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Shadowing practice: Advanced IELTS Speaking Test – Band 9

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  1. Let's start off by talking about your daily routine.0:00
  2. Tell me about your daily routine.0:03
  3. OK, well, I wake up around eight AM.0:04
  4. Every morning is like clockwork and I brush my teeth.0:08
  5. I wash my face, breakfast and then I get in my car0:13
  6. and I drive to work.0:18
  7. And yeah, that's basically it.0:21
  8. I come back home and fix myself up some dinner and watch some Netflix, very average mundane.0:23
  9. How has your daily routine changed since you were a child?0:33
  10. Not much, except I go to work now instead of school.0:37
  11. But I get a lot of free time over the weekends.0:41
  12. So I get to do the things I like to do, such as meditation and writing. I love journaling.0:45
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  1. I'd love to put out some novels one day.0:52
  2. I always thought that I would retire to the country side in my old age with my animals and write books.0:55
  3. So yeah, so writing, yoga.1:03
  4. What else do I do on the weekends?1:07
  5. I want to try horse riding as well.1:09
  6. Is your daily routine different at the weekend compared to during the week?1:12
  7. Yes, 100 percent. So the weekdays are for work, mainly being productive, paying the bills.1:16
  8. And the weekends I get to do whatever I want to do.1:24
  9. So really treasure and enjoy my weekends.1:27
  10. Let's talk now about dreams.1:30
  11. Do you dream much at night?1:33
  12. I do dream sometimes, but not very often.1:34
  13. And when I do dream, I don't tend to remember my dreams.1:39
  14. Do you think we can learn anything from dreams?1:44
  15. I think so.1:46
  16. I think there's a lot of repressed emotions and stress that come out during our dreams that perhaps we haven't addressed in real life.1:47
  17. So yes, I believe we can learn quite a lot.1:57
  18. And I suppose some people can even, you know, predict the future through dreams or images that they see.2:00
  19. I'm kind of on the fence about that.2:07
  20. I don't know, but seems credible.2:09
  21. Now let's talk about email.2:13
  22. What kind of emails do you receive about your work?2:15
  23. I receive a lot of emails from my higher ups.2:18
  24. So my manager, people from other departments as well, usually following up for things or scheduling meetings, just a lot of work that needs to be done and reminders to2:22
  25. please do this work.2:37
  26. So do you normally reply to emails as soon as you receive them?2:39
  27. Oh, no.2:43
  28. I don't because I feel like there's no point in replying if the work hasn't been done.2:45
  29. So let's say you were supposed to schedule a meeting and something needs to be done.2:50
  30. I'd much prefer to get that thing done and then respond by saying, OK, here it is.2:54
  31. Here's the file that you that you requested that you asked for.2:59
  32. And yeah, instead of, you know, random sort of hello, well received.3:05
  33. Thank you.3:11
  34. Are you happy to receive emails that are advertising things?3:12
  35. No, I don't think anyone would be unless it's for a brand that I follow or that I like, unless they're having a sale.3:16
  36. In that case, I'd be more than happy to receive their emails.3:26
  37. Now let's talk about exercise.3:31
  38. How often do you exercise?3:33
  39. Not as often as I would like.3:35
  40. I find the gym to be quite tedious and boring.3:37
  41. I prefer doing classes, but then to get myself to the class and sit through traffic coming back.3:41
  42. So I would love to work out a bit more frequently.3:48
  43. And I tend to like slower exercises such as yoga or swimming, something where I don't really have to break a sweat, which is not very realistic.3:52
  44. But yeah.4:05
  45. What do you think is the best exercise to keep fit?4:05
  46. I've tried Pilates.4:09
  47. I think it's really good for toning the the body and the muscles.4:10
  48. And you see a big difference.4:16
  49. It might not burn as many calories, but you do see a huge difference in your silhouette.4:18
  50. So have the types of exercise people like to do changed since you were a child?4:23
  51. I would say not really the types of exercises that people do.4:28
  52. I would say they just don't exercise as much.4:32
  53. Perhaps it's gone from cycling and tennis to dancing on TikTok.4:36
  54. I think that would be the main difference, if I'm really honest.4:40
  55. Describe a time when you enjoyed visiting a family member or friends?4:44
  56. I went back to Taiwan last month and I stayed for about three weeks.4:48
  57. I was visiting friends and family.4:53
  58. But I don't really have much family and I want just my mum.4:56
  59. So I've noticed that in life, when you don't have a lot of family, the universe brings you friends and it might sound a bit cliche, but friends really are5:00
  60. the family that you've chosen.5:11
  61. And so I've now moved away from Taiwan.5:14
  62. But when I was there, made a lot of very, very good, I think lifelong friends who I go back and visit periodically.5:17
  63. I've visited Shirley.5:25
  64. I've been friends with her since I was 15.5:27
  65. So that's about 15 years now.5:29
  66. So you can guess my age.5:31
  67. Tiffany, I've known her since I was 18.5:33
  68. Cyril, Eva, so I visited these friends in particular.5:37
  69. We just pretty much not to sound boring.5:41
  70. We just hung out and talked a lot, caught up a lot on life.5:44
  71. What's been happening?5:50
  72. Who are you dating?5:51
  73. You know, are you happy?5:52
  74. So there was a lot of that over wine or tea.5:54
  75. And I also went and visited Cyril's new restaurant.5:59
  76. And he's been doing really, really well for himself.6:03
  77. I'm very happy about that.6:06
  78. We went and visited Jackie and found out that he was actually also back in Taiwan for his wedding.6:08
  79. So we went to his wedding, had a bit too much whiskey, but that's OK.6:17
