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One of the most important factors in the speaking test is confidence. You might be an excellent speaker of English, but in the test if you are nervous and cannot speak properly you will end up with a low score. The examiners don’t know how well you speak at other times, that is irrelevant to them. Only what, and how you speak during the test matters.

During the test, you will most probably be nervous. Don’t worry, it’s normal and happens to everyone. Just act confident even though you aren’t. You will start to feel relaxed and slowly you will really feel confident. Another thing to put you at ease is that there really is nothing to get nervous about. There are no wrong answers, you don’t have to memorise any information and all you have to do is just speak what is on your mind.

Another aspect associated with nervousness is nervous gestures. A lot of people will most likely have this condition. But just because it is common, it does not mean that its alright. You should try to eliminate any signs of this behaviour. So, what is this ‘nervous gestures’?

The things that you do unknowingly while speaking are called nervous gestures. These could be scratching your head, playing with your hair, swaying from side to side or playing with things like pen and paper that may be on the table.

First you have to know what your nervous gesture is as you may have no idea what they are of if you even have them. Ask a friend or your teacher to let you know what it might be. Once you’ve identified it, keep it mind while speaking and develop ways to stop yourself from doing these things. For instance, if you have a habit of playing with things on the table, keep your hands clasped together.

The whole point of the speaking test is to make you speak as much as possible so that the examiners can give a proper assessment of your speaking ability. You might be a good speaker of English, but if you don’t speak enough during the test, you might end up getting a lower score than you expected. The examiner can only score you on the way you spoke during the test, not on how well you would have spoken on other days.

So, speak as much as possible, and for this reason, expand your answer. That means don’t give short answers, especially just ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Try to build up your responses by adding information and details.

Everyone thinks that if you use big complex words the examiner will be impressed. This is somewhat correct, but the problem is that this could result in a high chance of making mistakes either in pronunciation or in using the word in the wrong context. This in turn affects your score.

A better choice is to use simple, regularly used vocabulary accurately rather than complex vocabulary that you are unfamiliar with. Most students already have sufficient vocabulary. You just don’t have the habit of using them. For example, while describing the food you had at a restaurant, you might simply say “It was good”. But in place of good you could say delicious, excellent or tasty. I’m sure that all these words were in your vocabulary. So first, learn to use the vocabulary that you already have.

One of the biggest confusions is over accent and pronunciation. Non-native English speakers tend to copy the accent thinking that’s the correct say to speak. Accent is something that comes naturally due to the region you are from. An American will have an American accent, a British person will have a British accent and an Australian will have an Australian accent, but the native language for all of them is English. So which accent will you copy? The answer is none. You should copy the pronunciation, not the accent.

You will not get penalised for speaking in your own accent as long as the examiner can understand what you are saying. If you can communicate well then you don’t have to worry. But getting the pronunciation correct will certainly fetch you a higher score.

To learn the correct pronunciation, you have to hear the word being pronounced correctly. Then you simply mimic it. The easiest way to listen to proper and correct English is to listen to the BBC radio on the FM channel 103. Or you could listen to podcasts, Tedtalks, watch television, etc. Listen and learn.

These are called fillers. We mostly use fillers when we get stuck, when we can’t find the word we’re looking for or when we don’t know how to say what’s on our mind. This is either a result of lack of speaking of a lack of vocabulary and that’s exactly what the examiners will understand. So, its important to stop using them.

Common fillers:

• Like
• You know
• Umm…
• Ahh…
• Ehh…
• Well
• Yeah…

That’s right! Yet at the same time, there are no correct right answers as well. The examiners are assessing how well you are able to communicate your thought. Don’t think you have to give interesting and witty answers in order to guarantee a high score. Your answer can be anything, as long as you are within the topic of the question.

You will surely get stuck or may have to pause to think at some point or another during the speaking test. This is quite normal and will happen to everyone. The problem is that the fillers mentioned above might automatically come out at this point and we already told you not to use them. So, what do you do? Well, in place of the fillers you can use the following phrases:

• That’s an interesting question
• I have never thought about that, but…
• Let me see
• That’s a good point
• That’s a difficult question, but I’ll try and answer it
• Well, some people say that is the case, however I think…
• Let me think about that for a minute

Speak with a smile. When you speak with a smile the tone of your voice changes. It sounds more pleasant and that’s a positive quality. That’s the reason why you see presenters (program hosts, MCs, etc) all speaking with a smile.

You need to open your mouth wide enough in order to pronounce the words clearly. When you smile your mouth is already in a wide and the tone will also be more friendly. Smiling also helps you to stay relaxed which in turn helps your pronunciation.

While speaking, have eye contact with the examiner. You naturally look at the person you are speaking to at other times so why not with the examiner. Don’t be looking at the floor, or the ceiling while speaking during the test. This in not normal, and would be interpreted as a sign of nervousness.

Another plus point of looking at the examiner is that you get an idea of how you are doing by his reaction.

This is the most vital piece of tip for the Speaking test. Without this, all the other tips have no worth.

This might seem like a pretty obvious piece of advice, but it’s quite surprising how many students end up neglecting it. It is very important that you practise speaking English especially in the week leading up to your Speaking test.

Like athletes need to warm up before competing, you also need to warm up before the speaking test. If you have been regularly speaking in the days leading up to your test then you can be assured to doing your best. If not, your performance might not be up to mark. You might struggle finding the right words, mispronunciations might occur and fluency and grammar might give you problems.

There are many ways to practise. Whatever conversations you have with your friends or family, do it in in English. Another very effective way is to record yourself and during playback listen out for mistakes.