IELTS Speaking Test

It had been weeks since I started preparing for IELTS, notably listening and speaking. First off, I would like to bid a thousand of thanks to my beloved classmates, especially Jo, Amira and Ariah for their patience with my crap all along.

It was after my English teacher had conducted a speaking practice for us that a horrible thought occurred to me. It all went so well while we were being tested. However, she made a comment on our performances; constructive though it was, it demoralized our confidence as she thought that we were not up to the standards expected yet. So, fine.

We started practising speaking in preparation of the coming IELTS tests just a few days ago. First, it was to ensure that we could at least spot some of the questions that might be asked. Second, it was to ensure the fluency and the flow of the language. When the day we were to sit for the speaking test arrived, we wandered round to have people ask us some questions in order to improve ourselves. When I was told that there would be 50% locals and 50% Australians of the interviews, I was like ' What? There will be Australians? Oh man, I suck at listening to their accent. Hopefully my interview will not be an Australian.' And why would I have such kind of thought? It was because I once went for a talk given by Mr. Tony Christianson at Taylor's and I utterly could not grasp every single word of his. So I prayed that disaster would not strike.

My test should have commenced at 4pm but since I had received a call from one of the examiners at 2pm asking me to get to the speaking hall in 10 minutes, I rushed all the way to the hall to make sure the test was still on. I went to the hall and had myself registered, then the person in-charge asked me to take a seat before the candidates being interview came out, so I did. Curiosity once aroused was impossible to suppress. I swiftly peeked into all the three interview rooms and took a glimpse at the interviews to see how they looked like. Well, the interviewer in the first room was an Indian, she looked so stern that I thought everyone who had seen her might be afraid of her owing to Brian's HARSH comment on her. The one in the second room was a Chinese lady who looked quite polite and modern. The one in the third room was an Australian Caucasian. It was after all the candidates had walked out of the interview rooms that I felt things were getting queerer because I was not asked to go for the test yet.

I approached the teacher there for enquiry about my interview room. I was totally stunned the moment I was notified that I was to go into the third room. I took a deep breath, then slowly I walked into the room after knocking on the door. I bade the interviewer good evening, and he replied : ' Good afternoon, please be seated.' I was like ' Oh my gosh, what did I say just now?' While he was checking my personal details, I swiftly scanned through the page that was right in front of me in the hope that the questions on the page I was scanning through would be the questions he would ask.

This is how it went.

' When do you read normally?' queried he.

' Sorry, could you please repeat the question again?' asked I, having misheard what he asked.

' WHEN do you read normally?' queried he again, raising his voice.

' Sorry?'

' WHEEEEEENNNNNN do you read normally?'

' Oh I see, I usually ......' answered I.

After the speaking test ended, he said : ' Hey, wish to see you again.' I was like : ' Do you really wish to?' And the questions he asked were not the ones I saw on the page. So there were quite a few questions I did not really know how to answer due to the malfunction of my crapping system.

This is the first time I've been tested by a Caucasian face-to-face. Guess it's time I polised my listening skills so that I'll be used to their accent. People, I heard that ESL listening is very much harder than IELTS!!!