How the Speaking test works
IELTS Speaking has three parts and takes 11 to 14 minutes. It is the same for Academic and General Training.
- Part 1 (4–5 minutes): Questions about familiar topics: your home, work or studies, hobbies, food, the weather. For a Jeddah candidate, expect things like your neighbourhood, the sea, or how you spend your free time.
- Part 2 (3–4 minutes): You get a cue card with a topic, one minute to prepare and make notes, then speak for up to two minutes. The examiner may ask one or two short questions after.
- Part 3 (4–5 minutes): A discussion of wider, more abstract ideas linked to the Part 2 topic.
You are marked on four criteria: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation.
Fluency or accuracy?
Many students believe they must speak without any mistakes. That is not how the test works. Examiners reward speakers who keep going, link ideas naturally and correct themselves smoothly. Long silences while you search for the "perfect" word usually cost more than a small grammar slip.
At the same time, fluency is not speed. Speaking very fast, especially when nervous, makes pronunciation less clear. Aim for a steady, comfortable pace, as though you are explaining something to a colleague.
Pronunciation points by language background
Jeddah's candidates speak many first languages. Pronunciation is about being easy to understand, not about sounding British or American. Here are points that speakers of each language commonly work on.
Arabic speakers
- /p/ and /b/: "pin" and "bin" can sound alike. Practise with a hand in front of your mouth: /p/ has a puff of air.
- /v/ and /f/: "very" may sound like "fery".
- Consonant clusters: words like "street" or "spring" sometimes get an extra vowel ("estreet"). Practise these slowly.
- Vowel range: English has more vowel sounds than Arabic, so "ship" and "sheep", or "full" and "fool", need attention.
Filipino/Tagalog speakers
- /f/ and /p/, /v/ and /b/: "fine" and "pine", "vote" and "boat".
- "th" sounds: "think" and "this" often become "tink" and "dis".
- Word stress on longer words, such as "photography" and "photographic".
Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali speakers
- /v/ and /w/: "vest" and "west" may sound the same.
- Word and sentence stress: a flat rhythm can make long answers harder to follow.
- /z/ and /dʒ/ for some speakers: "zero" and "jeero".
Pick one or two sounds at a time. Recording yourself and listening back is more useful than any list.
Practising when you have no speaking partner
Plenty of students in Jeddah live with family who speak Arabic, Tagalog or Malayalam at home, or share accommodation with colleagues who are too tired after work for practice. You can still prepare well:
- Speak to a timer. Answer Part 1 questions out loud while cooking or driving (safely, hands free).
- Record Part 2. Use your phone, then listen for long pauses and repeated words.
- Think in English for short periods, for example while sitting in traffic on the Corniche road.
- Describe your surroundings, such as the view from the waterfront or a busy market in Al Balad, as practice for Part 2 descriptions.
Our Speaking tools
IELTS Learning has 186 Speaking prompts for Parts 1, 2 and 3. For Part 2, the screen gives you a real one-minute preparation timer, then a two-minute speaking timer, so you learn exactly how long two minutes feels. After you answer, you get AI feedback on your transcript, which shows repeated words, short answers and grammar patterns.
Seeing your own words written down is often a shock. Many students discover that they say "actually" or "basically" in every answer, or that a "two-minute" answer was really only seventy seconds.
Practice with a real teacher
The real Speaking test is with a person, so practising with one matters. Book a Teacher gives you a 1-to-1 online session of about 20 minutes, from $5, which is enough time for a full mock Speaking test with feedback, or for focused work on pronunciation.
A sensible plan is to practise daily with prompts and the cue-card timer, then book a teacher session every couple of weeks for honest, human IELTS speaking test preparation.
Start speaking today
Create a free account and try the Speaking section of the free sample mock. Use Daily Vocabulary to collect five new words a day, then try to use each one out loud in a Part 1 answer.