you know, we use a range of connectors and discourse markers, but not appropriately defined.
Seven is uses a range of connectors and discourse markers flexibly.
So we've got uses them but not appropriately, uses them flexibly.
And then the last one is just develops topics coherently and appropriately.
What do you think might be confusing for students about those descriptions?
Well, I think it's probably similar to something that we saw in the email that they will probably think that the types of things that we use in writing are the types of things that we need to use in speaking as well.
In addition, moreover, on the other hand, on the one hand, etc.
These sort of more formal, I would say, phrases.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, I think that's the thing here.
It says here what they're looking for is the use of discourse markers, and that is very different to the use of transition signals.
So you know, when you're studying for writing, you definitely need to learn some standard basic transition signals which show the relationships between your ideas.
So very simply nick, you've already given us some nice examples of them, but you know i like Let's go back to absolute basics.
If a student's writing and they want to add another idea.
So if they're going to have two ideas in a paragraph, what transition signals might they use just to signal to the examiner?
Now I'm going to add a second idea.
Things like furthermore, moreover, in addition, things like that.
Exactly.
Yeah.
If the student's writing and they want to show that there's some contrast, what type of transition signals could they use to show that there's a contrast between the previous sentence, or even the previous paragraph, and the next sentence or the next paragraph?
Well, if it's paragraphs, then it's going to be on the one hand, on the other hand, however.
And if it's between sentences, then it might be in contrast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's my favorite one.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
And you know, in the same way, we don't want to start sentences with so, but we might want to show that the next sentence is giving a result of the previous sentence.
Mm-hmm.
If that's the case, Nick, then what transition signals could we use there?
Then they're going to be using things like as a result, therefore, thus, things like that.
Exactly.
So do you think those words then, do you think they're appropriate to use in the speaking exam?
Well, let's try, shall we?
Okay.
So, I don't think they're a good idea.
So, therefore, as a result, you shouldn't use them in the exam.
Yeah, right.
Perfect.
This is the problem.
If you use those words while you're speaking, you just don't sound very natural.
You don't.
And I think that's a problem.
When students come to me and say, well, I don't know what's natural and what's not natural.
I mean, my advice would be well, you probably need to start listening to more English to hear how people actually speak.
There's often a strong correlation between a student's listening ability and their speaking ability.
But those transition signals, I mean, you might.
I occasionally want to say maybe the result, ones like therefore don't always sound terrible in speech, but things like you know, in addition or furthermore, that's just not the way we speak.
It's not.
When we talk about discourse markers, we're really talking about phrases that we use to join our ideas, or even things like adverbs.
So I thought we'd go through just a little.
Now, we can't go through every possible discourse markers because there are literally hundreds.
But just to give you an idea, the type of things that I would be listening for as an examiner would maybe, for example, be an adverb, a comment adverb at the beginning of a sentence that tells me how you feel about what you're going to say next.
Yeah.
So that might be something you know, particularly in part two, when you're maybe describing things about yourself, a word like unfortunately, if you're about to tell me something sad, or if you're going to tell me the opposite, something like luckily or thankfully.
So, you know, thankfully, my...
Passport wasn't in my bag.
It was in my pocket, so I didn't lose it.
Something simple like that.
We've got other adverbs that tell us that things are obvious.
So my favorite is, you know, like obviously or clearly or of course.
They are quite useful.
You know the final bullets.
Not that you need to answer the bullets, but you know when they often ask how did you feel?
You know, you can say, obviously I wasn't very happy.
Yeah, exactly.
I lost my back.
So they can be quite useful for the end.
Other ones might be naturally or understandably.
You can have something like stupidly.
Mm-hmm.
Honestly amazingly, any of those type of adverbs.
They're really simple, but they do effectively join your ideas together.
So that's sort of one type of adverb, sort of like an opinion or comment adverb showing how you feel.
We also have other adverbs which kind of...
Tell the listener the type of information you're going to give next.
