Welcome to this episode of my podcast. My name is Kalsoom Butt and I specialise in training medical professionals how to get the score they need in IELTS or OET so that they can get their dream job, take their career to the next level and start living their best life with their families by providing them with bigger and better opportunities.
Before I start with the main topic for this week’s episode, I just want to make you aware of how you can use this podcast to your maximise advantage. This is no ordinary podcast. You can use this podcast by:
1. Simply listening to the podcast to get some advice that will help you in your IELTS or OET preparation.
2. Actively listen to this podcast to improve your listening skills. I try to keep it short….. I know you guys are very busy people…. But you can use it for focussed listening practice.
So, you can use the show notes, which is a complete transcript of each episode, you can read the episode as you listen and analyse the language, learn new words or phrases, practice pronunciation, intonation.
3. Also included in the show notes are some comprehension style questions that you can use by reading the transcript, using your skimming and scanning techniques to answer the questions. Answers are provided at the end but you can also check your answers by listening to the podcast
4. You can use it as a listening test and answer the same questions while listening.
5. I also include a brief analysis of some useful words or phrases that I have used in the podcast which you can learn.
It’s up to you how you would like to use this tool!
Please don’t forget to like, subscribe and share this podcast with your colleagues and social media so that more people can benefit too.
This episode is all about getting you focussed on how to get the score you need in OET speaking by discussing the biggest mistakes I have seen over the years that stop students from getting the score they need…. and how you can avoid them.
Firstly, let’s talk about the importance of the marking criteria for speaking. I will be doing a separate podcast on just the marking criteria because it is so important and is the key to success.
The marking criteria is the document that the examiner will have in front of them when they are grading your speaking. So it goes without saying that understanding that document and what the examiner is looking for in your speaking and how they will be assessing you, is pretty important!
Once you understand the marking criteria, you understand the examiner and once you understand the examiner and what they are looking for, then you can work on giving them just that. All your preparation, practice should be centred around this.
Everything else is not relevant. Which leads me to the next big mistake. Bad advice! Unfortunately, this is everywhere on the internet and some teachers and it can be really bad. Just before I recorded this podcast I went online and did a little research to find out what the latest bad advice is and I was really shocked. It’s just getting worse.
Here are just a few of the things I read:
1. Don’t fold your arms in front of the examiner because it will make you look defensive
2. Do not slouch, sit with your back straight against the chair
3. Smile only once or twice but don’t smile when the examiner looks at you
4. Do not touch your hair
5. Greet the examiner with a firm handshake because it shows you are confident but make sure your palms are not dry
When I read this I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What a lot of complete nonsense! Trust me the examiner does not care if you sit straight or not or have sweaty hands, they have enough to think about and these things are actually on the marking criteria.
There was much more, but these were the most ridiculous that I thought I would share with you. But there are more serious bad advice about words that YOU MUST use and if you don’t you will not pass etc
Now, if a student was unfamiliar with the marking criteria they would take this advice seriously and this is the problem.
Students often ask me, well how do we know if it’s bad advice? My answer is, learn all about the marking criteria. If it’s not on there then it’s not good advice.
Another mistake students make is not using the 3 minute preparation time effectively. What I see students doing is after about 1 minute or a minute and a half, they tell the examiner that they are ready to begin, wasting the rest of the time.
Or, they have no idea what to do in the 3 minutes. They don’t have any planning strategy whatsoever and therefore they also waste the 3 minutes.
The 3 minutes planning time is a key, key part of the speaking test. It allows you to structure the dialogue and choose how you want to lead it. Remember, you, the medical professional, are responsible for leading the conversation, if the patient stops talking, YOU have to carry the conversation forward.
You need to use this time to think about
· what open and closed question you will ask
· How will you start the conversation
· How will check understanding
· How will you reassure/explain/discuss/persuade (whatever the task requires)
· What vocabulary/phrases will you use?
There needs to be a strategy for how you will use those 3 minutes.
Having a clear plan will give you confidence while you are speaking because it allows you to do all the thinking first so that you can concentrate on your speaking, while you refer to your plan as you speak… you’re not thinking of ideas/words or what to say next.
Not using these three minutes properly means you have no direction, you can easily get confused and make a complete mess of your speaking test.
Another mistake I see again and again is students focus too heavily on one aspect of English such as vocabulary and grammar or both. Again this is linked to bad advice and not focussing on the marking criteria.
Students are given a list of words or phrases, for example, that MUST be used in the test otherwise they won’t pass. Or they are told to use certain complicated grammar structures.
All of this is unnecessary and a complete waste of time. It just takes your focus off what you ACTUALLY SHOULD BE DOING. Going back to the marking criteria, you must use vocabulary and grammar that is accurate and appropriate to the situation and what you are saying to the patient. That’s it, it’s that simple, so keep it simple.
Another mistake students make is that they don’t listen to the patient and what they are trying to tell them. They become so focussed on the tasks on the role play card and what they need to say, that they don’t pay any attention to what the patient is saying.
Remember it is a conversation, a dialogue. It is as much a listening test as it is a speaking test. The examiner is testing your ability to listen to the patient and how you respond accordingly, how you acknowledge what the patient is saying.
