‫Welcome back to another IOU speaking lesson.
‫And today, we're going to be looking at something that a lot of students ask me about, and that is
‫especially for I speaking feeling nervous during the test.
‫Now, this is definitely one of the most nerve wracking parts of the test for many students.
‫In fact, it's pretty much guaranteed that every student will feel nervous for this section.
‫So we're going to talk about it in a little bit more detail, and I'll give you some tips to deal with
‫the nerves and ways that you can practice in terms of the speaking test to improve and improve your
‫nerves, but also to relax a little bit better.
‫So I'll take you through those tips.
‫And of course, if you have any questions, please jump into the Q&A section.
‫Okay.
‫So first, let's look at some general tips for nerves.
‫As I said, it's true that the aisles is definitely a nerve wracking test.
‫There's a lot relying on the IRS test in terms of the band scores that you get, whether that's migrating
‫abroad, entrance into foreign education, institutions such as a university or even just for work purposes,
‫maybe it's a pay rise, a new position that you need to push your eye out for.
‫So there's a lot riding on your A+ test results, which naturally will make you quite nervous.
‫But rest assured, all students are nervous and there are some definite, some definite exercises we
‫can do in order to relax more.
‫Of course, if we're too nervous, we're going to freeze up.
‫It's going to stop us focusing, and we're probably going to not do as well as we should.
‫Okay, so here are a few general tips overall for the adults, which are always good to remember that
‫useful for the arts speaking section, but also for the other sections of the arts test too.
‫So we have the first thing which is really important, and I'll talk about this again later on in the
‫lesson.
‫Realistic expectations of the illness test.
‫And I mean that in two ways.
‫So first, expectations in terms of your band score and if you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself
‫to get from, say, you're a six now to be an eight in two months, that's not realistic.
‫Most probably it's going to be very difficult to achieve that grade with your current level of fluency.
‫This is going to make you feel nervous.
‫So it's good to have realistic expectations in terms of the band score that you can achieve.
‫And of course, ask me able to give you some feedback in terms of where abouts you are in your overall
‫fluency.
‫The next realistic expectation would be in regards to studying time.
‫So some students jump into this course, for example, with, say, three weeks of quite intensive studying.
‫That works for some people.
‫It doesn't work for others.
‫It depends on your current level of fluency.
‫It depends whether you've taken the test before.
‫So try and think about how long you need to spend in terms of studying the results to reach your required
‫band score so that you're not putting too much pressure on yourself.
‫Also understand that many students have to spend up to a year, some even two years, studying for the
‫test in order to get that band score that you need.
‫So that's going to definitely mean that you're more calm, that you have a better understanding of what
‫realistically you can achieve and what to expect from the test.
‫So think clearly about what band score you need and how you will get there, how long it's going to
‫take you.
‫Okay, the next thing is to prepare for all situations important in the IO speaking test, but also
‫in the other sections of the test too.
‫And basically preparing means to practice to use as many resources as you can to repeat lessons in this
‫course.
‫To ask me questions.
‫That's what I'm here for as well.
‫But also to try and look at other resources elsewhere.
‫This course is a complete guide for adults, but that doesn't mean that you can't go onto YouTube,
‫for example, and take a look at more muddled answers for, say, it's listening or to look at some
‫example tests for alts reading in other places.
‫The more preparation you do, the less you'll be feeling nervous about surprising topics that you say.
‫So preparation is definitely key to building confidence and lessening those nerves.
‫Next step is to identify.
‫Your strengths and weaknesses.
‫Again, an overall layout tip, but where are you weakest?
‫Is it your speaking skills?
‫Do you need to practice more in your conversational fluency?
‫That's where you need to sort of weigh up where to study the most in terms of the hours spent on those
‫four sections speaking, writing, listening and reading.
‫And if you do this, it would definitely help you in terms of making sure that all those levels of fluency
‫are pretty equal.
‫That's going to help you with your nerves.
‫It's going to build confidence.
‫Okay, so let's get more into the I Am Speaking tips.
‫And the first one is preparation of common topics.
‫So we just kind of spoke about this.
‫You can't prepare for every single possible topic with an eye out speaking, but you can prepare for
‫all the common ones pretty much.
‫So there are different topics that come in and out of the speaking test year on year, and occasionally
‫they have some slightly more left field or strange topics that they introduce and then bring away,
‫pull out, and but the common ones always stay the same.
‫And it's good again to use, of course, this course to look at all those different model dances and
‫scripts I give you, but also to try and look at different model dances elsewhere.
‫Okay, so here are a few examples of common topics.
‫It's not all of them and I talk about this throughout the section, but we have things like family,
‫education, hobbies, definitely going to see one of those at some point and I'll speaking test out
‫sports and travel probably more towards part two and part three and exercise food and culture again,
‫probably more to our towards part two and part three of the I speaking test.
‫But these are just nine quick examples of very common topics.
‫So try and learn a language around learn vocabulary for these different topics.
‫Take a look at the example model answers I give you within these topics and really focus on the language
‫I'm using.
‫Repeat the language that I'm showing you.
‫Try and use the vocabulary I'm showing you to.
‫Again, preparation will build confidence and make you feel less nervous.
‫Okay, next, we have rehearsed modeled answers.
