Speaking
The speaking part is assessed at school and checks whether you can keep interaction going: answering questions about yourself, describing a picture or a topic, and taking part in a short dialogue or role-play with a partner or the teacher. Marks are for communicating and interacting, not for the most difficult grammar, so a simple answer that continues scores better than a brilliant sentence followed by silence.
Extend every answer
Use a three-step pattern: answer → reason → detail. “Do you like sport?” → “Yes, I do - I play basketball. I started two years ago and we train twice a week.” This gives the examiner enough language to assess and shows you can develop an idea rather than just react.
Useful moves
- Buying time: “Let me think…”, “That’s a good question.”
- Paraphrasing an unknown word: “the thing you use to…”, “it’s a kind of…”
- Asking in a role-play: “Could you say that again?”, “What time would suit you?”
- Describing a picture: place (in the foreground/background), people (who, what they are doing, what they are wearing, how they feel), then your opinion.
- Linking ideas: because, so, but, although, for example.
Worked example
Prompt: “Tell me about your last holiday.” Weak answer: “It was good.” Strong answer: “Last summer my family and I went to Saaremaa for a week. We stayed in a small cottage near the sea and cycled every day. The weather wasn’t great, but I still enjoyed it because I could relax after school.” Reasoning: the strong version keeps to the past simple, adds place, activities, a contrast and an opinion, and lasts around twenty seconds - long enough for the examiner to hear range and accuracy, while the weak answer gives almost nothing to assess.
Traps that cost marks
- One-word answers: they give the examiner nothing to score.
- A memorised speech that does not answer the actual question - examiners notice immediately.
- Going silent over a missing word instead of describing it.
- Mixing he and she, or dropping the third-person -s under pressure: slow down on those forms.
- Ignoring your partner in a pair task; interaction marks need questions as well as answers.