TRANSCRIPT EPISODE 1: IELTS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA Hello, and welcome to Series of Study English, IELTS preparation I’m Margot Politis In this series we’ll look at some of the criteria for the assessment of the IELTS test, and some of the skills you’ll need to practice for the test The IELTS test has four modules: Writing, Speaking, Reading Listening There are two different tests – the academic test for tertiary students and professionals and the general training test, which is for immigrants and people going on to vocational training Both tests have the same speaking and listening modules, but different reading and writing modules Knowing what the examiner is looking for can help improve your results because you will know what to focus on when practising Here are the features the examiner looks at in your writing and speaking These are the things that are marked: • • • • • • Task Response Coherence and Cohesion Grammatical Accuracy and Range Vocabulary Fluency Pronunciation What these criteria mean? Task response means how well you’ve understood and responded to the question or task For example, in the essay you must make sure you have answered all parts of the question and followed the instructions The next thing the examiner looks for is coherence and cohesion This is how you organise your answer For example, in the essay, coherence means that the essay works in its overall structure, making sense in the way it is organised Cohesion means that the essay flows well from one part to the next Another feature being assessed is grammatical range and accuracy Page of When assessing grammatical range, the examiner is looking at the variety of sentence types you are able to use You can’t rely on just using simple sentences and structures Grammatical accuracy simply refers to the number of errors in your language That includes things such as punctuation The final feature assessed for writing is vocabulary The examiner looks at the accuracy of your spelling and the range of words you use to cover a topic You need to use the correct word forms and demonstrate that you can use them appropriately You should also be aware of when to use formal or informal language The essay needs to be formal, but you can use less formal language in the speaking test The speaking test is designed for you to show how well you can express yourself on a general topic It tests your vocabulary, the accuracy of your language and your ability to use a range of sentence forms It also tests your coherence, by looking at how you organise and link your ideas while speaking Vocabulary, coherence and grammatical range and accuracy are criteria that also apply to the speaking test The remaining two criteria are only for the Speaking test: fluency and pronunciation Your ability to speak without hesitating or pausing too often shows how fluent you are Fluency is the ability to speak smoothly and easily Now we’ll look at the last criterion for speaking - pronunciation How easily you can be understood is what pronunciation is about Aim to pronounce words correctly and use appropriate stress and intonation; and your voice needs to be strong and clear Pronunciation is speaking clearly and at a natural pace To illustrate some of these criteria, next we’ll show you a short piece about the sport of gymnastics Sport is a common topic in the speaking test and it’s important to be familiar with the words used to talk about it I gymnastics at the Australian Institute of Sports I was about when I started and I started just fun gym My mum was a coach, so I got into it from that We train about 36 hours a week, which is pretty tough, but it’s worth it in the end We don’t have a lot of school We usually and a half hours of school in between our training We have our main coach, who is the head coach of the AIS He coaches my group for bars, floor and vault But we have another coach for beam Page of Notice she says I gymnastics Different verbs are used for different sports You say that you play football… or play basketball… but gymnastics … And you go fishing… Some sports and activities have their own verbs You don’t say "I swimming", you say "I swim" Now listen to how she uses the words train and coach: My mum was a coach, so I got into it from that We train about 36 hours a week, which is pretty tough, but it’s worth it in the end We don’t have a lot of school We usually and half hours of school in between our training We have our main coach, who is the head coach of the AIS He coaches my group for bars, floor and vault But we have another coach for beam A coach is a teacher of sport Coach can be a noun, like this: We have our main coach, who is the head coach of the AIS Coach can also be used as a verb Here it’s used in the singular form 'coaches': He coaches my group for bars, floor and vault She uses the word for practising a sport, train: We train about 36 hours a week, which is pretty tough, but it’s worth it in the end The –ing form, training, can be used as a noun: We don’t have a lot of school We usually and a half hours of school in between our training And a coach can also be called a trainer You should watch English language TV to help build your vocabulary in this fashion because you will be marked on how well you use words and their various forms And you should think about things such as sentence forms Even just talking about gymnastics, it’s possible to use quite complicated structures Listen to her again: We train about 36 hours a week, which is pretty tough, but it's worth it in the end She uses a complex sentence - a clause combined with a relative clause: We train about 36 hours a week, which is pretty tough Page of She then makes it into a complex/compound sentence by using the conjunction 'but' to add another clause We train about 36 hours a week, which is pretty tough, but it’s worth it in the end Thinking about and noticing sentence types will help with your grammatical range Listening to the way people talk for an extended period will help prepare you for the speaking test where you will be required to talk about a topic for minutes So let’s recap These are the things the markers are looking for: • Task response – your ability to answer the question and correctly respond to instructions • Coherence and cohesion – how well you organise your language • Grammatical range and accuracy – the range of grammatical structures you use and how accurately you use them • Vocabulary – how well you use words and their forms And for the Speaking Test there is: • Fluency – your ability to speak without hesitating; and finally, • Pronunciation – how easily you can be understood In the coming episodes we will look at these criteria in more detail and explore ways of meeting them Remember that IELTS is testing your language skills so take every opportunity to practise your Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking to improve your accuracy, extend your vocabulary and develop your fluency You will be building your confidence as well That’s all for now To find more information about assessment and Band Scores, visit our Study English website at: australianetwork.com/studyenglish Good Luck with your studies Page of