Hello there IELTS students in this tutorial, we are going to be looking at the Speaking topics, the recent ones with the answers so I've got the list of all the question or the questions to topics which will be used between September and December, and I'm going to give you sample answers and explain why I'm talking like this, why I'm using these examples, and so on and so forth now, on the list is this topic Describe Someone Actively Involved in Environmental Problems imagine I’ll speak in Part 2 in the test I pull the card and it says someone, Describe Someone Actively Involved in Environmental Problems now, what do you do if you've got nobody who's involved in environmental problems? mmm tricky you could ask the examiner and say, “I'm really sorry but I don't know anybody” or maybe you can use your imagination and try and think of somebody like Bono from U2, somebody famous yeah anyway, here is my description I'd like to tell you about a friend of mine who is actively involved in environmental problems her name is Karina she's Austrian and we met in Spain about seven years ago, I think she loves plants and she studied biology and it's really good like walking with her in the park because she tells you about different plants so she’d, “Ah, this one is a native plant from Mexico, this one's called the devil's trumpet it's poisonous don't touch it” and it is like walking with a plant encyclopedia what I really like about her is that not only is she an environmentalist, but she's also very realistic and she works for a business that sources organic and ethically traded food and food products and she admits that a lot of people in her sector have no idea about business and this is what I like about her she's like she dreams about environmentalism and she is really motivated by it she's also realistic so yeah she's really got a good balance I believe a good balance between the business world and protecting the planet just to give you one last example she met an artist, used her parent's land which is some big fields up in the Austrian mountains near the mountains and the artist put on an exhibition it was all centered around sustainability and it was to raise awareness about certain issues in Vienna, in Austria so yeah that's my small description or talk about somebody who is actively involved in environmental problems okay so there we go maybe I focused a little bit too much about the person, and I didn't give that many examples, but it wasn't as if I was talking about something completely irrelevant I was telling the examiner about Karina and she is actively involved in environmental problems because she's working in a company 9:00 till 5:00 perhaps if I was doing it again, I would be a little bit more explicit and say she's actively involved because she works in a company associated with this but either way I gave another reason afterwards talking about the exhibition so if you were listening carefully, you would have heard some expressions like you know ‘she's a walking plant encyclopedia’ and other useful terminology like environmentalist, capitalist, bridging the business world with environmental concerns then the little anecdote or story about the artist and the fields of her parents and all this so it was a very full description also you have heard me introduce the topic made it crystal clear and finishing this -- finishing the topic in a very natural way I just didn't stop at the end of the sentence and then let a cold dark silent hang there while you both -- the examiner and yourself just move and look at each other and confused no, I made it relaxing and I made it easy for the examiner and for myself I said and that's my small description or that's my brief description about a friend who's actively involved in environmental problems also this is what I do with my online students as well because recently I've been accepting just for a short period, I have been accepting online students to work with for speaking because we'll be launching some speaking classes soon and there's still some spaces left but what I was -- what I've been teaching one student is to introduce the topic because she had a tendency to go off-topic and just talk about random things that are vaguely related and this is a disaster for task response because we want to keep on topic and we want to keep focused so this technique of using the question in your answer ‘so I would like to talk about someone actively involved in environmental problems’ it's really helped my student stay on track and I think it would help you too if you have this tendency but even if you don't, still use this technique, because it'll help you keep focused and it'll avoid, it'll help you avoid going off-topic also you can adapt it like I did I didn't say I'd like to talk about someone I'd say I think I said I'd like to talk about a close friend who is actively  involved in environmental problems yeah then I just gave a few sentences about Karina she's Austrian, she lives in Vienna, she works for a company, but I kept it on track most of the time so yeah just useful things like that introducing, finishing, and it helps it, it all helps it go much smoother let's move on to the next one: Describe a Magazine You Like to Read all right I’m going to jump straight into this I'd like to tell you about a magazine I like to read although I usually just read online or with my Kindle, my eBook reader when I go into the city center I like to pick up those small pamphlets you know, the ones with like about 60 pages and often they're in English as well which is a bonus but these small pamphlets they offer a guide to the city like what's on so they might say oh this theater is showing some films in English or there's a food and wine exhibition down at the palace these magazines