IELTS Speaking Vocabulary: The Ultimate Guide

Hello guys, if you want to improve your knowledge and use of IELTS Speaking

vocabulary

to be able to speak fluently in the IELTS Speaking test, this video is just for you. Hello, my name is Keith and I run the Keith Speaking Academy website and today I'm going to give you some tips that will help you improve your

vocabulary

for the IELTS Speaking Great, so what we're going to look at, we're going to look at the different words and types of words that you need to know for the IELTS Speaking How. you can learn new words, the best way to remember vocabulary, how to get the words from your brain to your mouth so that you can speak fluently in the exam and finally I will see where you can find this vocabulary that you need for

ielts

speaking

yes, I know it is very right, but listen, this video is the

ultimate

guide

, everything you need and want to help you with your vocabulary for

ielts

speaking

correctly, let's get started, how can you improve your vocabulary for ielts speaking?

The important thing to remember is that vocabulary counts for 25 of your overall IELTS speaking score, so in addition to vocabulary fluency, grammar and pronunciation, it is a quarter of your score and you are tested on two things basically, vocabulary range first and your precision second, so it is very important that you know a lot of vocabulary, but it is also important that you can use it correctly and have good precision or less errors, so keep that in mind to improve your vocabulary. Here are five simple things you should do, first of all, study a wide vocabulary. variety of topics, secondly, learn vocabulary in context so you know how to use words correctly, thirdly, record new words, write them down, make a note or even an audio recording, fourthly, practice activation and using vocabulary to get it out of your mouth and, fifthly, regularly. review and test yourself, that's the short and quick way to improve your vocabulary.

Let's look at some of these points in a little more detail, so I mentioned learning and studying a wide range of topics so that you have the vocabulary to discuss a wide range of topics correctly. many students then ask, well Keith, so what words exactly do I need for IELTS? Well put, it's not mathematical and it's hard to say exactly what words you need. I realize there's a lot of confusion out there, people talking about how many idioms I should use. um, what about the fancy words, the band nine words that I need to learn to do a band nine well?

Well, I don't think you really know if band nine words exist, well, yes and no, they don't really exist, but whatever, they exist because If you look at the work that linguists and material writers do, there are projects like the English profile project, so the English profile organizes the language, the English words according to the topic, the part of speech and the level according to the CEFR, with A1 being the low one. beginner level and c2 the advanced level, so you can see the words in this database like zoo is at the level a1 beginner zone b1 is an intermediate level and so on you can see a b2 yourself talking about people in general, the level correct is b2 a high intermediate level so that you can, theoretically and in reality, you can organize this language and look at the advanced language c2 correctly and you can get a list here, the alphabetical order of all the words that you need to be a band nine, but that won't help you.

The short answer is no because you don't know how to use those words and what's more, if you're a band 5 and you're trying to use these advanced level words, you probably don't know how to use them. If you don't understand the nuance or the connotation, you won't fully understand the grammar and the real meaning behind them, so you will probably make a lot of mistakes and lower your vocabulary score, so no, no, my advice is to learn the vocabulary by your level and the level above yours, so if you are band five, you must of course learn all that band five and band six vocabulary, don't try to go to a higher level because you will make too many mistakes, for what your own level and what I call level plus one, the level just above you, that's the vocabulary you should focus on.

I think a much more useful question is what kind of words at my level and level plus one should I learn right now. Here are eight types of words that I think you should focus on first synonyms right now these are words that have the same or similar meaning for example difficult a difficult job we can say a hard job a challenging job this job is a task difficult a little idiomatic but synonyms correct number two look at the antonyms these are words with the opposite meaning, for example, great, it was a great movie, opposite, it was a terrible movie, it was a horrible movie, horrible, it was the worst movie ever the times, the worst of all times, correct antonyms, thirdly, look at the word families and by this I mean words that have the same root and belong to the family, so looking at the different parts of speech of a word , for example, take friend, right, it's a noun, the adjective is friendly, he is very friendly, the verb, well, there is a verb befriend true is less common probably a higher level more common make friends as a verb there is a noun friendship the idea of ​​having friends so learning these different parts of speech from this family can be really helpful it's true that some parts of speech can be on different levels so some of them, like befriending, you might you want to leave because that's a higher level, depending on where you're right, it's your level or level plus a word family, the following collocations and these are the words that commonly go together. right, we talk about heavy rain, um, we talk about black tea, it's funny, right, because in different languages ​​the collocations can be different and they translate differently.

