How to build confidence for the speaking section of PTE Academic

PTE Author
PTE Author
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Reading time: 6 minutes

Whether you’re looking to create a new life down under or make your own American dream a reality, one of the first hurdles is proving you’ve got the right English language skills.  

English proficiency exams cover listening, reading, writing, and speaking, and it will come as no surprise that it’s the speaking part of the test that people worry the most about.  

With PTE there is no face-to-face speaking test to stress about, taking away the concerns around what to wear and whether you will get on with your examiner. Also remember that PTE’s automated scoring technology is trained to understand over 120 different accents so that is one less thing to worry about.  

However, it is still daunting, which is why we’ve put together some tried and tested top tips to help you feel confident for the speaking section of PTE.  

What to expect in the PTE speaking section

Learning what to expect from each section of the test can help ease anxieties and allow you to prepare properly. PTE is made up of three sections:

  1. Speaking & Writing (54-67 minutes) 

  2. Reading (30 minutes) 

  3. Listening (30 minutes) 

 The Speaking & Writing section is then split into 8 tasks: 

  1. Personal introduction  

  2. Read aloud 

  3. Repeat sentence 

  4. Describe image  

  5. Re-tell lecture 

  6. Answer short question  

  7. Summarise written text 

  8. Essay  

For more information on specific instructions for each task, you can review the test format and scoring criteria.

Building your English-speaking confidence

Feeling confident speaking English takes time and patience. Here are four ways to help you feel prepared for the PTE speaking section.

1. Complete short practice activities every day 

When something feels new and unfamiliar it can be stressful. Build your familiarity and comfort levels by setting aside time each day to complete short practice activities. It’ll help you learn what to expect from each task, keeping you calm and giving you more time to focus on providing a clear answer on test day.  

2. Immerse yourself in English  

Surrounding yourself with English-speaking TV shows, audiobooks, and podcasts is a fantastic way to build your vocabulary and practice your listening skills on a daily basis. The more you listen to English, the more you familiarize yourself with the language. You may also find yourself picking up new vocab and phrases that come in handy on test day. To take your speaking and listening skills to the next level, find a range of shows with different accents — American, British, Australian — to really tune into the English language.  

3. Find a language exchange partner  

Having conversations in English is one of the best ways to hone your language skills and build your speaking confidence. Look online to find a language tandem or see if there are partnership opportunities in your local area to help you get that real-life “I did it” confidence of being understood and connecting in another language. 

4. Use speech recognition technology 

If you’re struggling to find a language partner, look for language-learning apps like Mondly by Pearson that use technology to practise speaking and pronunciation. Some people actually find it easier talking to a computer rather than having the pressure of a real human, so it can be a great way to build confidence if you’re feeling nervous about speaking up.

There’s no need to pick just one of these ways — try out several to see which works best for you or combine multiple ways of practicing to make sure you’re at your confident best on test day.  

Tips for during the speaking section   

You’ve done all your preparation, you’re feeling confident, now you’re in the test center ready to show everyone what you can do.

Here’s how to make sure that practise shines through during the speaking exam:  

  • Utilize spare time  

During the test, make use of the few seconds before each recording begins to properly read the material and mentally prepare your answer.

  • Pay attention to punctuation

Punctuation helps you decide where to pause and change your intonation. Good pausing techniques can help you read more fluently and give more meaning to the text.  

  • Stress the important words 

Add more emphasis to the words you think are important. Try to copy the tone and intonation of recordings to replicate the patterns of the sentences you hear.   

  • Listen to the phrasing  

Pinpoint the most meaningful parts of the sentence and remember those phrases. You’ll be scored on correct word sequences, so remembering words as phrases will help you.  

  • Don’t rush 

Remember to stay calm, speak clearly and try not to rush to make sure that your recording showcases the very best of your speaking ability.

Take advantage of our preparation resources 

We want PTE to be the worry-free way to start your new chapter. That’s why we offer a range of preparation preparation packages, which include a mixture of Scored Practice Tests, our Question Bank and our Official Guide to PTE Academic.

You can also make the most of our free resources, including our Taster Test, which offers five questions in five minutes with instant feedback. For those who are juggling priorities, our free Practice App is perfect for preparing on the go.  

Looking for more PTE tips? Take a look at our guides on what to expect on test day and how to prepare for PTE Academic.

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    In PTE Academic Part 2: Reading, you will be required to read a text in each question to understand what it means in order to answer the question.

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    Grammar

    Grammar skills are important as they help you understand what you are reading. In Part 2: Reading you need to understand the meaning of the tense system, how articles work and how to use pronouns.

    Tense

    The tense system refers to the way in which you write about situations in the past, present or future. It’s important to be able to understand how time is expressed in reading texts in order to understand the meaning of the text.

    To learn more about the tense system view the Anglo-Link’s video on tenses.

    Articles

    In the reading section, you will also need to understand how articles work in English. Articles are words such as ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘an’.

    Knowing how articles work will help you to understand the topic sentence in a paragraph and that will help locate an answer in a reading passage. This will help you with the Re-order Paragraphs question types in the test.

    Indefinite articles (a or an) usually come before the definite article (the) before the same noun.

    For example, An eminent scientist worked for years trying to find a new species of exotic bird. She led a team of three field researchers. One of the team members found the bird in a tropical forest. Two years later the same team found another new species in the forest.

    You can learn how to use the correctly in this Oxford Online English video.

    Pronouns

    It’s important to also know what pronouns are to better understand the text you are reading. Pronouns are used to replace nouns so we do not have to keep repeating the same noun.

    Knowing how to use pronouns will help in the test, particularly in the Re-order Paragraph questions, as they help you identify the correct position of sentences within a paragraph.

    For example, Dr Gomez felt he needed to spend more time with his students when they were new to his faculty. There was so much information that he wanted to give them that he needed to spend more than a whole day with them, which surprised even himself.

    To learn more and practice using pronouns, visit Ginger Software’s pronoun page.

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    Having a wide vocabulary will help you succeed in the PTE Academic test as you will not need to slow down for as many words that you do not understand.

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    Word families

    When it comes to learning vocabulary, make sure to learn the word family of a word.

    For example, progress (noun/verb), progressive (adjective), progression (noun). To learn the words, use it ten times, in different ways, such as writing, speaking and reading within a short time.

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    Context

    Another important skill to improve vocabulary is inferring unknown vocabulary from context. You should be able to guess the meaning of new words or phrases based on the words around it (the context).

    For example, you can guess the meaning of profligate from this sentence: The young man who spent all his money on expensive cars and holidays was so profligate that he wasted his whole fortune.

    Sometimes you will be unable to work out the meaning of a word from the context and will need to look it up in a dictionary.

    Collocations

    Lastly, you will need to understand collocations. Collocations are words that often go together. You will need to have a good understanding of collocations in order to answer the Reading: Fill in the Blanks and Reading & Writing: Fill in the Blanks questions.

    The more you read and listen to English, the more collocations you will learn. The PTE Academic Collocation List will also help you to learn these.

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