  80. We won't repeat that experience.6:22
  81. It was fun in general.6:23
  82. It was a lot of fun.6:27
  83. It was lovely to see Tiffany and Eva because they both had babies during the past one or two years.6:29
  84. And it was lovely to see them.6:36
  85. So we've been talking about people that you visited and we're going to continue to talk about family.6:38
  86. When do families celebrate together in your country?6:45
  87. To thank you for watching this video.6:50
  88. I want to give you a free course that has helped thousands of students improve their IELTS speaking score.6:52
  89. What it's going to do is take you through every single part of the test and give you strategies for part one, part two, and part three, and also allow6:58
  90. you to practice at home for free and get feedback to sign up for that for free.7:06
  91. All you have to do is just click the link in the description.7:12
  92. Thanks very much.7:14
  93. And let's get back to the video.7:15
  94. Chinese New Year.7:17
  95. That's a big one.7:18
  96. The Mid -Autumn Festival.7:20
  97. That's also a big one.7:22
  98. Any celebration really is an excuse for the family to get together, which can be a bit stressful at times because we all know how we feel about our families,7:24
  99. we love them, but it's sort of a love -hate relationship because they can get on our nerves sometimes, but oh well.7:31
  100. Why is it that some people might not enjoy attending family gatherings?7:41
  101. I think because relatives, especially get it in their heads that their family and so they think they can ask any questions.7:46
  102. When are you going to get married?7:57
  103. That's a big one.7:59
  104. When are you going to have a baby?8:00
  105. Why are you wasting your time?8:01
  106. So that can be a bit stressful because the whole point of being on vacation because now to see my family, I have to go on vacation and go back8:03
  107. to my country to see them is to relax, not to get stressed out.8:14
  108. So I think a lot of people have the same experience.8:19
  109. Now, let's talk about everyday life in families.8:22
  110. Do you think it is a good thing for parents to help their children with their homework?8:25
  111. Yes, I think it's a very good thing.8:30
  112. I think it's important to have your mum or your dad present in your childhood.8:33
  113. It's very good for mental health, so you don't need to see a therapist when you grow up.8:39
  114. How important do you think it is for families to eat dinner together?8:43
  115. Oh, very, very, very important.8:48
  116. It's important to feel that connection because you could be people living in the same house.8:50
  117. If you don't communicate regularly, interact regularly.8:56
  118. What's the point of having a family?9:00
  119. What's the point of having, you know, your parents around then if they're not going to be parents?9:01
  120. Do you believe that everyone in a family should share chores?9:08
  121. Yes, I think so.9:11
  122. I think that's very important.9:13
  123. However, let's say if dad is out working most of the week, then maybe he doesn't need to do as many chores.9:15
  124. I know it might sound a bit sexist, but it's really about what's the word, distributing work evenly.9:25
  125. I'm not going to give you some feedback on your performance.9:33
  126. So I'm going to break the feedback down into part one, part two and part three.9:36
  127. And then I'm going to give you some band scores and your scores for pronunciation, fluency, grammar and vocabulary.9:41
  128. Thank you for making it this far in the video.9:48
  129. I want to give you 10 percent off our VIP course.9:51
  130. I'll VIP course is the most successful IELTS course in the world.9:54
  131. That is a fact because we have more about seven, eight and nine success stories than any other IELTS course in the entire world.9:58
  132. We do that by simplifying the whole IELTS process, supporting you with some of the best IELTS teachers in the world and being with you every step of the way10:05
  133. until you get the score that you need.10:15
  134. All you have to do is just look down in the description, just click that and you can sign up.10:16
  135. If you have any questions about the VIP course, always feel free to get in touch with us.10:21
  136. We answer 100 percent of the questions that we get.10:26
  137. Hope that you become a VIP.10:29
  138. If not, enjoy the rest of this free video.10:30
  139. Part one, you did a great job with part one.10:33
  140. It was like talking to a colleague, talking to a friend.10:36
  141. You didn't really have to think much about the answers.10:39
  142. You didn't really have to think about the language you were using.10:43
  143. It was all very, very natural.10:46
  144. One thing I don't think this is going to be a huge issue for you.10:48
  145. But sometimes under pressure on exam day, some students do this and you do it a little bit, which is you list lots of things.10:52
  146. If you did that with too many answers, you're indicating to the examiner, I don't really know how to construct a sentence.11:00
  147. Exactly.11:08
  148. Right.11:09
  149. Exactly.11:09
  150. So it is much better to pick one or two things and go deep on those things rather than go wide.11:10
  151. So going wide is just, you know, what's your favorite food?11:16
  152. I like pizza, I like burgers, I like sushi, I like Thai, I like it.11:19
  153. It's better to pick one of those.11:23
  154. I like Thai because and explain why that is.11:25
  155. So that allows you to really show off your grammar, show off your vocabulary because your grammar and vocabulary is amazing.11:29
  156. We want to show that to the examiner.11:36
  157. I don't think it's going to be an issue for you.11:38
  158. But as I said, some people, when they're practicing, do amazingly well.11:40
  159. And then as soon as you, I call it test mode, as soon as they get going to the test, they start to do these little weird things that are11:46
  160. kind of defensive.11:53
