Speaking to an examiner on a screen.
Many centres now deliver the Speaking test by video call. The content is identical; the medium takes one afternoon to get used to.
The short version. Video Call Speaking is the standard Speaking test with the examiner on a screen at the test centre: same questions, same timing, same band descriptors. Learn the connection-drop protocol once, look at the examiner’s face rather than the lens, and rehearse on camera three times before the day.
The medium. Nothing else.
You attend the test centre as normal; the examiner conducts the test from a screen.
A member of staff checks you in, seats you, and runs the setup. The examiner asks the same questions to the same timing and marks against the same band descriptors as an in-person test. Video Call Speaking is not IELTS Online: the at-home test is Academic-only and not accepted for visas, while Video Call Speaking is simply how many centres now deliver the standard Speaking test. The format page has the full picture.
Use the check properly.
Your centre runs an audio and video check before the examiner appears. Treat it as part of the test.
Speak a full sentence at your normal volume during the check – not a whispered ‘yes, I can hear you’ – so levels are set for how you actually talk. If the connection drops mid-test, the invigilator handles it: you stay calm, the test resumes, and your score is unaffected. Internalise that protocol once, before the day, and then stop rehearsing disaster – the energy candidates spend simulating technical failure in Part 1 comes straight out of the conversation, and the technology fails far less often than the anticipation suggests.
At the examiner, not the lens.
Treat the screen as the person, and behave as you would across a desk.
Look at the examiner’s face on the screen as you speak and listen, exactly as you would in person; natural glances away while thinking are fine and read as thinking. Do not stare rigidly into the camera to manufacture ‘eye contact’ – it reads as strained, and the examiner is assessing your English, not your videoconferencing technique. Sit far enough back that your face and shoulders are in frame, and keep your hands free to gesture naturally.
Silence feels longer on a screen. It isn’t.
Two perceptual effects to know about in advance, because they are effects of the medium, not signals.
First, you lose most of the examiner’s body language – the small signals in-person candidates lean on without noticing. The brain adapts within the first minute; do not search the screen for cues that are not there. Second, pauses between questions feel longer by video. The examiner is working through the question script and assessment notes exactly as they would across a desk; a silence that feels pointed is almost always just administration you cannot see.
Three camera-on run-throughs.
The medium takes one afternoon to normalise. Give it that afternoon before the test, not during it.
Rehearse video-call mode at least three times before test day with your camera on – a friend or tutor on a call is ideal, and even recording yourself answering to the camera for two minutes helps. Use the same physical preparation you would use in person: same posture, same opening line, same controlled breath before the first question. Do not invent new techniques because the test is online; bring the technique you already have.
Lessons are video calls. That’s the point.
Every lesson with me is already the exact medium of a Video Call Speaking test.
Fifty minutes one to one over video, assessed against the same criteria the examiner uses, with a written report and homework after every lesson – £20, and the rehearsal effect comes free.
The book of the method
The Proper English Grammar Guide to IELTS Speaking
The method this site drills for free, written down properly: five response frameworks, thirteen grammatical structures taken to automation, vocabulary by band, pronunciation with audio demonstrations one scan away, and first-language guidance for eight language families. 614 pages, built from more than two thousand documented one-to-one lessons. Most guides teach every candidate the same English; this one starts from what your first language makes you do.
Paperback on Amazon →Kindle edition →The free 79-page companion →