In this episode we’re going to listen to Amy, who tried one of the free Part 2 practice tests we’ve published.
Task
Describe someone you know who dresses well. You should say:
- who this person is
- how you know them
- what kind of clothes they wear
and say why you like the way they dress.
Comprehension
The first time you listen decide if Amy answers the question appropriately. The sound quality of Baya’s recording isn’t as good as it could be but hopefully it’s clear enough to understand:
I’d like to talk about one of my friends called Simone … she is one of the part-time teachers in school … where my daughters go to … and she has her own children in that school as well … so basically I see her every day … and I always looking forward to seeing what she’s going to wear that day … when she works as a teacher she wears … she dresses really well … usually she wears pants and glasses or dress with a cardigan … and you think a lot of monotone colours like white grey and black … and always her accessories go really well with what she wears … however when she doesn’t work at the school she looks totally different she wears a casual clothes and sometimes she looks really sporty lady .. the reason I really like the way she dresses up herself is that she knows how to mix and match different articles of clothing that go well together and she knows how to look good and the colours and styles which suit to her …
Assessment
Amy responded well to the task and gave a full answer to the question. Now listen a second time. How well do you think Amy did using the IELTS assessment criteria?
Now listen a second time. How well do you think Amy did using the IELTS assessment criteria?
- Grammatical range and accuracy
- Lexical resource (vocabulary)
- Fluency and coherence
- Pronunciation
Feedback
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Amy’s use of English was very good, her statements were generally very well formed and there weren’t too many mistakes. However, can you spot the errors in these extracts?
‘and I always looking forward to’
‘and always her accessories go really well with what she wears’
‘she wears a casual clothes’
‘she looks really sporty lady’
‘the way she dresses up herself’
‘the colours and styles which suit to her’
OK so here are the corrections:
In the first extract Amy should have said ‘I always look forward’, not ‘I always looking forward’.
‘always’ is in the wrong position. It should be ‘and her accessories always go really well’
Amy should say ‘she wears casual clothes’ not ‘a casual clothes’.
Amy could say ‘she looks like a really sporty lady’ or ‘she looks really sporty’.
We don’t say ‘dresses herself up’. We would be better to say ‘the way she dresses’ or ‘the
way she dresses up’
Finally there is no ‘to’ after ‘suit’ so it should be ‘styles which suit her’.
Lexical Resource
Amy used some excellent, advanced collocations and expressions to describe her friend such as:
‘monotone colours’
‘her accessories go really well with what she wears’
‘totally different’
‘to mix and match different articles of clothing that go well together’
Fluency and Coherence
Amy’s fluency was good. She manages to utter speech units (clauses) without undue hesitation between words. Pauses tend to appear between rather than inside clauses, which is a sign of growing fluency.
Pronunciation
Amy’s pronunciation was very clear and listeners should have little difficulty understanding her. Japanese is a syllable rather than a stress-timed language and as is typical of many Japanese speakers of English, Amy gives roughly equal emphasis to each syllable in a word and to each word in a statement. If she would like to work on one area for future pronunciation practice she could focus on word and sentence stress. Her use of intonation was very good with rises at appropriate times to express her feelings about the way her friend dresses.