Format
Duration: 10-12 min. per pair of candidates
Content: 4 parts
Purpose: Shows how good your spoken English is as you take part in the conversation by asking/answering questions and talking, for example, about your likes and dislikes. Your Speaking test will be conducted face to face with one or two other candidates and two examiners. This makes your test more realistic and more reliable.
Marks (% of total): 25%
Watch the introduction and sample Video for the speaking test
General Overview
You take the Speaking test with another candidate. There are two examiners in the room. One examiner talks to you. This examiner sometimes asks you questions and sometimes asks you to talk to the other candidate. The other examiner listens to you. Both examiners give you marks. During the test, the examiner gives you and your partner photographs and other pictures to look at and to talk about.
What do you know now?
Briefly discuss with your partner what you know about the speaking test
Are you tested alone or in pairs/threes?
How many examiners are there?
How many parts are there?
How important is the speaking test?
Do we find out the names of the examiners?
Why do you think this is?
Part 1
The test begins with a general conversation between the examiner and the candidates.
Be ready to:
spell your surname
say If you work or you are a student
answer one or two questions about your daily life
In Phase 1 of Part 1, the examiner asks you and your partner questions about yourselves.
This is what the examiner says.
Good morning/afternoon/evening.
Can I have your mark sheets, please?
I'm ... and this is ...
What's your name?
How old are you?
Where do you live?
Who do you live with?
Back-up prompts
•Do you live in (name of town, city or region)?
•Do you live with your family?
In Phase 2 of Part 1, the examiner asks you a few questions about your likes and dislikes and daily routines.
the examiner may ask you questions like:
What's your favourite subject at school? (Why?)
How do you travel to school every day?
Tell us about your best friend.
Do you watch a lot of television programmes? (Why? /Why not")
Do you get a lot of homework?
What part of the day do you like best? (Why?)
Do you enjoy going to the cinema? (Why?/Why not?)
Do you prefer winter or summer holidays? (Why?)
Back-up prompts
These are some further questions the examiner may ask:
Did you do anything special yesterday? What was it?
Who is in your family?
Where do you usually go on holiday?
Did you have a party on your last birthday?
Read the examiner’s question and a candidate’s answer to a Part 1 question
Examiner: Eva, what did you do yesterday evening?
Candidate: Yesterday evening…I was in home. And I … I was watching TV for one hour more or less and then I was studying for two hours and half more or less. And I always read a book before go to bed.
Now answer these questions:
How many activities did the candidate talk about?
What other information did she add?
Is this a full answer?
You are going to hear two candidates doing Part 1 of the test
Read the questions below, then listen once.
Which questions below does the examiner ask? Tick the ones you hear.
What's your name?
What's your surname?
How do you spell it?
What's your address?
Where do you come from?
Do you work or are you a student?
What do you study?
Do you enjoy studying English?
Do you think that English will be useful for you in the future?
What did you do yesterday evening?
What do you enjoy doing In your free time?
Listen again and answer these questions
What will the other examiner do?
Which questions does the examiner ask both the candidates?
Which questions are different for each candidate?
Exam tips!
Full answers are much better than one-word answers as they sound more natural and friendly and they give you the opportunity to show off your language.
Full answers include details, feelings, reasons or examples.
This does not mean that you should learn answers by heart in preparation for questions.
Examiners know when an answer has been pre-rehearsed as they don’t sound natural and you are not given any marks for them.
Demonstrate a full answer by asking a volunteer student to ask you one of the questions for you to answer in full. Continue as appropriate until you feel your students are ready to answer the questions themselves.
Where do you live / come from?
See suggestions
Do you study English at school?
See suggestions
Do you like it?
See suggestions
What’s your favourite school subject? Why?
See suggestions
Tell us about your English teacher.
See suggestions
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
See suggestions
Tell us about your family
See suggestions
Exam tips – GRAMMAR
If possible try to use the grammar (tense, modals, auxiliaries etc) from the question.
Study the following sample questions and think about which tense, modals, auxiliaries you should use in your response.
How do you get to your school/home? Where is the toilet/office?
How do I get to the bus stop/Post Office?
Tell me about changes in your home/college/area.
What did you like doing when you were younger?
Tell me about a holiday/journey/TV programme you will never forget and why.
Have you ever been abroad/had a barbecue/been to a festival? Tell me about it.
How will you celebrate your birthday?
What are you going to do after this test?
What are you doing this evening?
When is the end of the school/college year?
What are you doing this weekend?
Do you prefer to live in the town or the country?
Would you rather live in the town?
Exam Practice
Book a live mother tongue examiner to evaluate your Writing and Speaking from as little as €10.
Book a live mother tongue examiner for a speaking test simulation.
Or you can practice for free with a friend
One student reads out the instructions. Your partner should answer the questions, using the ideas from above for one minute.
The listening student should pay attention and identify one good thing and one weaker thing about how their partner organises their ideas.
listening student should now give their feedback to their partner, being as positive or constructive as possible.
Then change roles – this time the speaking student should focus on their range of vocabulary.
Change partners and repeat activity.
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