This could be an entire episode all by itself. It incorporates non verbal communication as well as the language you use to respond to the patient, how you address their concerns and so on.
Example: “ I’m really worried about the treatment and the side affects” You need to acknowledge the fact the patient is “really worried” and address that first by reassuring the patient before you give an answer “ I completely understand your concerns about the treatment and the side affects, your concerns are quite common but let me reassure you that this treatment is very safe and the side affects are minimal. However, if you feel that the side affects are quite strong, we can adjust the dose”
So next time you practice speaking focus and analyse how you respond to the patient. Do you listen closely to what the patient says?
Another problem is that students don’t know how to practice for the speaking test. This is usually a problem if you are in a country where English is not spoken at all.
There are really practical ways you can practice such as:
· Try writing out the entire dialogue of a role play
· Think about each stage and how you will respond
· Record yourself using your phone
· Listen back to yourself and analyse your speaking.
· What mistakes did you make, what could be improved?
· Find a speaking partner in an OET group, have you checked out my private OET study group, the link is in the show notes
Fluency can be a big problem for students. Fluency means that there is a flow to your speaking, you are easy to understand and you don’t have unnatural pauses or hesitations. It means speaking at a normal pace just like you would in your native language. Fluency does not mean speaking fast.
Now we all pause and hesitate when we speak, if you listen to me, I have paused and hesitated a number of times in this podcast. But these are natural pauses and hesitations, they don’t stop you from understanding what I’m saying.
The problem comes when the pauses and hesitations become unnatural and the students keeps pausing again and again. Then it becomes difficult to follow and understand what you’re saying. This is where you get marked down for fluency. Try to work on minimising hesitation and pauses and speaking at a normal pace. You can analyse this when you listen to yourself.
Another problem is that students don’t get proper professional feedback for their speaking before they go for the test. Or, they get the advice but ignore it.
Either way, sitting the test before you are ready is something I see over and over again and it’s so frustrating. You are just wasting your time, money and a lot of effort.
Students using their own medical knowledge is another mistake that students make that stops them from getting the score they need.
I once had a student who refused to agree with the role play card. He said that he would never explain the condition in that way, and refused to follow the tasks.
I had to remind him, that it was not a medical knowledge test, it was an English test. The examiner is not a medical professional and will not know whether it’s right or wrong and, quite frankly, does not care! All they care about is your English and how you communicate with your patient.
All the medical knowledge you need is mentioned in the role play. Just stick to that, whether you agree or not. If you disagree that badly then write a letter to OET and let them know that it’s medically not accurate, but for the purpose of passing your OET speaking test, just go with it.
Now, nerves! I have seen the most competent students, who could pass their OET test in their sleep, crumble in the test. It can be a huge problem.
You won’t be able to get rid of all your nerves but you can minimise it by making sure you have a clear plan and strategy for each stage of the test as I have already mentioned. This gives you some confidence because you know exactly what to do and you can just get on with it.
Also, just practice enough so that you build up confidence and lastly just believe in yourself, have confidence in your own abilities and just believe that you can do it.
Now, my question to you is, are you making any of these mistakes in your speaking test?
Really analyse your speaking performance and the points that I’ve raised in this episode. If the answer is yes, you are making one or some of these mistake, then my next question to you is, what are you going to do about it? Don’t be one of those students that just listens to all the advice, downloads all the information but does nothing about it, does not implement the advice because that is just a waste of time too……This is another mistake students make.
So go and take action!
I hope you have found this episode useful, please let me know if you have, I would love to get your feedback and if there is something you would like to me to do an episode on, for IELTS or for OET, please just let me know. The details on how you can contact me are in the show notes of this episode.
And remember, nothing changes if nothing changes. If you are not willing to change or implement advice and you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same results again and again. Real progress, real improvement comes when you push yourself outside of your comfort zone.
Please don’t forget to like, subscribe and share this podcast with your colleagues and social media so that more people can benefit too.
Take care and keep working hard!
Comprehension style questions
1. If you receive some advice which is not on the OET speaking marking criteria, ignore it. True or false?
2. You must not touch your hair in the speaking test. True or false?
3. “The 3 minute planning time is a ….. part of the speaking test”
4. Name three things you need to plan in the 3 minutes planning time.
5. “ It’s as much a ……….. test as it is a speaking test.”
6. Fluency means to speak really fast. True or false?
7. It’s ok to use your own medical knowledge in the test. True or false?
Vocabulary analysis
It goes without saying
This means that something is so obvious that you don’t need to say it. “ It goes without saying that smoking is bad for your health”
Pretty important
It means something is very important. Don’t get mixed up with the other meaning of ‘pretty’ when it’s used to describe someone’s appearance ‘ the woman looked very pretty.’
Pretty can be used to mean important but it’s more casual language and not suitable for writing but it’s ok for speaking to a patient.
Here are just some more examples of you can use the word ‘pretty’ as meaning very:
· It’s pretty obvious that the accident caused the injury.
· It’s pretty clear that you have arthritis
· I intend to study pretty hard for my OET test.