IELTS Speaking: What is the examiner looking for?

In IELTS Speaking Part 2, you have to talk for two minutes on a topic given to you by the examiner. It is essential that you know and understand how you will be graded before you enter the exam room.


According to the IELTS Speaking assessment criteria, your speaking will be marked on the following five points:

Fluency and coherence:

    How well your response flows and how well-connected your ideas are.

Lexical resource:

    How well you use vocabulary to express what you mean. Do you have a good range of vocabulary, and do you use words accurately?

Grammatical range and accuracy:

    How well you use English grammar, the variety of grammatical structures you use and how you use grammar to aid understanding

Pronunciation:

    How easy it is for the examiner to understand what you are saying. Don’t forget that pronunciation is not just a matter of saying the individual sounds correctly; you have to put those sounds together in words and sentences.

Relevance:

This is not directly on the assessment criteria but you must, of course, stick to the topic on the card.