IELTS Topic: Childhood (1)

In the Speaking Module of the IELTS exam, candidates are very often asked about their childhood.

The main topic of Speaking Part 2 and part 3 could be, for example, childhood memories, children using technology, childhood behaviour, or how children learn.

In a lot of cases, though, childhood will not be the main topic, but there will be one or two 'childhood questions' connected to another subject. Here are a few examples:

Topic:          Sport (Part 1)
Question:    What kind of sports did you play as a child?

Topic:          Drawing (Part 1) 

Question:    In your childhood, were you interested in drawing?

Topic:          Truth and honesty (Part 3)

Questions:   Where do children learn that it's important to be honest?
                     Do they learn more from their elders or their friends?

How to answer:

Let's take the part one questions first. In general we know that in Part 1, answers should be longer than one simple sentence, but not too long. Two or three sentences is usually enough.

We also know that Part 1 questions tend to be personal, whereas Part 3 questions are usually about society in general.

Here we have two topics 'intersecting' ( = coming together at one point, like two roads at a traffic intersection). Therefore, our answer should contain a bit of childhood vocabulary and also a bit of vocabulary related to the other topic.

The easiest way to do this is to look at phrases in the question, and paraphrase them or think of ways to express a similar idea. For example:

Question:    What kind of sports did you play as a child?
                        - kinds of sports  ||  different sports
                        - play sport  ||  be involved in sport
                        - as a child  ||  when I was young(er)  ||  in my childhood

Answer: "I was involved in a few different sports when I was younger."

Remember, this is a personal question, so to extend your answer, you just need to give a few details from your own life. Try to say each part a little differently. For example, if your childhood sports were football, tennis and table tennis, don't say:

"I played football when I was a child, and I also played tennis, and I played table tennis".

Instead, say something like:

"I really enjoyed them all, but table tennis probably brought me the most pleasure, because we just played for fun. There was no pressure to compete or to win."

So now your answer looks like this:

a. direct answer      b. details     c. personal feelings         

"I was involved in a few different sports when I was young. I wason the school football team. I played competitive tennis on weekends, and I often used to have a game of table tennis with my friends. I really enjoyed them all, but table tennis probably brought me the most pleasure, because we just played for fun. There was no pressure to compete or to win."

For Part 1 of the Speaking Module, this is more than enough. In fact, if you said any more than this, it would be too much.

Notice that you didn't need a lot of childhood vocabulary to answer the question well. Just a couple of phrases like "when I was young" and "at school" was enough. But you need these two phrases to make the examiner see that you understood the question and you're answering all parts of it.


OK ... YOUR TURN!

Try the same process with this question:

Question:      
In your childhood, were you interested in drawing?

Technique:      
1. Quickly think of paraphrases for "in your childhood", "interesting" and "drawing".
2. Say one sentence which directly answers the question.
3. Add some details from your life experience.
4. If you like, add something about your feelings towards this activity.

You can write your answer in the comments box below.


AS ALWAYS, THE KEY IS PRACTICE

This process might seem a bit unnatural when you first try it. The only way you can learn to do it automatically is to do it many times - in other words, to practice.

For the topic of childhood, there's a really helpful website which offers a lot of opportunities to practice. It's called www.proust.com, and it's quite interesting and unusual. The idea of the site is that family members or friends join, and through doing various exercises, they can learn things about each other which they didn't know before.

Proust.com has a list of questions about childhood on this page.
I recommend that you

a. go to the website and read the questions
b. decide how you could answer them using the technique above
c. post some of your answers into the comments box below.


Part 3: A Whole Different Ball Game

Part 3 questions are usually about society in general. The topics are often a bit more complex than Part 1 topics, and you may have to talk about a few different things in your answer. Remember our example Part 3 question above:

Topic:          Truth and honesty (Part 3)

Questions:   Where do children learn that it's important to be honest?
                     Do they learn more from their elders or their friends?

(Vocabulary note: "elders" = older, more experienced people, like parents, teachers etc.)

We've said the topic here is truth and honesty, and we can see that it intersects with the topic of childhood.

There's also a 'subsidiary topic' - that is, another topic that isn't the main one, but which you could talk about if you wanted to. The subsidiary topic is the responsibility of parents and others to help children grow up. So you can see that this is quite a complex question.

However, if you had to answer this question in your native language, you could certainly give a good answer. You've seen other people telling the truth, and you've seen them not telling the truth. You've also been a child. And lastly, you've seen kids (including yourself) learn things from their parents, from their teachers and from other kids.

If you think about it this way, you'll realise that the question is definitely answerable.


STEP 1: WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

You may think that
- parents, teachers and other 'authority figures' play the most important role here
- kids learn better from their friends
- both are equally important.

You need to quickly decide, and then construct your answer.


STEP 2: PARAPHRASE

There are a lot of opportunities to show the examiner your range of vocabulary in this question. For example:

- children ||  young people  ||  kids    +/- parents
- learn +/- teach
- important --> importance (n.)  ||  vital  ||  valuable --> value (n.)
- honest ||  truthful  +/- dishonest  ||  deceitful --> deceive (vb)

Of course you won't have time to think of all of these paraphrases, but if you've practised a lot, you'll probably be able to construct an answer something like this:

"You know, I think young people find out about the important things in life from different sources. For example, parents can teach their kids a lot about the value of being honest, but they also have to learn from other situations. The first time someone is deceived, it usually really hurts, and they learn a vital lesson from that."

Note about different ways of paraphrasing

When we talk about paraphrasing, the first thing that most people think of is finding synonyms. That's very important, but there are other ways to paraphrase too.

In the answer above, there are three techniques used:

1. Find a synonym (like children || young people).
2. Change the word class (from the adjective valuable to the noun value,
    for example)
3. Use opposites and converses, like teach +/- learn and child +/- parent.
    (To find out what a converse is, go here.)


BUT HOW DO I DO THAT IN AN EXAM ROOM,
WHEN I'M STRESSED OUT OF MY MIND?

Another excellent question )))

The first thing is, you shouldn't be stressed out of your mind! It's natural to feel a bit nervous in the exam, but  if you've prepared well, you'll know what to do.

The second thing is that, like everything else in IELTS, constructing good Part 3 answers is a technique that requires some practice.

I'm going to add another page to this website to explain the Part 3 process in detail. You'll also see examples in class, and have plenty of opportunities to practise with your classmates.

The main point to notice now is that the answer above mentions all the topics - childhood, honesty and parents' responsibilities. It does this by including a bit of vocabulary related to each topic, and linking these together in a logical way.