although I'm not reading them like a novel, it's probably better to say that I'm flicking through the pages just looking for interesting stuff although I don't read them as a novel, I still find them incredibly interesting also when I'm in a foreign country I like to read the newspapers and I don't understand a single word I admit, however, I do like to look at the adverts and try and guess what's happening and also it gives you a good insight into the country when you see the adverts anyway, that was my small description about a magazine I like to read thank you there we go so I could feel myself going off-topic there talking about the adverts and the newspapers so I was looking at the clock and I’d pretty much reached the two-minute mark so I was like okay I can just cut it short there before I go into la-la land and I say with my students I’m like yeah Maria you're going into la-la land you know because we get into autopilot and some students like ta ta ta ta and just keep going and I could hear myself go into la-la land so yeah some useful phrases from there interest and I thought it was interesting but it's a good -- a good technique to do is you can start with ‘although I do most of my reading with my computer or my eBook reading’ I do like to pick up a physical magazine every now and again yeah so I'm starting with a conjunction there it's a good structure and it's advanced and we've got to show a range of structures also I was using phrases like ‘it's a break from screen time’ yeah or ‘I can hold it in my hand and I like to flick through the pages’ yeah I think I said it's like a novelty because usually I'm with the phone or the eBook reader and you can't get that experience of physically touching and moving the pages and then I also told I gave a reason why I expanded my answer I said it's useful because and you'll hear me talk about more about this but expanding your answer is a useful technique to get into especially -- this is why it's especially important to start off with the right topic because then you expand on that topic by using ‘because’ and then you're going to give an example I gave two examples there and both of them were valid, both of them were relevant, and also both of them forced me to use some new vocabulary newspapers, adverts, getting insight into the country and all of this so hopefully you are writing down some of these phrases that you hear and steal them from me please steal them from me and use them in your own talks because as you know, I'm a native English speaker these phrases steal them, use them in your own vocabulary, get used to them, maybe transform them into the third person you know, like James loves to pick up the small magazines you find in the city center because he can flick through the pages you know, he likes to flick through the pages whatever, but steal the phrases from me, write them down, use them in your own vocabulary, try and get some feedback, perfect them, and then you're away okay let's move on to the next one: Describe a Book You Recently Read let's see now, here's my here's my description I'd like to tell -- I'd like to talk about a book I recently read well actually I didn't read it recently it was a few years ago, but the book was so good and the text was so vivid and accurate and descriptive that in my memories, it feels as though it were a recent book that I read it's called Catch-22 it's by the author Joseph Heller and it talks about the idiocy of war and it's based in Italy on a U.S. military camp which is in Italy and it's around World War two and it just talks about these soldiers and the situation they're in and interestingly, the title of the book Catch-22, I'm not going to go into the details of the Catch-22 where it came from but nowadays, this phrase is used in everyday English as you probably know to talk about a situation whereby you are at a disadvantage no matter what decision you take so I'm not going to go into that a little -- in more detail because it's quite complicated however, just going back to the book, the characters were amazingly vivid I can still picture them in my mind, the situation's they get into are just hilarious, and yeah I think it even got adopted into a film, but it was terrible so that's my small description or quick description about a book I've read thank you there we go so that was like honest you know I could go into a book that I recently read, but they were all business books and there's even one that's a Russian book, Master and Margarita which is just too complicated to explain in an IELTS Speaking test, and I don't really understand it myself and I'm halfway through it so I'm not going to talk about that book I'm going to switch it it's not as if I'm switching and talking about my favorite hobby no I'm talking about a book and I justified my reason for switching it and it wasn't a massive switch and we're still going to get the same sort of like task response and she can still -- the examiner can still ask me questions about books so I justified it and it was the truth because I couldn't really tell her about you know, an accounting book or anything like that and especially not Master and Margarita, as I was saying earlier so useful vocabulary there, essential vocabularies about an author I said what phrases is by the author Joseph Heller, it's set in Italy and then I also gave a little anecdote about the catch phrase, the phrase, catch-22 and yeah I will not explain that because it was too difficult and especially under exam conditions personally, I could describe it it's basically where if you take Decision A, you're going to come off bad and if you take Decision B, you're going to come off bad okay but I didn't describe it in my sample answer because it would be misleading for you as a listener because