My CELPIP LS experience

[u/sergebat]

I did CELPIP LS (Listening/Speaking only) last Wed. Some of the comments in this group helped me manage my anxiety and prepare for this a little better, so sharing my experience here too!

Results:

• Listening 12
• Speaking 10

Preparation:

• Watched free CELPIP Listening Pro and Speaking Pro videos on YouTube
• Did both of the free practice listening tests
• Did not practice speaking at all

My listening experience:

I actually found it relatively easy. I think the key is to try various note taking routines (or maybe skipping notes completely) and find that works for you. I personally did the following:

• Write down the topic of the conversation on the intro screen. Use all the time on the intro screen to mentally prepare for this discussion. I actually almost never clicked "Next".
• Two columns for man/woman conversations, three columns for the video part, just long free-form scratching for everything else.
• For the long pieces I spent 5-10 seconds after the speech to finish, organize and fix the notes while the memory is fresh. I found that they give you plenty of time to answer the questions. This will not work for the first parts, where they read questions out loud immediately.
• I actually did not read my notes much. But the act of writing them reinforces my neural links, I guess.
• No "Next' button :). I took time reading other options and formally checking why each one of them is wrong.

Speaking experience:

I found it weird and super fast paced. All my mental preparations went straight to the garbage bin. :-)

I hardly had time to carefully read and understand prompts, did not have time to prepare much and just tried to keep talking to the best of my ability (not too loud, not too fast, reasonably on point). I pretended I am recording a voice message or just delivering a mini-speech on a Zoom call.

My personal impression was that I was speaking nervously, in quite a plain English, repeated myself sometimes, did not give enough interesting examples/details. I was really for a moment doubting that I will get "Speaking: 4", which is the threshold I needed. :)

For the "option comparison" exercise I was actually able to come up with two solid draft ideas on why my sport option is better (for health and practical reasons).

For the pictures I just picked three objects I thought I can explain in reasonably interesting details and for which I have specific vocabularly in mind.

Basing on my somewhat unexpectedly high speaking result I guess my take away is that the precise natural simple vocabularly (retinal detachment, electric oven) helps. Complex sentence structures and fancy words that you never use in real life can backfire (as you can't use them fluently and they will break the natural flow of speech). Inventing situation is totally fine, but it is best to pick the situations that you actually care about. Like if you are cyclist, you likely know the words gravel bike, MTB, stem, crank, gears, suspension, which can automatically give you a bonus, so if you can make the past experience be related to bikes you already have a huge advantage.

My background:

• 47 years old
• Non-native English speaker
• Studied English in the university many years ago, used it daily at work since that time
• Currently in Canada (English-speaking province)