During the IELTS speaking exam, it is likely that you will be asked about your childhood either directly or indirectly. Depending on your age, this might not be as easy or fresh in the memory as you would like. Therefore this lesson will help you to with idea generation and the grammar required.
Grammar Advice
You should aim to use a range of tenses when talking about your childhood:
Simple past-This is the easiest to use. There are very few instances where it wouldn’t be correct to speak in the simple past. If something happened only once you can only use the past simple
I watched a movie last night.
I played cricket last weekend.
I grew up in England.
However, it is important to use a variety of tenses, so consider using the following two tenses.
Used to+infinitive– Past actions/states that don’t happen now.
I used to live in Korea.
I used to play cricket, but now I can’t find a team
Would+infinitive-used for repeated actions in the past
Every Saturday we would go to the park.
Every year my Dad would give me a huge present.
As with all task 2 questions, you should think flexibly about the type of grammar that you use. In these questions, it is definitely possible to talk in the future (potentially about future children you might have), 2nd conditional (If I had the opportunity to go back in time, I would …. ) present perfect (I have changed a lot since then)
Idea Generation
Here is an example of some of the questions you might need to talk about for 2 minutes.
Describe a happy childhood memory.
B) Describe a song you liked when you were a child
C) Describe a present that you received when you were a child
D) Describe a food that you enjoyed eating when you were a child
E) Describe a favourite toy that you had when you were a child
Idea Generation
The best thing about the IELTS task 2 is that you always have one minute to prepare for it. In addition, there is no limit to the amount of time you can spend thinking about common topics in advance. It is impossible to predict the exact questions you will receive on your exam, but these exercises should allow you to have sufficient ideas.
Exercise 1
Think about the things that you frequently did when you were a child.
1)
2)
3)
Exercise 2
Think about special events that stand out from your youth (this can be anything between 4-17 years old)
1)
2)
3)
Exercise 3
Write about vacations/holidays that you went on as a child
1)
2)
Exercise 4
Write specific adjectives describing your personality as a child (do they still apply now)
1)
2)
3)
Exercise 5
Choose one of the questions and write an outline of your answer.
Include at least one sentence in 6 different tenses (present simple counts 🙂
3 high level adjectives.
1 idiom