IELTS Speaking
How to teach IELTS Speaking Part 2: a lesson plan built from your students' recordings
Short answer: To teach IELTS Speaking Part 2, make the one-minute planning concrete, record every practice talk, and have students listen back and say it again better. Students can’t fix what they can’t hear, so the improvement comes from the second, recorded attempt on the same cue card.
Many teachers find Part 2 is where students freeze, run out of ideas after 40 seconds, or recite something memorised. Live peer feedback helps, but much of a two-minute talk is gone before anyone can comment on it.
If you are working out how to teach IELTS speaking in general, Part 2 is a good place to start. This guide gives you a 60-minute lesson that uses students’ own recordings, plus a simple feedback sheet and follow-up activities.
What is IELTS Speaking Part 2?
IELTS Speaking Part 2 is the “long turn”: the candidate gets a cue card, has one minute to make notes, then speaks for one to two minutes before the examiner asks a brief follow-up question.
A cue card (also called a task card) gives a topic, such as “Describe a skill you learned”, and a few prompts to cover. Examiners mark the whole Speaking test against the band descriptors, the public criteria used to award a band from 0 to 9: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation.
What do students find hard in IELTS Speaking Part 2?
Most problems fall into four groups: planning, running out of things to say, accuracy under pressure, and vocabulary range.
Planning: notes that are full sentences, or notes that don’t cover the prompts.
Running out of things to say: students cover the prompts in 45 seconds and stop.
Accuracy under pressure: tense control slips (especially in past narratives), and familiar grammar mistakes come back.
Vocabulary range: the same few words repeated, or an over-rehearsed “high-level” phrase dropped in unnaturally.
A recording shows you and the student which of these is really happening, rather than guessing.
What does a 60-minute IELTS Speaking Part 2 lesson plan look like?
It runs plan, record, listen, teach, then record again on the same card. You need a phone or laptop for each pair (any voice-recording app will do), a set of cue cards, and the feedback sheet below.
Stage | Time | What happens |
|---|---|---|
1. Model the one-minute plan | 8 min | Teacher thinks aloud while making notes |
2. First attempt, recorded | 10 min | Pairs plan, speak and record |
3. Listen back with a focus | 12 min | Students review their own recording with the sheet |
4. Teacher input | 10 min | Class fixes anonymised sentences and drills them |
5. Say it again | 12 min | Same card, recorded again, then compared |
6. Follow-up question and wrap-up | 8 min | Examiner-style question and one “better sentence” |
1. How do you model the one-minute plan? (8 minutes)
Think aloud while you make notes on a real cue card, so students copy the layout rather than your content.
Show a card on the board, for example “Describe a skill you learned that you use often”. Write keywords only, one line per prompt, plus one “story” detail you can expand on.
2. How should students make the first recorded attempt? (10 minutes)
In pairs, one student speaks while the other records and keeps time, then they swap.
Student A gets a new card, plans for one minute, then speaks. Tell them not to stop the recording if they get stuck. The pauses are useful evidence.
3. How should students listen back? (12 minutes)
Each student listens to their own recording once, looking for only two or three things.
Don’t ask for everything at once. Use a simple sheet like this one.
Simple IELTS speaking feedback sheet (Part 2)
Listen for | Notes |
|---|---|
How long did I keep talking before my first long pause? | |
Did I cover every prompt on the card? | |
One sentence I’d like to say better (write it as I said it): | |
The better version: | |
One word I repeated too often, and an alternative: |
4. What teacher input works best? (10 minutes)
Work from three or four sentences you actually heard, rewritten so nobody is identified.
While students listen, walk round (or join breakout rooms) and note what you hear. Rewrite the sentences on the board with the topic words changed.
The sentences below are invented examples written for this article. They are not real student recordings.
“When I was child, I am learning to swim in the river near my home.” → past narrative tense control and the missing article (When I was a child, I learned to swim…)
“It was very very good and very interesting experience.” → intensifier overuse and an article (It was a really rewarding experience…)
“Anyway, that’s all.” (at 45 seconds) → ending too early. Show the “one more detail” move: What I remember most clearly is…
Elicit the corrections from the class, then drill each better version aloud two or three times. Keep the focus on sentences students can reuse, not on a long rule.
