What happens
After the greeting, the examiner asks for your Topic Form and says something like "So, tell me about your topic." For up to five minutes you discuss a subject you chose and prepared at home. You lead: you introduce it, move between your points, and bring the examiner in. The examiner listens, asks for details and reasons, sometimes interrupts, sometimes disagrees, and asks you to explain. At Grade 7 you are also expected to ask the examiner questions about your topic: "Have you ever tried it?", "What would you do in that situation?"
The Topic Form
You fill in a one-page form before the exam with the title of your topic and four to six discussion points. You bring it with you and give it to the examiner. The examiner uses the points to steer the discussion, so what you write decides what you will be asked. Ten worked forms are on Topic Form examples.
Choosing the topic
Trinity's own advice: choose something you are personally interested in and know about, that gives you material for five minutes, and that lets you use the language of Grade 7. Avoid choosing one of the six Conversation subject areas as your topic. A personal aspect of one is fine: "Education" is out, "The course I did to become a care worker" is in.
Ten questions Trinity suggests you ask yourself before you settle on a topic: Do I enjoy talking about it? Am I enthusiastic? Will it interest me and the examiner? Is it personal to me? Is it exactly a Conversation subject? Do I actually know about it? Can I find out more? Is it too technical? Too simple?
Topics that work for settlement candidates: how I started my business or job in the UK; raising children between two cultures; learning to drive in Britain; my grandmother's recipes; running or football as a way into the community; a journey that changed my plans; caring for a parent.
Topics that cause trouble: anything you would need to read from notes (the history of your country, a religion explained, a scientific subject); anything you cannot have an opinion about; anything so personal that an interruption will upset you.
What the examiner is listening for in this phase
Trinity's communicative skills for the Topic phase at Grade 7:
- show understanding by responding appropriately to the examiner;
- communicate facts, ideas and opinions and account for them, linked across extended turns;
- engage the examiner in discussion;
- ask and answer questions about the topic;
- handle interruptions and requests for clarification.
And the grammar: this is where used to (how things were), the second conditional (what you would do), should and ought to (what people should do about it), and the passive (how something is made or done) fit naturally if your points are built to carry them.
Recitation
Trinity is blunt: a topic prepared as a written script and recited is not a discussion and will be marked down. The examiner will interrupt a candidate who is reciting to turn it back into a conversation. Prepare points and the language for each point, not sentences.
A plan for five minutes
- Point 1 (0:00 to 1:00): what the topic is and why it matters to you. End with a question to the examiner.
- Point 2 (1:00 to 2:00): how it was before, or how it started. Used to, past tenses.
- Point 3 (2:00 to 3:00): a problem or a disadvantage, and advice. Should, could, you'd better.
- Point 4 (3:00 to 4:00): what you would do if… Second conditional.
- Point 5 (4:00 to 5:00): the future, possibilities. Might, may, I'm not sure.
The examiner will not let you run it like a timetable, and that is the point. The plan is so that whichever point you are pulled to, you have the language ready.
How to practise
Say each point out loud without notes, two minutes each, to a phone recorder. Listen back for the Grade 7 items. Then have someone interrupt you. The full mock in SpeakPass runs this phase from your own Topic Form with an examiner who interrupts and asks for reasons; the free practice covers the Conversation phase only.