So Nick, if I started a sentence with basically, which is a nice little discourse marker, what's that telling you as the listener?
The information that's coming up is going to be very simple.
It's going to be like a short version of the long story exactly, or like a summary of what you've already said.
Basically basically, As Nick just demonstrated there.
Perfect.
What about if I said, in fact?
Then you're going to tell me something that is important, I guess, or something that you want to emphasise.
Yeah, I think that is the emphasis.
I mean, this is the one I think native speakers use a lot.
If I started a center with, as you know, when would I use that discourse marker?
You're going to tell me something that I already know.
Yeah.
And sometimes that's quite nice to use when you're speaking, because if you're telling the examiner something that's really obvious and basic, it might be nice to acknowledge that you understand.
They already know this.
You might say, you know, as you know, or as I'm sure you know.
More people today are using the internet than ever before.
I mean, before something which is pretty obvious.
What about on the whole?
Again, it's kind of like basically it's kind of like a summary statement, isn't it?
Yeah.
And you just want to summarize everything that you've said.
Yes.
Or, if you want to sort of, maybe in part three if there's an answer, if you're asked a question and you could say it depends, but you know, do men prefer talking about?
You know, do women prefer talking about their feelings or not?
Every woman likes talking about their feelings, but you could say well, on the whole i guess they do, just to show that kind of yes or generally speaking, or something like that.
That'd be another one.
So They are, I would say, some really nice simple discourse markers which we use a lot.
We've got other phrases which we can use, I guess, to like, if you want to change the topic of a discussion or move it forward.
My favorite one is anyway.
Anyway is a great discourse marker.
That's a great way of sort of.
You know, if you've gone off topic a little bit and you want to come back, you know you might say.
Anyway, I think overall it's a good thing.
It's a nice way of before you summarize or end, I would say.
Yeah.
What other ones could be used to change the topic or show the examiner that we're going to start talking about a slightly different aspect?
You could say if you're talking about like a list of different things, you could say another problem, another issue, another thing that I've noticed.
So the word another basically with a noun.
Exactly.
And, you know, students might be thinking, well, that's not very difficult, but that's the point.
It's not about being difficult.
It's about using language that naturally moves things forward.
I just wanted to add is quite a good thing.
If you've sort of finished, but then you think of another idea, you could say oh, I just also.
I just want to add
That could be another way of restarting a conversation, couldn't it?
If you've sort of got to the end, but then you think of a better idea.
We also often use phrases.
You know when we're speaking.
I think it's quite natural particularly, you know, if you're thinking about part three, with the really difficult questions you may.
You know, if you do come up with another idea, you may want to go back to something you've previously discussed.
So if you wanted to do that, what would be a natural way of sort of showing to the examiner?
Oh, actually, I want to refer back to something.
We could say something like, as I was saying, like I said, going back to what I said before.
Yeah.
That can be really useful.
Actually in part one, because the examiner can't change the questions.
In part one can they.
So they might ask you a question which you've already partially answered.
And as I was saying, is a really good one for that, isn't it?
Yeah.
So you know, if the first question is something like, I don't know, you're talking about flowers.
What's your favourite flower?
And you've talked about roses.
And then, you know, the next question is... do you buy flowers in your house?
You might say, well, as I said, I really like roses.
So I often buy roses, I don't know, at the end of the month.
That can be really good.
Yeah, definitely.
So I mean, I'm going to be honest, Nick.
You know, you and I teach a couple of students using an advanced plus book, and very often the last unit in any advanced book.
Actually, it's like real life English, isn't it?
It's how to have a conversation, how to persuade somebody, how to change the topic of conversation.
Most of the content of those lessons are generally teaching students discourse markers.
So what we've done here is a tiny, tiny drop in the ocean.
I do think these ones are actually very useful as like a starter kit.
So I'll put these on our blog post for this week's episode so students can access them there.
But I would say, when you're thinking about connecting devices, these are the things we are looking for.
100%.
