Mat Clark – IELTS Speaking
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Long responses are easily delivered and are directly relevant to the
topic.
Use cohesive features (linking phrases) accurately.
A Fluency and Coherence 8 score is very close to native speaker level.
Summary of Fluency and Coherence
Many people believe that the ―Fluency‖ score is based on the speed and flow of
speech. From the marking system descriptions it can be seen that
these aspects are only a
small part of the actual score.
The most important aspect of your ―Fluency and Coherence‖ score is the length of
your response and your use of cohesive features such as linking words, discourse markers,
connectives and redundant phrases.
Problems with Fluency and Coherence
The most common problem that Chinese candidates
face in this section of the
marking system is that they focus to heavily on answering the question. In other words, their
answers contain ― information content‖ but lack the language to link these ideas together.
Look at the following example:
“What do you like about your hometown?”
“My hometown is Wuhan. Wuhan is very modern so I like the buildings. All
over the city there are lots of new interesting buildings being built. When I was
younger most of the buildings looked the same so it wasn't as attractive as it is
nowadays.”
The answer above is not a bad answer. In fact the grammar
is fairly complex and
accurate; it is not too short. The problem with this answer is that it lacks cohesive features.
Now compare the following answer:
“Well you know, my hometown is Wuhan and you might not know this but
Wuhan is a very modern, so I suppose I would have to say I like the buildings.
Actually, all over the city there are lots of new interesting buildings being built. In
fact, it's quite interesting to consider that when I was younger most of the building
looked the same, so you know it wasn't as attractive as it is nowadays.”
The content in the answer above is exactly the same as the first answer. The
difference in this second answer is that the information is linked using native-speaker style
cohesive features. The answer above would most likely
be typical of a Fluency and
Coherence 7 or 8. (There is a section later which deals with cohesive language in detail.)
A second problem with coherence is when candidates avoid the question by talking
Mat Clark – IELTS Speaking
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about something else.
Look at the following example:
“What sports do you like?”
“I don't like sports. I like computer games. My favorite computer game is
Counter Strike and this game is very popular in China now. I like Counter Strike
because...”
This situation happens quite often in the speaking test. If it happens once or twice,
the examiner probably won't change your score. If it happens frequently then your ―Fluency
and Coherence‖ will be reduced.
