How the Speaking test works
The Speaking test lasts 11 to 14 minutes and is a face-to-face conversation with a certified examiner. It is recorded, and it has three parts.
- Part 1 (4–5 minutes): familiar questions about your home, work or studies, hobbies and daily life.
- Part 2 (3–4 minutes): you receive a cue card, have one minute to prepare, then speak for up to two minutes on the topic.
- Part 3 (4–5 minutes): a discussion of more abstract questions linked to the Part 2 topic.
You are marked on four criteria: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation.
Fluency and accuracy: finding the balance
Some candidates speak quickly and confidently but make frequent mistakes; others speak correctly but stop every few seconds to search for words. Both lose marks. Examiners want natural, extended speech that is mostly accurate.
- In Part 1, give a direct answer plus one reason or example. Two or three sentences is ideal.
- In Part 2, use your minute to note four or five key words, not full sentences.
- In Part 3, develop ideas: give an opinion, explain it, compare, and consider another view.
- If you make a small mistake, keep going. Self-correcting every error damages fluency more than the error itself.
Pronunciation points for Kuwait's communities
Kuwait City is home to speakers of many languages, and each brings its own strengths and habits to English. Pronunciation is about being easy to understand, not about sounding British or American. Here are points students commonly work on:
Arabic speakers
- /p/ and /b/: "park" and "bark" can sound the same. Practise with pairs like "pen/Ben", "pay/bay".
- /v/ and /f/: "very" may sound like "fery".
- Consonant clusters: adding a vowel before or inside groups of consonants, as in "estreet" or "i-sport".
- Egyptian speakers sometimes replace "th" with /s/ or /z/ ("sink" for "think"), and pronounce "j" as a hard /g/.
Malayalam, Tamil and other South Indian speakers
- /v/ and /w/: "wine" and "vine" can merge. Rounding the lips for /w/ helps.
- Word stress: placing stress on the right syllable ("deVELopment", not "develOPment") makes a big difference to clarity.
- Speaking speed: very fast speech with few pauses can reduce clarity. Slow down slightly and pause between ideas.
Hindi, Urdu and Bengali speakers
- Aspirated and unaspirated sounds, and the difference between /t/ and /θ/ ("tree" and "three").
- Intonation: a flat tone in Part 3 can make opinions sound uncertain.
Filipino speakers
- /f/ and /p/, /v/ and /b/: "fan/pan", "very/berry".
- Long and short vowels: "ship/sheep", "full/fool".
Our Study Notes include a pronunciation chapter with practice drills.
Practising when you have no partner
Many people in Kuwait live with flatmates who speak the same first language, or work in teams where English is mostly technical. You can still build real Speaking skills alone.
- Record yourself answering a Part 1 question on your phone, then listen back. Note hesitations and repeated words.
- Use the cue-card timer. Our 186 prompts include Part 2 cue cards with a real one-minute preparation and two-minute speaking timer, so you learn how much two minutes actually is.
- Read your AI feedback. After you answer, the platform gives feedback on your transcript: vocabulary range, grammar, and whether you developed your ideas.
- Think aloud in English during your commute. A drive along the Gulf Road or a bus ride to Kuwait City is enough time to describe your day or argue both sides of a question.
- Rehearse topics that suit Kuwait. Describe a place you like to visit on the weekend, a celebration such as National Day or Eid, or how cities change in summer. These are natural, personal subjects you can talk about easily.
Practising with a real teacher
AI feedback is useful for daily practice, but nothing replaces a real conversation. Book a Teacher gives you a 1-to-1 online session of about 20 minutes with an IELTS teacher, from $5. A teacher can run a full Speaking test with you, ask unexpected follow-up questions, and tell you honestly which criterion is holding you back. Many students book one session at the start and one about a week before the test.
Get started
Register free to try sample Speaking prompts as part of the free mock test. Full Access unlocks all 186 prompts and the full platform for 2 months at $12.