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IELTS Speaking Function Five
Explaining in English
When explaining something in English, the goal is to be very clear so the listener understands what you mean. On the IELTS test, it is
better to give too many details than not enough details, because details show the examiner your knowledge of English. The best
approach, however, is to neither give too many details nor too few. When explaining in English, you will usually be talking about
how to do something or you will be talking about how something works. So, you can use
these basic phrases to start explaining in English:
There are three steps you must follow. (How to do something)
There are three parts to this process (How something works)
For advanced speakers of English, you can introduce an explanation with a clause such as these:
To do XYZ successfully, the first thing you should do is...
The most important thing to remember about how ABC works is...
Transitions are also important when explaining in English. Be sure to use these expressions, or something similar, if you have the chance:
After you do A, then you can move on to B
Those are two parts of the whole system. A third important part is...
An important thing to keep in mind is that it is okay to repeat something or to rephrase something (say the same
thing using different words) if you think the IELTS examiner does not understand what you mean. This is common in normal English
conversations and will seem normal on the test, too.
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