Describe a teacher who made a difference to you

Intermediate

8 min

IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card: Describe a teacher who made a difference to you. One minute to prepare, up to two minutes to speak, then follow-up questions.

An intermediate-level session of about 8 minutes. Covers Part 2. 3 prompts in total.

Difference appears twice on this card, doing a different job each time. What they did differently from other teachers is a comparison, and it needs another teacher standing next to them, at least by implication. What difference they made to you is an outcome, and that one belongs to you rather than to them. Collapsing the two into a single sentence tends to produce praise with no evidence under it. The comparison bullet repays the most preparation, because that is where contrast comes from: not marking harder, but marking with comments; not explaining the chapter again, but asking who had not understood it. Then the outcome — a subject you carried on with, a habit of asking questions, a grade that moved. Of the two differences, which one could you talk about for a full minute?

Angles worth taking

Put another teacher in the frame, even briefly, so the comparison bullet has something to push against.
Describe a method rather than a personality: how they set work, corrected it, or handled questions in class.
The outcome can be modest — a subject continued, a fear of speaking reduced, a habit that stuck.
School anecdotes run long, so decide beforehand which single classroom scene earns its thirty seconds.
Name the subject and the year you were in, or the teacher floats free of any real class.

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The format

Parts covered

Prompts in total

Modes

Learn (guided) · Mock (exam-real)

How a IELTS Speaking session works

Part 1 — the warm-up

Familiar questions about you: work, home, routines. Short answers, but not one-word ones. The examiner is calibrating to your voice.

Part 2 — the cue card

A topic card with prompts, one minute of prep with notes, then up to two minutes speaking without interruption.

Part 3 — the discussion

Abstract follow-ups on the Part 2 theme. Opinions, comparisons and speculation, where the higher bands are decided.

Your band estimate

A score on each of the four official criteria, what pulled it down, and the habit to change before you sit the real test.

What you're scored on

IELTS Speaking is marked on four criteria of equal weight. The estimate reports each one separately, because they rarely move together.

Your objective

Speak for 1-2 minutes with clear structure and descriptive language.

Fluency and coherence

Whether you keep going, and whether the ideas connect. Hesitation while you search for a word costs less than hesitation while you search for a thought.

Lexical resource

Range and precision, including whether you can paraphrase around a word you do not have instead of stopping at it.

Grammatical range and accuracy

Variety of structures as well as correctness. All-simple-sentences and all-accurate caps out around band 6.

Pronunciation

Intelligibility, stress and intonation. Accent is not penalised; flat stress and swallowed word endings are.

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