I remember when I first came to China and people were meeting people and they offered me tea and they said here would you like some red tea and I went red tea I have never heard of red tea I mean do you have green tea? Oh yes, we have green tea, but you should try the red tea, hong pao. I eat well and then they give me a cup of tea and it's black tea, I say ah, it's black tea, oh right, they were translating right because in Chinese it's red tea, so be careful with the collocations you're not translating but you are learning.

In English I'm going to show you more about that in a moment I had the same problem in China when I spoke Chinese I went around saying "hey, have some black tea" and they asked me: what do you mean by black tea? oh you mean hong ta red tea anyway apart from the following idioms yes they are important especially in band 7 and above there are no calculations on how many you should use but you should use them naturally in a way that sits. An idiom that's comfortable for you is when the meaning of the phrase is a little different from the meaning of the individual words, so if I say I'm tickled pink, that doesn't mean that someone came and tickled me hahahahaha and me I put pink, no. means I'm very happy, pink idioms tickle me so it's worth learning them too the following phrasal verbs now some phrasal verbs are idiomatic some are not some are literal but are extremely common in spoken language they are difficult but worth the effort It is worth learning them because it gives you much more flexibility and naturalness in spoken English.

Correct phrasal verbs. There are different types, but basically you have a verb and a preposition or particle after the verb, such as postpone, which means postpone the meeting, postponed or take. far to remove, could you please remove all this junk to reduce? We can say that reduce consumption. I'm smoking too much. I need to reduce my smoking or I am spending too much time in front of the computer. I need to reduce the time I spend in front of the computer. Then look at the grammar of the words. Most people think that grammar and vocabulary are different.

But actually vocabulary implies grammar or, for example, let me test you, right? Do I tell you what to do? friends in someone to make friends with someone or to make friends with someone true is to make friends with someone true that use of the preposition with is the correct one to make friends with someone then the use of prepositions is the grammar of words or is countable uncountable is is a noun or adjective, a verb, all of this in a way it's really important to look at the grammar of the word, finally number eight, I would say focus on spoken English rather than written English, so when you're learning vocabulary, make sure from as far away as possible.

You will most likely be familiar with spoken English rather than a written academic style of English, which is important for your writing, but in the oral exam you must speak spoken English, so there are eight different types of words that you must learn and concentrate. Also, as a final point, I want to make clear the difference between something in the band descriptors for IELTS spoken band descriptors, they talk about familiar and unfamiliar topics, so you need the vocabulary to talk about familiar and unfamiliar topics, what is that? that exactly means, well, very simply, familiar topics are topics we talk about every day, so maybe family, home, work, hobbies, everyday life, shopping, maybe cooking that kind of thing, unknown topics are topics that we don't talk about every day, so maybe things like climate change. globalization law economics finance things like that, of course, if you're an accountant or a banker, finance is familiar to you, of course, but for most people it's not an everyday topic now, if you look at the band descriptors, it takes a band 6. be able to talk at length about familiar and unfamiliar topics, so you need to be able to talk a lot about climate change globalization, all these unfamiliar topics that are only in band six in band seven you need to be able to use your vocabulary in a way flexible on all those familiar and unfamiliar topics, so it really is important that you can cover and discuss all those topics in depth for a band six and flexibly in a band seven and above.

The next part, then how can you learn new words? Well, remember, as I correctly mentioned, I said learn the word in context, so by context I mean some type of text, whether it's a spoken text podcast, a video, a movie, or a book. a written text or even a transcription, what you don't want is to go searching for lists and lists of words on the Internet. Do you know the hundred most important words or a thousand academic words for IELTS? They are of no use to you because you don't know where they come from or how to use them, for example.