‫Now you'll often see that teachers say Don't memorize answers on the day of your test.
‫Now I'm saying rehearse, not memorize.
‫And I think a lot of teachers miss the point here.
‫You shouldn't memorize answers, but in all honesty, fluency is something that is not natural.
‫You have to build fluency and a lot of the time this is done through language rehearsal, which is repetition.
‫You internalize language through repetition that can be by reading different texts again and again and
‫again until you can almost write or speak like that.
‫Author A good example.
‫Have you ever read a book?
‫And then you find yourself an hour later after finishing, reading, speaking in the style of the author.
‫This is kind of an internalizing of the language, and you can do this with the model dances that I
‫show you.
‫I'm not telling you to memorize them.
‫I'm telling you to act them out, to repeat them, to learn them.
‫And of course, you might not get that topic, but there are some phrases, some language that I use
‫that you can use in all topics.
‫So rehearsing is definitely useful.
‫For example, here I just am not reading through to you, but this is just an example of a section of
‫a model dancer I give you.
‫I think it's for part two of an out speaking test.
‫So what you could do here is maybe once a day repeat and read this section 1 to 3 times.
‫Once you've done that over ten days, you'll have a lot more fluency in terms of using not just the
‫vocabulary but also the grammatical structures.
‫And then you can start unpacking parts of the vocabulary and making it your own and changing the language.
‫Don't memorize, rehearse and I think I'm just repeating pad the saying many times over with expression
‫and feeling and really it comes down to just practicing using this structured language.
‫This model of language here is really useful to do that.
‫You should be doing that with all model answers.
‫Repeat them, say them after May and learn the language.
‫Okay.
‫Next up, language partners.
‫I talk about this all the time, practice with native speakers if possible, or the English language
‫learners practicing with native speakers or even a teacher is best.
‫But if you can find other English language learners or the people studying for Io's, that would be
‫great.
‫And you might.
‫Be nervous when you practise speaking with these people.
‫That's really common.
‫And it's definitely you know, students have said to me before, well, we're running out of things
‫to say.
‫And the best way really to get around that is to think about different topics you want to discuss.
‫Now you can bring I'll speaking questions with you to these language exchanges, whether it's online
‫or in person, and then you can discuss them.
‫You could give each other a minute, 2 minutes to give an answer, give preparation time as well, and
‫just give yourself feedback.
‫So say what you liked about the language exchange partner's answers, so you're almost mentoring each
‫other.
‫If you come without any preparation or no ideas of what you want to discuss, you're going to run out
‫of things to say.
‫So preparation here again is key in terms of thinking about what you would like to discuss just quickly.
‫You can use social media websites such as Facebook or possibly even Instagram.
‫I'm sure there's many more WhatsApp groups to find English language partners.
‫And if you search for that within Facebook, for example, English language partners, I'll study partners.
‫I'm sure you'll find plenty of groups there.
‫Just quickly, a couple of ideas about a few questions you could bring.
‫What is your favorite hobby?
‫So maybe you could prepare together in these language groups and then give each of that time to give
‫an answer, almost like you would do in the I'll speak in test.
‫And here we've got a few other question types that are really common and I out speaking that you could
‫bring with you to okay so language exchange partners have really useful you might be nervous but I think
‫practicing being uncomfortable is one of the best ways to overcome being nervous.
‫Everyone was nervous to start with and confidence is something that you build.
‫Okay.
‫And the last one I've kind of already talked about this, but visualization and acting, so the I am
‫speaking is almost public speaking, a test of public speaking, even though there's only an audience
‫of one the examiners.
‫Now, public speaking takes practice.
‫No one is naturally a great public speaker.
‫Everyone has to start off from skill zero.
‫So the best way to do this and what a lot of people do is to visualize the event, whether it's a speech
‫or whatever is happening, training event, as I often do with teaching.
‫And then to think about the things that you would say in this example of the speaking test that are
‫actually in your head or even better out loud, maybe at home.
‫So not everyone thinks you crazy is going over these answers.
‫You can maybe write down five or six questions on a piece of paper, read them to yourself the questions,
‫and then time yourself one minute to minute and try and give an answer, as you would do on the day
‫of the test.
‫And this is going to really help you to build confidence, because acting is definitely something that
‫we can practice.
‫We can pretend being confident.
‫And you can do this with this preparation of pretending and really aurally reciting your answers.
‫And it's definitely a good idea to do this within a week of your test, every day to be practicing,
‫speaking out loud.
‫You can even practice doing a whole test if you can get questions written down.
‫Okay.
‫So just a little idea on visualization and acting, something that's really important for public speaking,
‫but also just generally speaking, confidence.
‫So acting and visualization.
‫Okay.
‫So just a quick run through of the different tips.
‫So prepare for common topics for speaking, rehearse my model dance is that I give you the different
‫scripts and the different videos.
‫I show you pause, say out loud and do this daily to internalize that language.
‫Find a language partner for practicing your conversation that's very useful as well.
‫And visualization and acting.
‫And finally, just an extra tip, which is just set yourself realistic expectations in terms of the
‫band school you want to achieve and how long that will take you because that's going to make you feel
‫less nervous as well.
‫Okay.
‫If you've got any questions about these tips or you'd like some more advice on this jump into the Q&A
‫section and I'll get back to you as quickly as possible.