Producing a Good Quality Part Two Talk
The Fluency-based Strategy for Part Two IELTS Speaking Test
This strategy focuses on the fluency aspect of the marking system. Earlier in this book we concluded that linking words and linking phrases can increase your "Fluency" score – this strategy is based on producing good quality linking structures in your two-minute talk and combines these with complex sentence structures.
First look at the following topic card.
Describe a sport that you like playing or watching.
What the sport is
How often you play / watch it
Why you like it
Whether it is popular in your country.
The first thing to notice is that all topic cards have one thing in common.
Look carefully at the 4 prompts on any topic card and you should notice that they all share the same grammar feature.
What the sport is
How often you play / watch it
Why you like it
Whether it is popular in your country.
Most people think that these are 4 questions. Look carefully – they are not questions: they are in fact a single clause or part of a sentence (statement). This fact is true for every Part Two topic card.
For this strategy, you can divide your talk into 4 Parts (the 4 prompts). Take the first one for example: "What the sport is".
You can use this to create your opening sentence.
I guess I could begin by saying something about what the sport is, and I think I would have to choose football. Most people know that football is...
This sentence has 3 strong features. It contains complex linking structures, redundant language and complex grammar (sentence structure).
Another advantage of using this type of structure is that you don’t really need much content because you will probably spend almost one minute producing the complex linking phrases.
If used correctly, this structure will have a positive affect on your "Fluency" and "Grammar" scores.
Now look at the second prompt: “How often you play / watch it” (you need to change "you" to "I")
Going on to my next point which is how often I play it. I really need to add that if I have enough time I usually play it about twice a week. In fact...
And then the third prompt: "Why you like it". The third sentence could be:
And now with reference to why I like it1, the point I want to make here is that...
And the last prompt: "Whether it is popular in your country". The fourth sentence:
And so finally then, if I have time, in answer to the question of whether it is popular in my country, really I should mention that...
So the final structure (without content) might look like this:
I guess I could begin by saying something about what the sport is, and I think I would have to choose... Going on to my next point which is how often I play it, I really need to add that... And now with reference to why I like it, the point I want to make here is that...
And so finally then, if I have time, in answer to the question of whether it is popular in my country, really I should mention that...
Practice reading the structure above. Depending on the speed it should take you between 30 ~ 45 seconds. This means that you only need about one minute of content. As there are 4 points, you only to find about seconds of actual content for each point.
Now look at the next topic card with a complete structure with content.
Describe a famous person you would like to meet.
You should say
Who the person is
Why he / she is famous
Why you would like to meet this celebrity
What you would like to do if you met this person.
I guess I could begin by saying something about who this person is, and I think I would have to choose the superstar Jackie Chan from Hong Kong.
Going on to my next point which is why he is famous. I really need to add that he is a world-renowned martial arts film star as well as being a successful director. In fact he was probably the first Chinese actor to achieve blockbuster success in Hollywood.
And now with reference to why I would like to meet this celebrity, the point I want to make here is that I have always been a big fan of martial arts movies, so if I had the chance to meet one of my childhood idols, it would be a dream come true.
And so finally then, if I have time, in answer to the question of what I would like to do if I met him, really I should mention that I would probably ask him to teach me a few special Kung Fu tricks and I would possibly invite him out for dinner at a classy restaurant or something like that.
Analysis
I guess I could begin by saying something about who this person is, and I think I would have to choose the superstar Jackie Chan from Hong Kong.
(The first point is quite simple, but for most Part Two topics the first point is usually just a simple factual introduction.)
Fluency: the sentence begins with a linking phrase and contains redundant language.
Vocabulary: one topic-related word – superstar.
Grammar: complex structure and use of complex tense – "I would have to choose..."
Going on to my next point which is why he is famous, I really need to add that he is a world-renowned martial arts film star as well as being a successful director. In fact he was probably the first Chinese actor to achieve blockbuster success in Hollywood.
Fluency: the sentence begins with a linking structure and contains 3 more connecting structures: "I really need to add that", "in fact", "as well as".
Vocabulary: topic-related uncommon words: world-renowned, blockbuster success.
Grammar: the use of the connecting structures makes it one long and complex sentence.
And now with reference to why I would like to meet this celebrity, the point I want to make here is that I have always been a big fan of martial arts movies, so if I had the chance to meet one of my childhood idols, it would be a dream come true.
Fluency: begins with a linking phrase, and contains 2 other connectives.
Vocabulary: topic-related uncommon word: childhood idol; idiomatic phrase: dream comes true.
Grammar: the sentence is complex and contains examples of conditional tense - "so if I had the chance to meet one of my childhood idols, it would be…”
And so finally then, if I have time, in answer to the question of what I would like to do if I met him, really I should mention that I would probably ask him to teach me a few special Kung Fu tricks and I would possibly invite him out for dinner at a classy restaurant or something like that.
Fluency: begins with a linking phrase and contains redundant language – or something like that.
Vocabulary: uncommon words: tricks, classy.
Grammar: the sentence structure is complex and contains examples of conditional tenses: "would probably", "would possibly".
Overall Analysis
Each of the four points covered in this Part Two talk focuses on all 3 areas of the marking system (we can’t really work on pronunciation at this stage).
In summary, everything the candidate says is in some way increasing the speaking score.
Notice that the actual "content" that is presented doesn't really make any difference to the score.
This style of response is probably the easiest way to achieve a score of 7 or higher in Part Two.
Important Note
Notice that in the answers. the candidate doesn’t change the wording from the topic card. If you start changing the wording you will begin to make grammar errors and this will reduce your "Grammar" score.
You can make very slight changes if you are 100% sure the change is correct, e.g.:
Who the person is -> Who he is
Why you would like to meet this person -> Why I would like to meet this star
Changing one or two words is fine but change the actual structure of the clause on the topic card or your whole sentence could be grammatically wrong.
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