Not in addition, furthermore, consequently, right?
It's these natural phrases that we use so that our ideas sort of flow together.
Now the other thing is though, although cohesive Sorry, although discourse markers are given and they're clearly stated, it also says in the band descriptors uses a range of connectives and discourse markers.
So there are obviously other ways that we can connect our language that's not discourse markers.
And this is the real black hole, I think, for students and things which many students probably do really well but don't realize that they do it really well and then destroy their cohesion by adding transition signals.
So other aspects then of having cohesion, right?
I'd say the first one and this could be particularly relevant for cue cards is how well does the test taker sequence their ideas?
Is there a logic to the order that the ideas are presented?
So what would be an example, Nick, of bad sequencing in part two?
I guess probably if you didn't have a clear sort of If you're describing a person, for example, you want to introduce who the person is, give a little bit of background information.
If you're describing about.
Sorry if you're talking about something that happened recently or that happened in the past.
Obviously as well.
You want to give the examiner a bit of context rather than just jumping straight into the story.
Exactly.
So you don't want to say my friend, you don't want to start a thing by saying my friend dropped a cup and it smashed.
And I'm like, okay, well, where are you?
Who is this friend?
What's happening?
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Right.
It could also just simply be, you know, if you're looking at the really higher bands, a student who gets to the end of what they're, you know, talking about, but they've only spoken for a minute and then they start repeating themselves and going back.
Yeah.
It's a bit repetitive.
Mm hmm, that's when you should go on to a second idea right in the cue card, so that you avoid that.
But sequencing of ideas is definitely a part of cohesion.
In terms of cohesive devices, I guess the obvious one, Nick, is just using referencing.
Yeah, for sure.
Mm-hmm.
So you know as you're talking.
You know using he or she if you're talking about a person, to refer back to them or it for a situation.
Using this to summarize an idea or an argument.
That type of language, I think, is really powerful and really connects ideas.
Mm-hmm.
Less obviously, right?
But if you're the listener, that language is just reinforcing all of the time.
You know, I'm referring back to something that you understand.
Yeah.
As well as referencing, there are other things which speakers with really good fluency and really good cohesion do.
And these may sound a bit... What am I going to say, Nick?
A bit... Where is something... What's the word we use when it's opposite of what you might expect?
Unexpected.
There we go.
These might be a little bit unexpected, because one thing that good speakers do is use filler language, naturally.
Yes, they do.
And this may sound a bit strange, because I think that for native speakers the problem is often that they use filler language too much.
Yeah.
So they may want to try and erase this from their speech.
But what would be a few examples Nick, of common words or sounds or noises that native speakers use, English speakers every country's got their own ones naturally, throughout their speech.
Um, well, I guess it's things like, you know, that was all of them, by the way.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, you know, I guess, I think for me, like I use like quite a lot.
When I'm talking.
I use you know far too much.
You use you know, yeah.
All the time.
You must know that because you edit the podcast.
Yeah.
But you know, as you're speaking, it's really common to keep like using these words.
You know between the content words.
Now, it should be natural.
But again, if you've been listening to a lot of English speakers...
I say this because I don't usually watch that much television, but I've been watching a lot of football.
So the halftime commentary, you should notice how native speakers use these between content words.
And actually having a few of these can really help you.
I mean, it's a bit about pronunciation as well, actually.
It can help you have the intonation and the rhythm of a native speaker.
I just used um, right?
So between ideas, even just using um rather than having a silence could really help.
Now, this is the one that's definitely unexpected, but I would say using pauses naturally is another element of having good cohesion.
Yeah.
This is something where you know when you've got a student who's talking really really, really quickly.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's not only a pronunciation problem.
It's also a fluency problem because people don't speak in that way naturally, do they?
That's true.
Yeah, that is true.
And it's painful if you're sitting there examining a student and they don't give you any time to pause or think.
Yeah, to process the information that they're giving you, basically.
Exactly.