if you get a complicated situation like that then just try and skirt around it I could explain it now rather succinctly because it's been in my mind for a good few minutes anyway, well the vocabulary I used, the characters are vivid, the situations are hilarious, the film adaptation was terrible so lots of topic-specific vocabulary there rich vocabulary, rich use of adjectives, and then I finished with and I didn't contradict myself either I could have finished with and that's a small description or a quick description about a book I've recently read no I switched it to make it more to reflect the actual situation I said and that's a brief description about a book I've read yeah because it's not true if I say recently read so this is an important point we've got to use our own minds we've got to use our own heads when we're doing these descriptions now, last one that we're going to do today thank you for listening for so much time if you're finding this useful, please come and visit us and you can download some free IELTS materials you can even book some one-on-one Skype lessons or we can do it with Skype, WhatsApp, whatever and those are going fantastic at the moment I usually don't do these classes but as I said before, I'm opening it up for a short period of time because I want to test some new material this is good material and I'm adapting it for IELTS and then I will train a teacher and the teacher will take over so for the time being, it's me doing the classes, and if we do it it'll be me and you we’ll meet on Skype at an organised time and this is the Speaking Fluency Intensive Course where we aim for quick automatic answers and we look at both issues we look at techniques for Part 2 just as we were saying before you know we're doing the introduction you can structure it, you can organize your answer, and also the similar processes to what we do with the Writing where we always get great results where you speak, you get feedback, you recognize your errors, and you can improve quickly and there's some specialist exercises to get the structures you need so let's move on to the final Speaking topic I'm going to -- I've got the card it says, Describe a Useful Website so I'd like to describe a website called F1Countdown, and it's a very basic and straightforward website, but I find it incredibly valuable this is because I personally I'm a bit of an f1 freak i.e. I love watching freak -- I love watching Formula One and the races I'll get up at two o'clock in the morning if it's in Asia I'll get up -- I'll stay up until 11 p.m. if the race is in Brazil I just don't care and yeah I really love f1 so this website is extremely useful because it shows me when the next f1 race will be it's called F1Countdown timer, I think that's another one similar but all it is is the countdown until the next race, and it converts it to my local time so I can find it so I can schedule and plan my day accordingly because in the past before this countdown, I would tune in to watch it and it would be halfway through the race and it’s because I mixed up the time zones or even worse, I completely missed it so this website is extremely valuable for me because I take Formula One so seriously unfortunately, once or twice, the website has been a little bit slow and it hasn't updated itself and put up the time of the next race in which case, I had to check the local start time, convert it to my local time, and it just took a lot of time and I realized the value of this site when it's working so that's my brief description about a useful website okay so I got a bit mixed up there with the word ‘freak’ but you could see like I mean, you could hear me I moved on you know and I had kind of admitted it and it's just it's being natural I know it's easier said than done but it's -- I want you just -- like if you're in the exam and something like that happens the examiner’s going to know that you're just human humans make these mistakes you know and you just smile, correct yourself, and just keep moving forward I didn't say oh I'm sorry stop I didn't mean to say freak one I  just moved straight forward I said yeah I'm a big fan of freak 1 I mean Formula One and it's really important to watch the races bla bla bla just correcting myself and moved on you know and sometimes maybe the examiner doesn't catch that tiny mistake so this is another reason why it's valuable to keep moving, keep going forward you've got this momentum you've started now what you'll have heard me say in this site when I'm talking about this site is that I explained why it's useful I gave a structure I said ‘because’ then I told the examiner it saves me time it's very practical and then I gave a story, a very brief basic story about how I tuned in once to watch the race and it was halfway through I talked about local times and my local time and the conversion and the time it saves me and all the rest of it so I explained with examples and the use of because why this site is useful to me and I also tried to avoid using ‘useful’ all the time because I said ‘valuable’ ‘it's a time saver’ so yeah try and use the synonyms when you can, give reasons for your answer, give examples, give anecdotes and yeah and I think also as well you know use different tenses when you're talking about your anecdotes and if you if you're worried about this then come to the website, have a look, and you'll be able to find more examples, Speaking Task 2 topics and answers and you'll be able to have a look at the Speaking Course that we're offering at the moment okay thank you very much for listening if you found this useful, please share it with your friends, and go to the website, sign up for some IELTS materials and all the best with your IELTS preparation take care thanks for listening to ieltspodcast.com