The Speaking Test Format and the Speaking Topics for Extensive Practice
Speaking module overview
General points
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An interview takes place between one examiner and one
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candidate for between 11 and 14 minutes.
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The candidate’s speaking is assessed on fluency and
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coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range
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and accuracy, and pronunciation.
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A band mark is awarded between 1 and 9 with 9 being
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the highest. Half marks e.g. 5.5 are now possible in the
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speaking section.
Speaking test format
| Part 1 | Examiner and candidate introduce themselves, candidate answers general questions on familiar topics e.g. family, job, studies, free-time etc. | about 4 to 5 minutes |
| Part 2 | Candidate asked to speak on a given topic (information is written on a task card) for 1-2 minutes. One minute of preparation in which the candidate can make notes is allowed. | 4 minutes |
| Part 3 | Discussion on more abstract issue related to the chosen topic in part 2 of the test. | about 4 to 5 minutes |
Speaking Topics: For the extensive practice of PHASE I
§ Hobbies
§ Leisure (free time)
§ Studies/ Job
§ Neighbourhood
§ Friends
§ Family
§ School Days
§ Home town or village
§ Daily routine
§ Shopping
§ Special occasions
§ Cooking
§ Your likes and dislikes
Speaking Topics: For the extensive practice of PHASE II
- Water Sports
- A family you know
- A place where you studied
- Your favourite Pet
- Your favourite shopping centre
- An Important Equipment/ machine that you use regularly
- Your favourite Fruit
- Parks in your country
- Your favourite Newspaper
- Handicrafts in
- Your Favourite Restaurant
- Furniture in your house
- Your favourite magazine
- A traditional meal
- Favourite Sport in the childhood
- An interesting Website
- Someone you admire
- A child you know
- A present someone gave to you
- A personal possession that is important to you
- A job you would like to have
- Something you would like to own
- A skill you have learnt
- A teacher who has influenced you
- A house you would like to live in.
- Your favourite Shop
- A tourist attraction you have visited
- A country you would like to live in.
- A place you know well
- An important event in your life
- A picture or photo you have or know
- Describe a Polluted Place
Last Updated: 21 June, 2008
Talk on familiar topics
Talk about a Movie
Yes, I am going to talk about the film 'Secondary school' by I think Tammy Cheung? I'm not quite sure about the name of the producer, but it's been a bit controversial in Hong Kong, it's a documentary and it's about two Band 1 schools, Ying Hua & St Catherine's girls' school. It's interesting the way they did the documentary, there's no commentary, they simply shot various sequences in the playground, in the classrooms, in the staff meetings, in assembly & then edited it & showed what they'd photographed without any commentary & I think it gives a very good picture, a very good impression of what goes on in the schools, although I understand the schools themselves weren't very happy about it; they felt it was rather negative. You have sequences where students were yawning and falling asleep, you had a few sequences where students were speaking English & made some grammatical mistakes, ... teachers made some mistakes. But overall I did not find it a negative film, I found it in some ways quite encouraging because you saw some quite good teaching, you saw that there were quite good relationships between the teachers & the students in many cases, in any class you're going to find some students yawning and falling asleep, I don't think that's anything terrible, but on the other hand, you could see very clearly that both schools were quite conservative in many ways, in terms of the way they are constantly exhorting students to behave in certain kinds of ways, being very concerned about the way they wore their uniform, whether they had their shirts inside or outside their trousers and things like that. Also some surprising sequences like the teaching of needlework: I didn't know that needlework was still taught & that ... one of the things that showed the difference between a girls' school & a boys' school, there was very much a gender difference between the two. But on the whole, I came away with the impression of some very professional teaching and schools where there was some genuine concern for the students, and the students on the whole seemed to perform reasonably well. There was an interesting discussion after the film and again, I was interested that the audience was divided: some people thought it was a very positive picture, some that it was a very negative picture so it shows clearly how the same film can be perceived very differently by different kinds of people…
A STUDENT SAMPLE