  161. And for someone like you, we don't want you to be defensive.11:54
  162. We want to show how good you are.11:57
  163. Part two, you had no problem talking about that.12:00
  164. You could have talked about that for many more minutes than two minutes.12:02
  165. And I have no no feedback on that.12:07
  166. It was just it was really, really good.12:10
  167. Part three, you did develop your answers probably enough, but you could have developed them a little bit more.12:11
  168. We could have possibly shown the other side of things.12:19
  169. You talked about everything kind of from a personal point of view, which is good because it's you're very fluent when you do that.12:22
  170. Just remember part three is a discussion of ideas.12:30
  171. So it's good to think, well, I really think this, but I can sort of see why other people would think this way.12:33
  172. So, for example, do you think it's a good idea for parents to help children with their schoolwork?12:40
  173. Now, that's pretty obvious that, yes, that's a good thing.12:44
  174. But you could say something like, however, I understand that some moms and dads are really busy and they don't have time to do that.12:47
  175. I don't agree with that, but I can understand why.12:55
  176. Why is it that some people might not enjoy attending family occasions?12:58
  177. You gave a very straight answer, which is very, very good.13:03
  178. But you could have maybe, well, that's what I feel.13:07
  179. But maybe there's this other reason why people you don't need to list five different reasons, but maybe say, but some people might not have these issues.13:10
  180. Yeah, yeah, or something like that.13:21
  181. Pronunciation, you would get a band nine, which is the top band because your pronunciation is perfect.13:23
  182. Not just accent.13:31
  183. So a lot of people watching this video will listen to you and think, oh, she has a beautiful British accent.13:33
  184. And that is something that people can strive for, but they don't need a particular type of British accent to do well.13:39
  185. You could have a Taiwanese accent, an Indian accent, a Vietnamese accent and still get a band nine.13:46
  186. It's more about the clarity of your accent rather than the type of accent that you have.13:52
  187. Now, you do have one of those very admired accents for people on our channel.13:58
  188. So people will be very impressed with that.14:04
  189. But people watching shouldn't think I need to sign more British because it's not a British R .P.14:06
  190. test.14:13
  191. It is a it is an English test.14:14
  192. Clarity.14:17
  193. I understood 100 percent of what you were saying.14:18
  194. And then you also have very high level pronunciation features such as intonation.14:20
  195. So you show meaning and humor and things like that through intonation.14:27
  196. You also show that through sentence stress.14:31
  197. So sentence stress is like, this is my phone.14:36
  198. This isn't your phone.14:38
  199. So you emphasize certain words to display meaning.14:40
  200. Your connected speech is great.14:43
  201. So if somebody is learning, they might say, do you want to go to the coffee shop?14:44
  202. So everything is perfectly clear.14:51
  203. But how you would say it, do you want to go to the coffee shop?14:53
  204. Do you want to go?14:56
  205. So it sounds kind of like one continuous sign or word.14:57
  206. So band nine for pronunciation, coherence and fluency are in the same band.15:00
  207. And you get whatever is lowest.15:04
  208. So if your coherence is band eight and your fluency is band nine, you get a band eight and vice versa.15:07
  209. Your fluency is perfect.15:13
  210. If you listen to someone who is learning English, their fluency suffers because they're trying to fetch the correct word or the correct phrase or should I use past simple15:15
  211. or present perfect?15:26
  212. You don't have any issues with that.15:28
  213. And you don't have any issues with ideas and information.15:29
  214. You're just without effort.15:33
  215. Your coherence coherence is did you answer the question and did you develop it enough?15:35
  216. You did.15:40
  217. But we need to be careful with that if you did the real test.15:41
  218. Because as I said, your fluency could be perfect, but you're not developing your answers enough, which could drag you down.15:44
  219. I don't think it would, but we need to out of abundance of caution.15:51
  220. Grammar, I didn't hear a single grammar mistake.15:56
  221. So the examiner will be thinking about accuracy, did she make any mistakes and range?15:59
  222. Does she have enough tenses, enough grammatical structures to talk about the things that she wants to talk about?16:05
  223. So for example, I asked you about how has exercise changed since you were a child?16:11
  224. That requires you to use past simple, present perfect, things like that.16:17
  225. You had no problem with that whatsoever.16:21
  226. So band nine for grammar, band nine for vocabulary as well, because you used amazing idiomatic vocabulary like this.16:24
  227. A native English speaker will use idiomatic phrases, which are phrases that learners don't really know how to use.16:34
  228. You only really know how to use them if you grew up in an English -speaking country or you got to a very, very high level of English.16:41
  229. Vocabulary is very precise and accurate and you have a huge range of vocabulary.16:48
  230. You could talk about any topic that I could throw at you.16:53
  231. So band nine all across the board, which is extremely rare.16:56
  232. Less than one percent of people get a band nine.17:01
  233. Oh, wow.17:04
  234. OK.17:05
  235. Well, thank you very much.17:05
  236. I'll work on my coherence.17:06
  237. It is true.17:08
  238. I tend to think out loud.17:09
  239. So maybe it's not coherent in that sense, because I'm just basically listing in my head.17:10
  240. Yeah.17:15
  241. Yeah.17:16
  242. OK.17:16
  243. Thank you very much.17:17
  244. Thank you.17:18

