Recently, I was reviewing a student\u2019s recorded response to a TOEFL Independent Speaking task. The question prompt asked for a spoken opinion about cell phones. While talking about mobile technology, the student mispronounced the word \u201cmobile\u201d pretty badly the first couple of times he said it.<\/p>\n
But from there, he managed to catch his mistake, using the word \u201cmobile\u201d with correct pronunciation a few more times before the end of his short speech. This repetition \u201csaved\u201d his speech, making it completely understandable. Between context and his correct repeating of a previously mispronounced word, I was able to understand everything in his Task 1 Speaking response perfectly.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve worked with a lot of students who compensate for their mispronunciation of key words in a similar way\u2014they slowly realize they\u2019re mispronouncing an important word and they start to say it correctly as they continue to speak. This kind of self-correction often happens quite naturally. But repetition of words can be also used deliberately as a strategy to compensate for mistakes and boost your score in TOEFL Speaking.<\/p>\n
One very common way to strategically repeat yourself in TOEFL Speaking is to immediately<\/em> repeat a word, right after you\u2019ve mispronounced it. Catching a speech error and immediately correcting is a move some students are a little afraid to make. Our instincts tell us not to draw attention to our mistakes\u2014and in some language situations, it really may not be a good idea to draw attention to a brief speech error.<\/p>\n However, in TOEFL Speaking, quickly correcting a mistake you\u2019ve just made works in your favor and can even boost your score. One of the criteria that TOEFL Speaking scorers look for is natural<\/em> speech\u2014and correcting yourself when you misspeak is very natural\u2014it gives your speech a smooth, conversational tone. And it makes your mispronunciation look like a simple mistake anyone could make, rather than a language error that you failed to notice. In fact, native English speakers do these kinds of swift \u201con the spot\u201d corrections of their small mistakes all the time.<\/p>\n Of course, there may be times when you don\u2019t realize your mistake fast enough to do that kind of fast-and-natural self-correction. As an ESL student, there will be just as many times where you slowly realize you might <\/em>have mispronounced a word earlier in your speech\u2026 or suddenly<\/em> realize that you mispronounced a word several seconds ago, but that it\u2019s too late to do a smooth, natural sounding correction.<\/p>\n When this kind of realization hits you, don\u2019t panic. Instead, immediately start thinking about the most natural way you can repeat the mispronounced word as you keep talking. If a scorer didn\u2019t understand your pronunciation the first time, there\u2019s still a good chance that they\u2019ll understand what you were really trying to say if you repeat what you said correctly. In other words, repeating a previously misspoken word is a great form of clarification<\/em>.<\/p>\n In fact, every language has this form of clarification through repetition. In linguistic terminology, the use of repeated words and information to make a message clearer is called \u201credundancy.\u201d You do it in your own native language, and transferring this skill to English can help you get a top TOEFL Speaking score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I was reviewing a student\u2019s recorded response to a TOEFL Independent Speaking task. The question prompt asked for a spoken opinion about cell phones. While talking about mobile technology, the student mispronounced the word \u201cmobile\u201d pretty badly the first couple of times he said it. But from there, he managed to catch his mistake, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13618],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-3014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speaking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n