5. Why record the same cue card again? (12 minutes)
Because hearing the difference between two attempts is the core of the lesson.
Students repeat the same card and record again. The goal is not a perfect talk. It is a longer turn before the first pause, one sentence said better, and one repeated word replaced. Let them compare the two recordings.
6. How do you finish the lesson? (8 minutes)
Partners ask one examiner-style follow-up question, and each student writes down their one “better sentence”.
For example: “How did learning it change your routine?” Ask students to keep the better sentence somewhere they will see it again next lesson.
What IELTS speaking practice works for the next lesson?
Short, timed, recorded activities that each target one problem work best once students are used to hearing themselves.
Prompt coverage race: one minute to plan, then partners tick the prompts they hear covered.
Keep talking: students try to beat their own time before their first long pause. Leave fluency marking for another day.
One more detail: after the talk, the partner asks “What else?” and the speaker must add 20 seconds.
Tense map: before speaking, students mark which prompts need past, present perfect or future forms.
Swap and improve: students swap their “better sentence” with a partner, who uses it in their own talk.
What are the most common IELTS Speaking Part 2 mistakes?
The most common are stopping early, tense drift, memorised openings, repetition and missing articles, and all of them are easier to show with a recording than to explain.
Stopping early because the prompts have been “done”.
Tense drift in past stories (starting in the past, slipping into the present).
Memorised openings that don’t fit the card.
Repetition of one adjective or intensifier.
Missing articles and familiar grammar patterns that come back under time pressure.
How can IELTS Laboratory help with this lesson?
IELTS Laboratory (ielts-laboratory.co) is an independent online platform for IELTS teachers and learners that turns learners’ own Writing and Speaking mistakes into flashcards, lesson packs and practice. It is not affiliated with IELTS, the British Council, IDP or Cambridge.
You can run everything above with a phone. IELTS Laboratory makes the record-and-listen cycle easier to keep going between lessons:
Speaking Streak, a 125-second Part 2 cue-card trainer: students get a Part 2-style card with prompts, speak, and can compare their time with other students on a leaderboard.
Recordings you can listen to: a learner’s recordings are saved after they have seen a notice and agreed, so you can listen later. Recordings are kept for 365 days. Sharing a recording with other students is a separate choice, off unless the learner turns it on.
Speaking reports show the top 5 errors in what the student said, so stage 4 starts with evidence.
A pronunciation lesson (an early version) gives students guided practice on the sounds that cause the most trouble.
Lesson packs are ready-made lessons that group the mistakes you’ve sent to a class over a week, with the rule, a better version and a quick spoken drill.
None of this replaces your judgement as a teacher, and nothing in the product is an official IELTS score.
For the Writing side, see an IELTS Writing Task 2 lesson plan built from your students’ own mistakes, or read more about IELTS Laboratory for teachers. Learners looking for a speaking tutor can start with how to choose an IELTS tutor.
FAQ
How do you teach IELTS Speaking Part 2 effectively?
Make the planning minute concrete (keywords, one line per prompt), record every practice talk, and have students say it again after feedback. Improvement comes from the second attempt, not the first.
How long should students speak in IELTS Speaking Part 2?
The cue card asks candidates to talk for one to two minutes, and the examiner stops them at the time limit. In class, aim for students to keep going until stopped.
What are good IELTS Speaking Part 2 activities for a class?
Recorded pair practice with a strict timer, prompt-coverage checks, “one more detail” extensions, and repeat attempts on the same card. All of these work online in breakout rooms.
Should students memorise Part 2 answers?
No. Memorised answers rarely fit the card and tend to sound rehearsed. Teach reusable moves (an opening, a story detail, a closing reflection) instead.
How do I give feedback on IELTS speaking without interrupting?
Let the student finish, then work from the recording. Choose one or two points, show the student’s own sentence and a better version, and have them say it again straight away.
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