Samespeak: Practice Spoken English Live

I have been discussing ways to prepare for the IELTS English speaking test.
In my last IELTS English blog, we looked at the question:

Describe a famous person that you admire. You should say who the person is, what they are famous for and why you admire them. I also made some suggestions about note taking and gave an example of what you could quickly write down in the one minute that you are given to prepare.

Here is a short sample answer (remember you need to speak for 1 – 2 minutes without stopping).

Someone famous that I really admire is Barak Obama…the President of the United States. He seems to be a real family man and his wife, Michelle is quite a role model too – she’s a lawyer so she must be quite a good communicator and fast thinker. I think that because he has two children and a happy looking family, that he comes across as quite a down to earth man – I mean it’s interesting that he comes from a working class background, he wasn’t rich or pampered. Actually he had to work his way to the top, probably against racial barriers and adversity but it just goes to show, that you can achieve whatever you want if you have the determination. It kind of brings the American dream alive I guess but it reminds me of how focused and hrd working my father is. Anyway, Obama is obviously a high achiever as he worked his way through College earning scholarships, graduating as a lawyer in Civil Rights I think and then moving into politics. So being the first black President in the USA is quite an achievement if you consider how segregation was still quite prevalent in the mid 1900′s…it’s a big change for American society but probably reflects the move from a mono-cultural society to a richer one of diversity. I think it would mean that he would be more empathetic to minorities and understand their struggles as he’s experienced struggle for himself. He really did achieve something against the odds and is one of a kind.
You know I even remember when I found out he’d been elected cause my phone went crazy and I received a lot of texts announcing the news. I was on a train at the time, passing through Akihabara and I think a lot of other people seemed to know too as I could hear people talking about it. I must say, I was quite surprised as I hadn’t been keeping up with American news…I’m more interested in politics in my own country!

Ok so there’s a sample for you. If you keep practicing the same question, you can try different ways of answering it and gaining more confidence in the topic. You can then try the same question with a range of different people that you admire such as your parents, friends, actors, actresses, sports people and so on.

In the next blog, we will look at Part 3 of the IELTS speaking test!