I mean, I think probably where this comes into play most actually would be in part three.
If you're in part three and you're having this conversation, it should be a conversation with the examiner.
Yep.
Being able to recognize when you've finished speaking and pause to show that is what we call recognition of turn-taking.
Yeah.
And turn-taking is a big thing actually, isn't it really, in speaking?
It is.
Showing the person you're talking to, I am now giving you an opportunity to talk.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So, you know, think about your pauses.
Are you pausing enough?
Again, you don't want to be pausing in the middle of a sentence because you're needing language, right?
But if you are nicely fluent and you're able to give long-term answers, are you pausing enough to emphasize what you're saying?
Sometimes we pause for effect as well.
So that's something to think about.
And then the last thing is how relevant are your questions, how relevant are the things you are saying in terms of the question that you were given?
Yeah um, that's not usually a problem in part two, because you can sort of go off topic slightly in part two, but where would that be the most important, do you think, nick?
It's part three.
I mean, I think this is really the big difference between a seven and an eight usually, isn't it?
Like, if the candidate or the student has relevant answers, that's going to give them a much better chance of scoring an eight than if they don't really have answers which are relevant to the questions.
Yeah.
I mean, misunderstanding a question and going off topic once or twice, that's fine.
The examiner is probably going to try and get you back.
We understand things.
That's okay.
But if...
The examiner's consistently asking you questions in part three and you're not really able to connect or really give much language that's relevant to the topic.
That's probably showing that you're lacking enough vocabulary to do that, I would have said.
So that's where, yeah, that's where we can, you can also lose marks.
So I think really what I'm trying to say in this lesson is that I'm summarizing there with those discourse markers is that this idea of cohesion is far more than transition signals.
In fact, transition signals are the last thing you should be doing.
What we're really looking for are these discourse markers.
So being able to use these adverbs and these phrases naturally to connect your sentences.
We're looking for you to use referencing throughout your response to show how ideas are connected.
We're also listening...
Do you sequence your ideas?
Are they relevant?
Are you able to pause?
And also at the very highest levels, are you able to use these kind of fillers?
Which I guess in a sense the reason why we look for the fillers is they also do join together speech, don't they?
Yeah, it's like you said, it's kind of crucial for intonation, isn't it?
Yeah, we're not leaving long gaps between our sentences.
Just using that um or yeah.
You know, those short words are kind of you know, when you click on something on the internet and it's loading.
And there's that bar that shows you how much has been loaded.
Those words are telling you, you know, oh, I haven't finished.
I'm not pausing.
My turn's not over.
I'm just loading the next idea up.
And now I'm ready to go.
Good analogy.
Thank you.
So...
Based on what we've just said.
Then Nick, what I did was I went back to some of the topics which have been reported recently which we didn't look at in our last lesson.
And I chose one of them, which was a well-known and popular person in your country.
And I recorded myself doing another two minute response just before this lesson.
Again, I didn't plan it.
I didn't prepare it.
To be honest, I mean, I didn't even take the minute, which was a bit silly.
I just spoke naturally.
Mm-hmm.
About this person.
So what we're going to do now is we're going to listen to my two minute response.
I'll be honest, Nick, it's one minute 57.
It's just a little bit shy.
We'll listen to my two minute response.
And as you're listening.
I just want you to see if you can start to recognize or hear some of these discourse markers and cohesive devices.
Because I think once you start to recognize them, you're going to, I'm sure, many people listening.
So Nick, why don't you insert the two minutes?
You haven't listened to it either, so you're going to be my guinea pig student.
Let's all listen, get a pen and paper and then we'll come back and we'll just do a little short analysis together.
So the person I'm going to talk about today is called Joe Wicks, although I think most people in the UK know him better as the body coach.
He's basically a personal fitness trainer who's become really popular over the last few years.
If I remember correctly, I think he first became popular when he. was promoting things on Instagram.
He used to do these really quick recipes, which took like 15 seconds.