Of course, word lists can be very useful, but create your own from some kind of context, maybe it's an audio file like this or a transcript like this. My big suggestion is to learn. words by topic by topic or by topic um, this is done very, very widely by most textbook writers and training schools, you know, if you take even a book like this, the correct English vocabulary and use This book is organized, each unit focuses on a topic it has. work, study, people, environment, society, media, hobbies, pastimes, so by focusing on a different topic, it is easier to collect and connect, collect and connect vocabulary because our brains work very similar to computers and the Internet.

You have an English folder and inside there is a folder of different topics and inside the topics folder there are subtopics and then there are words that are connected to each other and that's how we learn vocabulary by connecting words and ideas, so if they are under the same topic It's a lot easier, so learn by topic and also take notes. I think it is very important to take good notes of the vocabulary you are learning. How do you do it? Let me show you how I would do it in a particular context. Well, basically, my approach when learning French, Spanish, Chinese is always the same.

Right, take notes. I do the following. I take note of the grammar of the word. I take note of the meaning in the language I am learning. For you, that would be in English. instead of a translation, if possible, useful collocations, what words go together with that word and a sample sentence that is usually about my life related to me, let me briefly show you how I can do this. Okay, so I've come to this website, Keith Speaking Academy. There is a sample response here about an apology that will give me some context for learning vocabulary, so I have a cue card here that describes a time someone apologized.

There is a sample response in the video, but I can also see this transcript. here, so I remember that I once took my wife to a restaurant, it was an ordinary restaurant, nothing to write home about. I've studied that before, so it's okay, it had great food and a good reputation.I'm not. I'm sure what that means, good reputation, so maybe that's a word I want to study and I want to find out, so I guess I'll usually take the word reputation correctly and put it in Google or one. from my dictionaries um here I have reputation in the Collins dictionary is the one that I use, it tells me that reputation to have a reputation for something means to be known or remembered for it, okay, so I'm going to take my notebook and Here I just use a notepad digital and I'm going to write the word so first of all the word reputation and it's a noun that we've seen and we actually know that it's countable because it says that in the dictionary um and We know that it means to be known for something cool so a Below I want to make clear the grammar of this word, so yes, it is countable.

Yes, it is a noun. When I use it correctly, I say I have a reputation for something. It is used with four correct. I have a reputation for something and if I'm not sure I can check the dictionary, I can look at the example sentences or even the collocations, let's take the example sentences. They have a good reputation for being strong, okay? Well, that's an example. I'm only going to focus on one. I know there are many others, but let's take one. The other thing I want to do is look at the placements that deserve the bad reputation.

There are so many reputations so I'll just choose one or two that I like, so for example let's say have a bad reputation to gain a reputation to gain a reputation what else to ruin or tarnish look at that tarnish a reputation which I can look up in the dictionary, but I know it means ruining a reputation, so I might make a note there to remind myself to ruin a reputation, so here, cool, I've got the word, I've got the grammar. I have the collocations and I would just end with a sentence that is meaningful and true to me.

My brother has a reputation for being very generous. Oh, you just lost me. Great and that's it. Now I know it's a lot. work, but what I'm doing is that I'm not just practicing this word, I'm practicing different collocations to give me the flexibility essential for a band 9. and in my sentence I'm also practicing different languages, not just practicing the word reputation. generous practicing very is great, great practice, so this is a simple example of how you could record a word. Okay, so we've looked at the different types of words to learn. We have seen how to learn and take notes.

Now what is the best way. remembering the vocabulary correctly, this is really important and keeping it as simple as possible. Just when we say remember, there are probably three different steps. The first is when you get the word and make it attractive so it can get into your head. the second is to keep it stored in your head, whether long or short term, and the third is to get it out of your head by remembering the word and probably the most important is that the first is to make the word attractive so that it sticks. your memory is sometimes called coding there are a lot of different tips and tricks about this um people like different methods and there is no one best method.

I really think it depends, it's different for each person, so for example you can try mnemonics. Somehow you have some kind of memory trick to remember a word, for example, to remember useful conjunctions in English. People sometimes use an acronym and the acrobin. The common acronym is fanboys b o and s and it means f for four ah a for and n for ni b for but o for r and for still and s for fans, the acronym is there is a quick way to remember it well, it is a mnemonic or for example I have problems to write the word, I think, is i before e, except after c or e before i.

