CELPIP Speaking Preparation
Advise or Advice?
Advise is a verb – an action – You advise someone to do something.
I advised Joe to take a sweater with him.
The ‘ise’ in advise must sound like ‘eyes’, the things in your head that you see the world around you with.
Advice is a noun – a thing – You give someone advice.
I would like to give you some advice.
The ‘ice’ must sound like the ‘ice’ you put in a drink.
Advice is an uncountable noun, so if you want to give someone multiples, you must say ‘pieces of advice’. You cannot say ‘advices’.
I have three pieces of advice for you…
““…I got my 9, and I’ve completed my PR application!… Thank you Angela …”
If you would like detailed feedback on your speaking tasks, please record your responses on your phone and submit them to our speaking correction service.
CELPIP Speaking Giving Advice
When you prepare your response to any of the CELPIP Speaking Tasks, your focus should be on speaking well, expressing yourself efficiently, and ticking the examiners boxes.
Your examiner will be looking at your organization, vocabulary, phrasing, sentence variety, grammar, and tenses.
Below, you’ll find some tips for your CELPIP Speaking Task 1 Sample Answer, but if you need more help please talk to us about tutoring.
Read and Understand the Question
In task 1, the CELPIP speaking Giving Advice Question, you’re offering someone some advice about something. The first thing you need to do is read and internalize the question.
Identify:
Who you are talking to. If you’re talking to a friend or family member, your response will be informal, otherwise it should be formal.
What you are talking about. It’s critical that your advice is appropriate to the question. If you are asked to give advice about the city’s sports facilities, don’t focus your answer on food!
A typical advice question looks like this:
Advise your friend about the best recreation centre in town.
How to Organize your Response
Your response should have four parts.
- 1 – Introduction
- 2 – First main idea
- 3 – Second main idea
- 4 – Conclusion
How Long Should my Response Be?
As part of familiarizing yourself with the advice question in CELPIP Speaking Task 1, you need to know how long your response should be and how much time you have to talk about it. You have about 30 seconds to prepare your response, and 90 seconds to talk about it.
You must finish within those 90 seconds, so it’s a lot easier to get everything in and get a good score if you follow a basic format.
How to Start your Response
When preparing for CELPIP Speaking Task 1, it is important that you understand how to formulate your introduction. Your introduction should paraphrase the question so that the examiner knows what you are talking about.
If you can find a way to relate to your friend so that your response sounds natural, that will help your score. Think about how you would start your response in your own language, then use that same sentence variety and organization in your response.
Your introduction might look like this:
Hi Mike, I hear you’re looking for a recreation center so that you can resume your fitness campaign after your move. Thinking back to all those workouts we used to do, I suspect that facilities for swimming, exercising, and eating are still as critical to you as they are to me.
How to Approach your First Main Idea
With your introduction complete, the next thing you need to do is talk about your first main idea. In this sample response, we’ll use the location of the recreation centres as our first main idea.
Your main idea might sound like this:
We have two pools in town, and both are part of city-run leisure centers. One’s in the North, the other is in the South and, because they’re run by the city, there’s no price difference.
How to Approach your Second Main Idea
After your first main idea, you’ll talk about your second main idea. For this sample response, I’ve decided to talk about my own preferences. I’ll start by identifying my preference and then justify it with details.
Your second main idea might sound like this:
The one in the North is probably the best, so I suggest that you try that one first. It’s clean, nicely equipped, and well maintained with a great place to eat overlooking the pool. The southern center tends to be less well-maintained with dirty changing rooms, broken equipment, and cooler water.
How to Approach your Conclusion
After your first main ideas, you’ll conclude your advice. It’s critical that you finish this before your time runs out! For this sample response, I’ve reiterated my main ideas – location & preference – and mentioned that there are other options that I’m not familiar with.
Your conclusion might sound like this:
I don’t know much about the private fitness centers as they don’t offer swimming, but you should definitely check out the northern center.
Your final response might sound like this:
For more step-by-step instructions for CELPIP Speaking Tasks 1 – 8, please check these pages: