IELTS Speaking test – it is good to correct yourself or should you keep talking? It is common that people might make mistakes with vocabulary and grammar during the IELTS speaking test. But what should you do if you make mistakes? Should you ignore your speaking mistakes or correct yourself?

Should you correct your mistakes in IELTS speaking?

The answer is NO. You should not stop to correct an error.

Why? Read below to have a full understanding why. IELTS Speaking success really does depend on understanding more about how the test is marked and how to maximise your score.

Minor Grammar and Vocabulary Errors

You should definitely ignore these errors. You won’t get extra points for correcting your mistake. You will only show the examiner that you struggle with fluency and need to keep stopping to correct your English. This shows a weakness of English. It is best to keep talking and get a strong score on fluency.

If you make a mistake in the past tense, for example, it doesn’t matter because there will be lots of opportunities for you to show the examiner your past tense ability in English. The examiner is looking at your overall English, not a single sentence or word. So, if you make a mistake, ignore it and keep talking to retain a strong fluency score.

Mistakes in Meaning

If you have made a mistake in the meaning of what you have said, then it is fine to correct yourself. This type of mistake is not a language mistake but an accident that you gave the wrong meaning. IELTS allows for this type of correction.

But you should not repeat word for word what you have just said – you need to re-phrase and continue to show flexibility in English. Below are examples:

Example Answer 1: I really think that people should force their children to do homework because it puts too much pressure on them. Sorry, I mean – I really think that people should not force their children to do homework because it puts too much pressure on them”.

This is not a good self-correction regarding your meaning. It would lower your score because it is a full repetition and breaks fluency.

Example Answer 2: I really think that people should force their children to do homework because it puts too much pressure on them. Sorry, I mean – they should not force them because it could cause mental health problems for the child like chronic stress.

This is the right way to correct a mistake based on meaning. You are paraphrasing and useful different language as well as altering the meaning to be precise. Native speakers do this and it’s fine in IELTS. Your fluency is still strong.

Using Words from Your Own Language in IELTS Speaking

It is best to avoid using words that are not English in an English language test. You are being marked on your ability to communicate in English and you should remember that at all times.

However, sometimes words from your own language sometime pop into the answer without you thinking. Particularly when you are referring to something that is unique to your own language such as sari, guzheng or bibimbap. In such cases, it is best to immediately explain the meaning of the word (paraphrase it in English) in a natural way. Below are examples of how you can do that.

Question: Do people ever wear traditional clothes in your country?

Answer: Yes, they do. Many women in India still enjoy wearing a sari, particularly at weddings. A sari is a long piece of fabric, often silk, which is wrapped around the body and then draped over the shoulder. It’s very flattering to wear. 

Question: Did you ever play a musical instrument as a child?

Answer: Yes, I did. When I was young, I had lessons on the guzheng which is a large stringed instrument made of wood. The sound it produces is rather mystical and reminds me of misty mountains. I stopped playing when I left school.

Question: What is your favourite food?

Answer: Without doubt, bibimbap. It’s a rice dish with a variety of vegetables, such as carrot, cabbage, courgette and many more,  served in a hot stone bowl with chilli paste. It’s a really popular food here in South Korea.

As you can see from the example answer above. The paraphrased explanation of the word adds really high band score vocabulary to your answer. Also when you use “x, which is …”, you are also adding a clause and that will help your grammar score. So, never miss the opportunity to immediately explain any word you accidentally say in your own language. Although the rule really ought to be to avoid doing so in the first place.

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

• Using Fillers – is Umm Ahh ok to use?
• Linking Words for Speaking
• ALL MODEL ANSWERS & TIPS FOR IELTS SPEAKING

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Hi guys,

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and hoping that this coming decade will bring you all you desire.

Below you will find useful links to help you prepare for your IELTS test. Click to open and start learning:

IELTS Band Scores Explained: A Must Read Page

Useful Links & Resources

How to Prepare IELTS: Video Tutorial

Liz’s Android App Quiz: Test your knowledge of IELTS with my IELTS app quiz

Band Score 8 Tips from a successful IELTS candidate in 2019

Band Score 8.5 Tips from a successful IELTS candidate in 2019

Top Results: To give you motivation and inspiration

Ideas for Essay Topics E-book: Sample Chapter

Coming in 2020

This year I will be releasing my “Grammar for IELTS Writing Task 2” E-book.

This e-book will cover all aspects of grammar that you struggle most with and provide you with lots of sample sentence structures to help you improve your grammar score. There will also be grammar exercises to help you build accuracy.

I’ll post a sample chapter of this e-book soon. I hope to have the e-book ready for purchase in either March or April this year. It is already written but needs formatting and final edits.

Again, my best wishes for this new year and new decade to all of you preparing for IELTS and your family.

All the best

Liz 🙂

Below you can find the transcript and answers to the listening exercise about Autism Hour. If you have not completed this lesson, please do so before looking at the answers below. Click here: Autism Hour Listening Lesson

Transcript & Audio

There are 700,000 autistic people in the UK. Autism is a lifelong disability which affects how a person communicates and responds to people and how they experience the world around them. Although most of the public have heard of autism, few actually understand what it is like to live with it and how to support someone with autism. Autism Hour is when businesses agree to dim their lights and reduce background noise, such as music, to create an environment that is more suitable for autistic people. Autistic people have difficulty processing sensory information leading to sensory overload which can cause great stress and even physical pain. In a world geared towards neuro-typical people, this problem can leave autistic people restricted in where they can go and what they can enjoy. Autism Hour not only opens doors to autistic shoppers and their families, it also provides an opportunity for staff members to learn more about autism which is essential if autistic people are to get the support and respect they need from society. Autism Hour is also important in bringing to light the general affect that sensory information can have on people who are not neuro-typical or who have an illness affecting their ability to cope with light or noise or any other type of sensory information.

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Answers

• 1. Autism can affect how someone ……….. with others and how they experience the world.
  • Answer: COMMUNICATES
  • You cannot have “COMMUNICATE” or “COMMUNICATION”. 
  • The sentence must be grammatically correct when it is completed. 
• 2. Businesses should ………. their lights and reduce noise during Autism Hour.
  • Answer: DIM
• 3. Too much light and noise and lead to a sensory ………… which can be painful for people with autism.
  • Answer: OVERLOAD
• 4. Society is mostly …………. towards neuro-typical people.
  • Answer: GEARED
• 5. Some people with other illnesses can also struggle to cope with ………… information.
  • Answer: SENSORY
    • It is not possible to have the words “LIGHT” or “NOISE” or any other word as the answer. You cannot write “light information” as a compound noun in English.

Tip: Always remember that the listening test is also testing your understanding of English grammar and English vocabulary.

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Hi guys,

I wanted to let you know that my Android App is ready to be installed.

The app contains useful IELTS quizzes to test your understanding of the test. If you score under 70% in the quizzes, you should really spend more time learning about the test. One of the reasons that people struggle with IELTS is that they don’t fully understand it. So, do the quizzes today and test how ready you are.

The app also contains an easy gateway for you to access my website and my Youtube channel.

The app is called IELTS Liz.

Click here: IELTS Liz App

Iphone users: If this app is popular with Android users, I will consider making another app for you later on. Lets see how things go with this app first.

All the best

Liz

In some IELTS books, the listening answers are written using brackets. The common question I am asked is:

Question : Can I use brackets for my answers in IELTS listening or IELTS reading?

Answer: No, you can’t use brackets in your IELTS listening or reading test. Read the information below to understand why.

What are brackets?

Here is an example of some answers using brackets:

1. charity (work)
2. detail(s)
3. (a) reception (room)

Brackets are used to provide optional answers ( more than one answer).

Why are brackets used in IELTS test books?

The brackets are used in the answer keys of books to show different possible answers for one question. It is a quick easy way to show multiple answers. For example:

• charity (work)
  • charity or charity work (both answers are correct)
• detail(s)
  • detail or details (both answers are correct)
• (a) reception (room)
  • reception or a reception or reception room or a reception room (all 4 answers are correct)

Even though the answer key in books show different possible answers, you cannot do that in your test.

You must choose ONE ANSWER ONLY. You can’t give two possible options for your answer. If you think the answer is “detail”, then you must write it like that. You must decide if the answer is plural or singular. If the answer is plural, your answer will be marked wrong. So, take your time deciding if you need to give a plural answer or not. Or if you need to use an article (a/the) or not.

Can you use brackets in your test?

No, not for IELTS listening or IELTS reading. However, if you are taking Academic writing, you can use brackets in your writing task 1 to present data. See the writing section of this website for examples of this.

Want to learn more about IELTS Listening?

If you want to know more about counting words, writing answers and improving your score for IELTS listening, click here: IELTS Listening Free Tips & Lessons

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Below you will find the transcript and answers to this listening practice.

If you have not completed this lesson, please do so before looking at the transcript or answers. Click here: Rainforest Listening Lesson

Transcript to Rainforest Fires Listening Practice

Use the transcript to listen and read at the same time. This is a useful way to develop better listening skills and improve your pronunciation.

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The Amazon rainforest—home to one in 10 species on Earth – is on fire. And as of last week, 9,000 wildfires were raging simultaneously across the vast rainforest of Brazil and spreading into Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru. The blazes are now burning in massive numbers, an 80 percent increase over this time last year. The fires can even be seen from space.

For the thousands of mammal, reptile, amphibian, and bird species that live in the Amazon, the wildfires’ impact will come in two phases: one immediate, one long-term.

Generally, in the midst of wildfire, animals have very few choices. They can try to hide by burrowing or going into water. They can be displaced. Or they can perish. In this situation, a lot of animals will die, from flames, heat from the flames, or smoke inhalation.

The entire ecosystem of the burning sections of rainforest will be altered. For example, the dense canopy of the Amazon rainforest largely blocks sunlight from reaching the ground. Fire opens up the canopy at a stroke, bringing in light and fundamentally changing the energy flow of the entire ecosystem. This can have cascading effects on the entire food chain.

Furthermore, environmentalists are also calling attention to the consequences that a burning Amazon—often called the lungs of the planet—would have on climate change.

Source: Read the full article at the National Geographic published Aug 23rd.

Answers

1. SPECIES
2. SPACE
3. AMPHIBIAN (This is not plural. If you wrote this as a plural, it would be marked wrong. You can see from the grammar in the question statement that this word needs to be singular: ” The fires affect thousands of mammal, reptile, ……..and bird species. ” – the words of each species is singular = mammal, reptile, bird” = singular. In this case, the following word in the list would also be singular. So, this isn’t just a case of listening skills, it is also about paying attention to grammar in the question statement given. Also note, if your spelling is wrong, the whole answer is marked as wrong.)
4. SMOKE INHALATION
5. FOOD CHAIN (note the word “food chain” is a compound noun written as two separate words. It cannot be written with a hyphen. The word count is only two – so you can’t use the word “entire” in your answer.)
6. LUNGS (This is plural. If you wrote it without the “s”, it would be marked wrong.)

I hope you enjoyed this lesson 🙂 Remember, this topic can easily appear in writing task 2 or the speaking test. For more listening practice, click here: IELTS Liz’s Listening Section

All the best, Liz

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Hi guys,

Below are the answers to the reading lesson based on matching headings about The Greenhouse Effect.

If you have not completed this reading lesson, please do it before look at the answers. Click here: Matching Headings Reading Practice

Below you will find the headings options and the answers.

Matching Headings Options

• i  Changing temperatures
• ii. The Greenhouse
• iii. Creating Global Warming
• iv. Use of a Greenhouse
• v. Our Choices
• vi. How the greenhouse effect works
• vii. Earth’s Atmosphere
• viii. Reversing the Damage
• ix. Effects of Carbon Dioxide

Paragraph A = ii

• The answer can’t be iv. The paragraph did contain information about how the greenhouse was used, such as growing vegetables. But that information was not the main aim of the paragraph, it was additional information. 
• The paragraph actually talked about what it was made of, what it was used for and how it works. The best title would be “The greenhouse” because it gave a clear overview of it.
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Paragraph B = vi

• The answer isn’t i because the paragraph actually explains that this natural effect keeps the temperature of Earth stable.
• The answer is vi which explains how Earth’s atmosphere works to keep our planet at a stable temperature.

Paragraph C = iii

• The answer isn’t viii because the paragraph isn’t not aimed at explaining carbon dioxide and in fact only mentions it along side other greenhouse gases.
• The answer isn’t ix because although climates are affected around the world, the whole paragraph aim isn’t to discuss climates in different countries.

Paragraph D = v

• The answer isn’t vii because the paragraph doesn’t actually discuss his research, but rather his opinion’s about what options we have to deal with our changing climate.

I hope you found this useful 🙂 From Liz. 

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