And he posts the same type of videos again and again, which was just him throwing things into a frying pan to show you how to make A quick and easy meal.
In fact, I think actually his first book was called Lean in 15.
So the idea was that you could make like a healthy recipe in just 15 minutes.
And it was pretty popular then.
But I think what happened was in lockdown.
He started to do a free, I think it was 10 or 15 minute fitness video.
It was live, actually.
It wasn't a video.
So it was a live fitness workout every morning during lockdown.
And I think for many families who were stuck at home, they weren't able to go anywhere.
Just having this 15 minute exercise each day was something that they could do together.
It was also something that was getting everybody moving.
And that was the time when he really, I guess, sort of stole the heart of the nation.
Honestly, I am not a massive fan of Joe Wicks.
I think he's a nice guy who means the best, but I sometimes feel that he's tried to capitalise a little bit too much on his fame.
Every time you turn on the television, he's there and I feel it's a little bit too much.
But definitely I think if you ask anyone in the UK who is Joe Wicks, they would know who the body coach is.
All right.
Very nice.
Okay.
Thank you, Nick.
Would you say that Mr. Joe Wicks is, what is he, well-known and popular?
Yeah.
Yeah, he is.
I mean, I know lots of people.
I've never actually seen anything or heard about him, but I don't live there.
But I've heard people talk about him.
Okay, good.
So let's start then maybe from the top down.
So in terms of sequencing, did I do a good job of sort of sequencing my answer well?
Yeah, I mean, it was great.
You had the sort of general introduction to who he was, then how he became famous.
And then at the end, you kind of gave your opinion on him.
Yes, I thought that was quite nice because I looked down and it was 1 minute 20.
So I thought, what am I going to say?
What am I going to say next?
Yeah, but I did manage to keep going actually.
And I think I didn't repeat very much.
No, you didn't.
You definitely didn't.
Which was good.
Okay, in terms of these adverbs then, so all these discourse markers...
What did you hear?
Did you hear any that showed my feeling?
Well, when you transitioned, let's say, and said honestly, after you'd sort of introduced who he was and talked about how he became famous, you like it was very, very clear.
You said, honestly, it was really heavily stressed as well.
And it was a sort of shift in what you were talking about.
Yeah, then I sort of moved to my opinion.
And I guess that was quite a good example.
Actually, as you just said, I stressed it of using pausing.
So I think I said, honestly, pause for drama.
And yeah.
What other discourse markers did you hear?
Um yeah, i definitely heard basically yeah actually yeah, in fact i think he used probably as well, but i might be wrong.
I did use, probably.
I think you said he probably became famous or he's probably been very successful.
Something like that, I think.
Yeah.
To show some sort of doubt that I'm not 100% sure.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
In terms of filler words, obviously I used, you know.
The classics.
Did you hear any others?
I did, yeah.
I guess, like.
There was a couple of ums as well.
There were.
Actually, ums are interesting because I'm not aware that I'm using an um.
But once you start noticing it, you realise that they are actually throughout your speech, in a natural way.
And then what about referencing?
Referencing.
Yes.
I mean, you refer back to him as he constantly.
You didn't keep saying Joe Wicks, Joe Wicks, Joe Wicks over and over again, did you?
I don't think I said his name again.
You just said it at the beginning, didn't you?
Yeah, that's it.
Because we know who we're talking about, right?
It never changes.
And there was a lovely bit of complex grammar when you used a gerund to start a sentence and said having this 15 minute exercise each day.
Yeah.
Which was really nice.
But this 15 minute exercise, which one?
The one that you mentioned before that.
Yeah.
So I think I was referring back to that particular 15 minute period of exercise.
Yeah.
So, you know, you may say... Lots of cohesion, very cohesive overall.
Exactly.
And I think that's the interesting thing though, is that this is why I was kind of shocked when I got that email, because for me...
I just thought well, obviously everything I say is cohesive because I'm speaking naturally, as a native speaker.
But I think that's the problem is that these things look quite simple to a student.
