Hi

If you listened to the recording I recommended last week in my post ‘An example of IELTS-type speaking (3)‘, you may have thought that the native speaker talking about his daily routine was very fluent. I certainly did when I first listened to the recording.

If you listen again, you’ll probably notice that he uses ‘er‘ and ‘um‘ every time he pauses to think of what to say next.

“I…um…usually wake up at 6 a.m…um…er…I have to go to work at eight, so I…um…”

These sounds, which are called ‘fillers‘, help to make him sound more fluent the first time you listen to him. If you use some fillers in your IELTS Speaking test when you pause to think of what to say next, your examiner may think you sound more fluent.

When I listened to the recording ‘Daily routine‘ a second time, I counted more than 40 ‘er‘s and ‘um‘s in total, which goes to show that it’s okay to use fillers frequently. (If you say ‘um’ or ‘er’ between every word, however, the examiner may think you’re not very fluent at all).

Pete

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