Mastering fluency in your IELTS speaking exam
Speaking with fluency in your IELTS exam is tricky, mainly because you are under pressure in the context of an exam, and therefore, using fillers is very tempting and easy to do.
With practice, it is possible to significantly reduce these and even remove their usage entirely. Fillers (um, ah, ahm, like) are just utterances of hesitation and we use them all the time, but for your IELTS exam- we need to learn how to un-use them.
The following strategies are excellent remedies in removing fillers:
- Slow down
- Take a pause instead of using a filler- this will become a learnt habit the more you practice
- Speak with sincerity in order to be more fluent. If you think about someone who is speaking about something that is true to them, it reels off more easily, it is more digestible, it swims along- rather than someone who is too vigilant about what they are saying, too self-conscious, resulting in fragmented speech.