Repeating vocabulary in production is a common problem for both students and candidates taking IELTS. You should not repeat vocabulary words in IELTS Speaking or Writing. Even if you have some high-level and impressive words and phrases in your vocabulary, but keep saying them again and again, your score cannot go beyond band 6 in the IELTS Speaking section. In this blog post, we are giving some tips on how to eliminate repetition in the IELTS Speaking test.
Why reduce repetition
As we mentioned before, fluency and coherence is one of the criteria according to which the examiner assesses your response in the IELTS Speaking section. Let us have a closer look at IELTS Speaking Band Descriptors:
The learners of English often misunderstand fluency because they tend to think about it as the speed at which you can speak. However, it is ability to maintain a flow of proper language without unnecessary hesitations, i.e. you can naturally make some pauses or stops between certain words or even sentence using, for example, fillers like native speakers do.
Coherence is about how you connect every part of your answer with another sentence, i.e. how logically your talk is arranged. If you do not speak with coherence, the listener will have a difficulty with understanding and following what you say.
Overall, if you speak fluently and coherently, you do it without hesitation, logically connect your ideas and clearly express your thoughts using wide range of vocabulary. It does take time to practice fluency and coherence, but with our useful advice, you will be able to do it easily.
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Tips to eliminate repetition of vocabulary
Tip #1. Record yourself speaking. If you have the recording of how you speak, this will allow you to listen and find out if you really repeat the vocabulary and how often you do it. When you hear such words, write them down.
Tip #2. Try paraphrasing the sentences using synonyms. They are the words that have the same or nearly the same meaning. Luckily, there are many synonyms in the English language because its vocabulary is huge. For example:
Interesting — fascinating, engaging, sharp, keen, bright, intelligent, animated, spirited, attractive, inviting, intriguing, provocative, though-provoking, challenging, inspiring, involving, moving, titillating, tantalizing, exciting, entertaining, piquant, lively, racy, spicy, engrossing, absorbing, consuming, gripping, arresting, enthralling, spellbinding, curious, captivating, enchanting, bewitching, appealing.
This allows adding colour to your language while speaking or writing. Although natives use synonyms unconsciously, it takes a great effort for those who learn English to use them in the sentences on purpose.
What you can do is :
► Learn new words in context. For example, when you are reading or listening to the text, you can come across the unknown words. Try to guess their meaning, look up in a dictionary, and check. If you know a simple synonym to it, write it down. Keep your vocabulary organized.
► Search for synonyms when you need them. We also need to use synonyms when writing. They keep the reader interested and engaged. Think about the person who is going to read or listen to you, look up for synonyms in the dictionary. This will make your writing fresh, and you will remember more engaging language, vocabulary and, expressions.
► Expose yourself to different varieties of English. You might know that there are such varieties of English as American, Australian, British etc., and that many common words in them have different meanings. However, there are many differences between regional varieties too.
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Tip #3.Use pronouns. They are a great tool for back referencing, i.e. talking about something you have already mentioned before without having to repeat the same vocabulary (e.g. it, they, these, those, he, she etc.). How you refer back to the things you have just written or said is an important way of creating a natural flow to your language. Sometimes it is the simplest way to avoid repetition, especially if you cannot find synonyms. Do not try to look smart – try to be talkative. When you are having a conversation with your friend, you hardly ever run out of things to say. Talking to a friend is easier than presenting smart ideas, so try to speak quite simply but fluently. Once you start hesitating and pausing, looking for complex words and grammar to impress an examiner, you score tends to decrease. If you use pronoun reference, it improves your Coherence score as well, in both Speaking and Writing. This one of the skills examiners look for.
Tip #4.Use various forms of the words. There are many different forms of the words in English such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. When learning the new vocabulary, look for them as well. For example: beauty (noun) – beautify (verb) – beautiful (adjective) – beautifully (adverb). Look how we can use these in the sentences:
This is an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Local citizens have raised money to beautify the area.
This is an area with breathtakingly beautiful scenery.
We are staying in a beautifully designed and peaceful area.
Our tips will help you at the IELTS Speaking exam if you practice a lot. In our IELTS Grade self-study course, you will find more tips and examples of how to respond to the examiner’s questions. You will be able to explore IELTS Speaking topics and questions for the interview, long turn and the discussion. There are video lessons for you to learn strategies and tips as well as the diagnostic speaking test with feedback from one of our IELTS tutors.
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