A real Band 9 IELTS speaking test, at British conversational pace

This clip is from IELTS Advantage's Advanced IELTS Speaking Test video, rated Band 9, and it is not a scripted lesson: it is an examiner asking real questions and a candidate answering them at 189 words per minute, faster than half the recordings in this catalogue. That speed is exactly what makes it good ielts speaking practice: you hear a fluent answer at the pace it was actually spoken, not slowed down for learners.

The recording is rated B1 and the accent is British, so it doubles as british english pronunciation practice even though the subject is an exam. As shadowing english speaking practice b1 material it stays approachable: the candidate talks about daily routine, dreams and work email, the kind of everyday english small talk that IELTS speaking Part 1 questions are built from, so if you're reviewing ielts speaking topics this is one you'll actually be asked.

The colloquial phrasing that makes this daily routine answer good speaking practice

The answers are unscripted, so the grammar wanders the way real speech does: mid sentence idioms, run on lists, added afterthoughts. That's what makes this good material for daily english conversation practice: you're training your ear and mouth for what people actually say, not a tidied up textbook sentence.

  • "Every morning is like clockwork and I brush my teeth." The idiom lands in the middle of the sentence, not set up in advance, which is how native speakers actually drop them into conversation.
  • "I come back home and fix myself up some dinner and watch some Netflix, very average mundane." Three actions run together with no pause, then the speaker tacks on a two word verdict at the end. This is a good line to practice for the rhythm of a run on spoken sentence, not for its grammar.
  • "So the weekdays are for work, mainly being productive, paying the bills." Three short phrases stack on top of each other, each one its own breath group, a pattern worth noticing across any english speaking practice session with dialogue like this.

How to shadow this IELTS speaking sample, line by line

Work through the opening routine answers in order, since Part 1 questions repeat in real exams and this stretch covers the topic start to finish before it moves on to dreams.

  • Start at line 3, "OK, well, I wake up around eight AM." Repeat it a few times until the rise on "OK, well" and the fall on "eight AM" both sit naturally before moving on.
  • Move to line 4, "Every morning is like clockwork and I brush my teeth." on its own, five times, before adding anything else.
  • Practice lines 5 and 6 back to back: "I wash my face, breakfast and then I get in my car" then "and I drive to work." until the join between them disappears.
  • Close the stretch with line 7, "And yeah, that's basically it." a short filler line that native speakers use to hand the turn back, worth a few reps on its own before moving on.
  • Once lines 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 feel automatic, move to the examiner's next question at line 9, "How has your daily routine changed since you were a child?" and answer it yourself before listening to the candidate's version, a way to build speaking fluently under exam style pressure.
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