How to score high in PTE read aloud | Speaking Read Aloud test taking strategy

How to score high in PTE read aloud

PTE Speaking read aloud strategy

Read aloud: Introduction

This is a long answer item type that integrates speaking and reading skills and requires test takers to read a short text aloud, using correct pronunciation and intonation.

Strategy 1
You have 30–40 seconds to go through the text. Read it silently trying to decode any words you do not know using context and word structure clues.

Strategy 2
When you speak into the microphone, read every single word. Do not skip words or rush through. Apply your letter-sound knowledge or phonemic awareness to pronounce unfamiliar words.

Strategy 3
When you speak, try to link the words within phrases and do not emphasize grammar words such as prepositions and articles. This will help you achieve native-like rhythm and phrasing, and sound more fluent.

Step 3: Practice Each Strategy

You will have 30–40 seconds to prepare and familiarize themselves with the text before the microphone opens. They should use the time to try to decode and understand any unfamiliar words, as well as the content of the text.

 

Context clues are usually any surrounding words that will give you hints about the words they do not know. Word structure clues are clusters of letters that occur frequently in words. These are prefixes (un-, re-, in-), suffixes (-ful, -ness, -est), and inflectional endings (-ed, -ing, -es). Associating meaning and sounds to these clusters of letters will lead to more rapid and efficient word identification.

To practice this strategy,  do the following activities in pairs:

  • Display the first sentence from Item 1: “Analysts were impressed by the improvement in margins reported across all regions, apart from the United Kingdom, and said that this reflected a clear effort to improve profitability across the business.” Have students work out the meaning of the underlined word and discuss what context clues helped them decode the correct meaning, g., meaning – gross profits; context clues

improve, profitability, business.

  • Now  look at the words improvement and profitability, identify the roots and suffixes (-ment,

-able, -ity), and sound them out. Then give students copies of Item 1 and have them highlight all prefixes, suffixes and inflectional endings, and discuss their meaning and pronunciation.

One should read all words in the text. To become skilled readers, they should be able to identify and/or predict words quickly and accurately. They must be proficient in decoding the printed words into the spoken language.

In addition to using word structure clues discussed above, decoding also involves recognizing sight words, i.e., common words that should be recognized on sight such as should, ought, and associating spelling with sounds. Approximately 84% of English words are phonetically regular. Therefore, teaching the most common sound- spelling relationships in English is extremely useful for readers.

To apply this strategy,  do the following activities:

  •  make a list of sight words, g., another, because, here, there, where, whole, could, enough, though, etc. and practice reading them to each other in pairs.
  • If students are familiar with the phonetic symbols, write down a list of vowels (e.g., / /, / /, / /) and have them think of all letter representations that are associated with each sound, (e.g., / / ,  ,  ,  ) and provide example Do the same for the more difficult consonants (e.g., /f/ as in full, effort, half, phone, cough).

Please note down that it is important to understand how the combination of stressed and unstressed syllables helps to create the sentence rhythm in English. They should also know how to group syllables together into larger units such as phrases or thought groups. Thought groups include short sentences, phrases, clauses, and transition words and phrases that make the organization of the text clear (e.g., on the other hand, for example, in fact).

In addition, students should try to link the final sounds of words to the next word in the phrase. For example, if the final sound of a word is a consonant and the next word starts with a vowel, they should blend the last consonant of the word with the next word, e.g., They lived in Hong Kong sounds like They live din Hong Kong.

To practice this strategy,  do the following activities in pairs:

  • Display the first sentence from Item 1: “Analysts were impressed by the improvement in margins reported across all regions, apart from the United Kingdom, and said that this reflected a clear effort to improve profitability across the business.” Have students divide the sentence into thought groups and mark the unstressed Then have them practice reading it to each other.
  • Now mark the words that can be linked in each thought Have them practice reading it until they are fluent readers.
  • Display the other sentence from Item 1 and repeat the activities

 

Respond to a Read Aloud Item

The student can now respond to a test item simulating the test conditions. They will have 40 seconds to read the text silently and 40 seconds to read it aloud. Please remind of the three strategies covered in this lesson and ask them to apply these strategies.

speaking read aloud test taking strategy

RELATED LINK:

 PTE Academic Select missing word tips

PTE Tips & Tricks-PTE exam preparation

PTE SPEAKING READ ALOUD SAMPLES FOR PRACTICE 

How to Score higher in Re-Tell Lecture – PTE Academic Speaking module

 

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