IELTS Speaking Tips These *IELTS Speaking* tips will make you aware of what is required of you during the speaking interview and what you can do to achieve your highest possible score. Before the interview Your speaking interview will take place at a different time, and probably on a different day, to the rest of the exam. Make sure you understand when and where your interview is to take place. Quite often the location for the Speaking interview is different from that of the main exam. As with the main exam, try to keep your stress levels low by making sure you have everything you need well before leaving for the interview. You must take your ID with you and it must be the same as that used on your application form. Leave in plenty of time in case you are delayed on your journey. Late arrival could mean you forfeit your interview. The interview If we could only give one tip for the speaking interview it would be to relax and be natural. Try to control your nerves and answer the questions to the best of your ability without worrying if you have difficulties or need to ask your interviewer to repeat a question. After all, even native speakers occasionally pause and hesitate or need to ask for a question to be repeated. We won't go into detail about the interview procedure itself as this information is given on our Speaking module page. (If you haven't read that page already, we suggest you do so now.) What you do need to think about is what is required of you. The interviewer is there to assess your spoken English in a short period of time. He or she will be assessing you on four criteria: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation. It is up to you to produce sufficient language for them to do this. Part of what the i ...