Lindsay McMahon
"The English Adventurer"
Jessica Beck
"Director of IELTS Training"

Are you using crutches when it comes to the IELTS Speaking test?

Today you’ll find out why crutches can be deadly on the IELTS exam.

Language crutches in English are “like,” “um,” “uh” and words like those. When you use those on the IELTS Speaking test you lose points for both fluency and vocabulary.

You lose fluency points because you are repeating yourself and you lose vocabulary points because it sounds like you don’t have the vocabulary words that you need.

You have to stop using them on the exam even though you hear native speakers using them all of the time and they are natural.

How to break this habit:

Record yourself speaking. Listen to the recording. If you hear “like” and  “um” too many times, you need to keep focusing on reducing those language crutches.

You can also join Toastmasters. When you join the group, your colleagues will listen to your speeches and will note down how many times you have used these filler words.

Do you use language crutches?

How do you plan to break this habit for the IELTS?

Let us know in the comments below.

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