You know, if you're trying to improve your English and someone's saying to you well, you just have to say um like, and use a few adverbs.
That doesn't seem very difficult.
But the key thing is, is using them naturally.
And I do think the best way to do that is to A know what they are and recognise them which is what we've just done and then start to use them yourself.
But you're going to probably, you know, if you go back now to previous podcast episodes, I would start for the next few weeks really listening.
Or if you're watching English TV shows, it doesn't matter what they are.
Listen for these phrases, listen for these fillers, listen for these adverbs, because that really is the key to having good connection.
It is, yeah.
Do you think?
No, you're right, 100%.
Good.
So what I thought we would do, Nick, we're racing towards Christmas.
Obviously, the last lesson we will have before Christmas will be our annual Christmas quiz.
I'm running out of questions, Nick, to be honest, but I'm going to do it.
But what I thought we could do what we haven't done for a long time is get our listeners to actually send in a sample quiz of their own speech for us to give feedback to.
In fact, I really don't know why we haven't done that for a long time.
Yeah, it's been a while, hasn't it?
Yeah, it's been absolutely ages, and it's something that we enjoy doing and obviously it's great for the listeners because they're getting free feedback from two ex-examiners, which we're not really allowed to say.
But what I thought we'd do then is...
We would take this question a well-known and popular person in your country, and we'll add three more.
Okay.
So again, these will be on our blog and I'll put them right at the beginning.
So you can choose between that question referencing or a time when you made a hard decision which had a positive result.
Okay.
Just because I think that would be interesting to hear the answers, Nick.
If you choose that one, remember, you're going to have to use past tenses, right?
You're talking about hard decision in the past.
So think about your tenses.
So I've got describe a person one.
We've got a past tense one.
I thought we could do an object one.
So that is describe a traditional product from your country.
That's quite tricky, actually, that one.
And then a habit cue card.
I thought we would do very basic, something you do to stay fit and healthy.
Oh, good.
I like that one.
Yeah.
So if you would like Nick and I to analyze your part two, all you need to do is send us a recording to hello at my IELTS classroom dot com.
You don't need a microphone or anything fancy.
Just get out your phone and make the recording.
What I would say is it's very very, very tempting to make the recording five six seven, eight times until you think it's perfect.
Is that a good idea?
That's not a good idea.
No, why not?
Because it's gonna sound scripted.
It's gonna sound scripted.
Yeah, it's not gonna sound natural.
You're not gonna have all of the fillers and the intonation and the things that we're looking for.
So you know, although that is tempting to do, try just to send us what you record on your first attempt.
If you think it's terrible, choose another question.
Give yourself a minute to prepare and try again.
And I guess what we'll do next week Nick, is we'll look at all the bands or like all the four marking criteria.
But we'll pay special attention to fluency and coherence, because that's what we've been looking at this week.
So, if you can, you know this is a great opportunity to practice using these discourse markers, to practice the referencing, to think about your sequencing so you can get some feedback.
So, yeah, that's what we're going to be doing next week.
So, I mean, I usually finish by saying come and join us.
But if you're going to send us a part two, you're definitely going to come and join us.
We may not have time. to look at all of the recordings in the actual podcast.
But if you send us something to listen to, Nick or I will listen to it.
We usually split them between us and we will send you some feedback.
Everybody's going to get feedback, even if you don't actually make it onto the podcast.
So this is a very nice...
We could even say a Christmas present, Nick.
A Christmassy gift.
A Christmassy gift from us to you.
So yeah, so get recording.
As I said, you can find the topics on the blog post.
There'll also be our email address.
I'll even see if I'm clever enough to link it so you can just click on it to send it to us.
And we will be back next week with our feedback.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Bye.
My IELTS Classroom podcast is a production of My IELTS Classroom Limited.
Nick and I do not represent IELTS, and everything you heard in this episode is our own personal opinion.
You can find the show notes and transcript for this episode on our blog.
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