So my mnemonic for the word believe is the phrase never believe a lie, can you see lie, lie, is the lie of the word believe, never believe a lie, which is a mnemonic to remember it? So some people love mnemonics and can create their own, that's the best way to do it right, otherwise you can take your word lists like we mentioned before, word lists that you've made from the phrases you They use the word and I think it is good to make two or three sentences to learn the word and repeat them. phrases to get them into your head, other ways are mind maps like this one, sometimes also called spider grams like this one and they organize the words in an attractive way, often with color and visual support to help encode them or get them into your head correctly, so that's really important. now there's some really popular science, um, I say popular, I think it's based on real research that tells us that when you study something new after an hour you forget it for 50, after 24 hours you forget it for 70, wow that's amazing because you learn. something today means that tomorrow you have forgotten it 70 unless you review it and that is why science tells us that we need to review review review to reconnect the words up here and this, of course, has led to the emergence of many mobile applications.

Phone apps are often based on spaced repetition, if you've heard of that, where you study the words and in different spaces of time you repeat, repeat, repeat, usually there's a flash card with a picture or a translation and then it shows you the word and that helps you remember the word um you know there are mobile phone apps like memrise quizlet um little anki cards some people swear by them they think they're great and they work for some people. My only caveat is just having the word and the flash card doesn't really have any context, whereas if you've written a few sentences and put the word in your own context, it's a lot more powerful to get it into your head, so I think the idea Reviewing regularly is fantastic when it comes to mobile applications.

Spatial repeat apps work fantastically for you; Otherwise, create your own sentences with the new word and practice saying or reading them. Research tells us that to learn and get the word into your head effectively, we need to see it in three or four. different contexts and that's why I recommend that if you're learning a particular topic, you do the following: read something about it, listen to something about it and watch something about it because you're seeing vocabulary repeated in different contexts and different media and that can be really helpful for encoding and getting the words in your head.

A little science, but hey, there's nothing wrong with a little science to help us learn better. Okay, now another common question from students about vocabulary is Keith, how? I take the words from my brain to my mouth right now. This really has to do with what I said before about remembering correctly, so you have to encode first, secondly store the word or retain it, and thirdly remember it or get the word out. and this is what it's all about, and we often call it activating vocabulary, so you have two types of vocabulary: passive and active. Passive vocabulary is the words that when you see them or hear them, you recognize them and say, oh yeah, I know that word. but you can't use it.

Active vocabulary is the words that you recognize correctly, but you can also use them to be able to use that word actively. Normally, your passive vocabulary is this big when your active vocabulary is this big. It's much, much smaller. Actually, I can use it. This is why people have trouble speaking because their active vocabulary is too small. So how do we get the words out? How do we activate vocabulary? Basically you need to do things with the words you are learning and that can be writing or speaking obviously to speak, I suggest speaking activities, you can do things like grouping, making sentences, speaking out loud, practicing conversation, what do I mean by group well when you have some new words, for example, a food topic, for example, and I have a list of words? what I did, then I put the words in groups, for example, let's say I have these words about food and then I look at them and I put them in groups, maybe I look at the groups of what I like and what I don't like and I could say something like this I like white bread I love fresh fruit I'm a big fan of sliced ​​ham I don't like cheese I love tasty food I don't like tasteless food and so on Can you see what I'm doing?

I'm grouping them into Likes and Dislikes, but there is a context for each word. I'm repeating the words. It's something that is true for me and meaningful to me. In fact, I'm practicing another language a lot. of synonyms, you realized, right, it's a great activity to group with lists of words that you could talk about, for example, in the list of words, things that are good, things that are good for you and things that are not good For you, right, you can see what's happening. You're just practicing and practicing a lot of different languages, but you're also activating these new words that you've learned by grouping.

The other thing is to create sentences that are true for you because the more meaningful the example is, the better it will stand and Sal well to say it simply if you imagine that you just learned the word um salty as an adjective salty food, then I can make some sentences true for me. Actually, I don't like salty food. My wife makes the food very salty. I prefer food that is less salty, very simple, but all those sentences are true for me and so what is also nice is that you can record these sentences, make your own little podcast and listen to yourself when you are .

