So how does an IELTS examiner give you the band score.

Well the IELTS examiner uses a form that is similar to this.

This document you can find in the downloadable resources section.

And if I zoom in, you can see there's a description of what the IELTS candidate actually does.

So the IELTS examiner tries to match you with the correct part of this grid—this table of descriptions.

So I'm going to go through the different assessment areas.

There are actually four assessment areas that the IELTS examiner looks at.

And they are called fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, pronunciation.

Ok. And you get a band score for each of these four different areas.

And your overall speaking band score is the average of those four band scores.

So let's look at those 4 assessment areas in more detail.

So fluency and coherence, to begin with.

This is about how fluently you speak, and how well your ideas are structured and linked together.

So it's a bit like, certainly for fluency, a bit like a river flowing gently down the valley.

So do you speak fluently or do you hesitate?

Now, to get a band 7, for fluency and coherence, you need to speak at length without noticeable effort.

Don't need to seem that you're trying to speak at length.

But you can have the occasional hesitation over language where you stop and you think about some language.

If you do that, that's ok for a band 7 still.

And you should try to use a range of connective, a range of linking words.

The second assessment area is called lexical resource which is basically words and phrases.

It's the range and appropriateness of your vocabulary.

So how wide a range of vocabulary do you have, and do you use it naturally?

Do you use it correctly? So it's your range of vocabulary.

To get a band 7 you should use a vocabulary with some flexibility, and you should use some less common and idiomatic vocabulary.

And maybe show some awareness of collocation (how words go together).

But you can, for band 7, produce occasional errors.

You don't need to be perfect to get a band 7.

Grammatical range and accuracy is the range and accuracy of your grammar, the nuts and bolts of the language.

And to get a band 7, you need to use a variety of complex structures.

For example, conditional sentences, if...would conditionals, relative clauses.

And you should speak frequent error-free sentences.

You can make some grammatical mistakes, that's ok, but your error-free sentences should be frequent, should be most of the time.

And pronunciation is about how natural you sound, and how easy you are to understand.

So do you pronounce words clearly and correctly?

Do you use a range of pronunciation features such as connecting words together?

So is it fluent?

This is for a band 7: you need to use a range of pronunciation features with only a few mistakes.

Now pronunciation features are things like connecting words together.

So for example, I would say "I wentuh work".

Some people say: "I went to work".

But a natural way of speaking English is connecting words together.

"I wentuh work" "wentuh, wentuh", instead of "went to".

That's a pronunciation feature, so do you connect words together?

Do you stress words correctly? So it's about how natural you sound when you speak.

And also you can generally be understood throughout.

Accent has only a small effect on understanding.

So that's to get a band 7.

It's important to understand that even to get a band 9, you do not need to have a British or American accent.

Pronunciation is not about accent.

It's about sounding natural when you speak.

Ok? Using those pronunciation features.

So don't worry about having an accent, accents are ok.

It's about sounding natural when you speak.

So that's basically how the speaking test is assessed.