When walking, you have your headphones on instead of listening to what you normally listen to, listening to yourself and helping you learn the language in a meaningful way, listening to what else, practicing conversations, um, absolutely, when you're taking your list of words, Yes You have a partner to talk to or even talk to yourself. You are going to practice talking about food and cooking while you are talking. Try incorporating these words into your conversation. Try to use them actively and that will also help you activate those words. great let's move on okay great so listen we've talked about the kind of vocabulary to learn how to learn to remember how to remember and get the words out and finally activate how about well that's great Keith but where can I find these words?

Do I find my spoken vocabulary in IELTS? You talk a lot about context. Where is the context right? The first thing I suggest is that you concentrate as much as possible on the spoken texts because the spoken language, if you are listening to it, will help you with spoken English, of course, you can read your magazines and your books, ninety percent of the language It's the same, but the style is different, so make sure you listen a lot, so I suggest, for example, TV chat shows or Internet chat. shows soap operas and sitcoms because situational comedies, uh, because they often talk about everyday family life and things that people do every day, great conversation podcasts, especially interviews and again chat shows, in addition, debates of radio, television debates or YouTube debates where people discuss topics and debate.

They are great for getting the kind of language you need, and of course they are sample answers too. Many websites have sample answers. I recommend that you use the ones that have audio, not just the written ones, because many of those sample answers are written in a written style that is not natural spoken English, so try to find the ones that have audio, it is better. By the way, my wife, my website also has some audio sample responses, so go and check them out. I think the benefits of using listening to develop your vocabulary is huge, first of all, you know the language is spoken, not written, you know or get the context and the type of situation in which that word can be used, so you also understand how it is used with collocations and get the right one. pronunciation and intonation in a sentence you get the whole package you get everything in that nice listening activity it's a great way to learn vocabulary for speaking.

I have spoken well about the importance of proper revision on a regular basis. I also think that testing yourself is a really good way to review sometimes because by taking tests you actually find out whether you remember a word or not, or whether you can use it or not, so testing yourself is a great way to use tools like quizlet, which are great for testing. or you can ask your conversation partner or your teacher to practice and test the words with you to see if you know the meaning and see if you can use them in a sentence or not.

You can do it on your own with a mirror and also with your list of words. lots of different ways to test yourself, I think it's a really useful thing to do in this

ultimate

vocabulary

guide

for IELTS, we've talked about the different types of words to learn, do you remember the eight types I told you about? we talk about how to learn vocabulary the importance of context learn by topic take notes correctly we talk about the best ways to remember vocabulary get it and keep it get it out mnemonics word lists mapsmental spider grams spaced repetitions many different ways to do it I talked about how to activate vocabulary, whether it's grouping or making sentences that are true for you or just practicing in a conversation and finally we saw where to find vocabulary and I'm going to add that if you go to my website now there is a whole set of pages that are lesson pages by topic, you speak fluently about something, something different, topics to speak in IELTS, there is a lot of vocabulary, a lot of context, they are based on my live lessons on YouTube, Which by the way, if you haven't seen it yet, do so. come and join us every Thursday at 10 o'clock Spanish time, yes, and we are looking at a different topic each week and you can learn a lot of vocabulary there, as well as a last word when it comes to learning vocabulary.

My suggestion is correct. mentioned to learn vocabulary of your level or a level plus one just above yours in the test, use only vocabulary that you feel comfortable with, with vocabulary that you really know you can use actively and with which you are sure, of which Otherwise, you will achieve great success. many mistakes and reduce your score correctly, so focus on what you are comfortable with in the real exam. That's all. This is my little tour on how to learn vocabulary to speak in IELTS. I hope it helped you. You may want to go back and listen to different chapters or parts of this video to get a deeper understanding.

There are many links below that you can follow to find more resources. Thank you very much for watching. If you liked it, please leave a comment below. What is your advice? suggestion about learning vocabulary share it with us and together we can learn from each other remember to subscribe activate the notification button and I can't wait to see you very very soon take care my friend, bye