IELTS Speaking Course: Lesson 1 - Linking Words

Hello everyone and welcome to the first lesson of the course! The topic this week focuses on a very important area of English, as we use it to link all our information together when we produce language. Therefore, it is a topic that will benefit both your speaking and writing during the IELTS exam. We have many linking words and phrases in English, but it is common for people to overuse some of them. It is important to use a variety of them in the exam to not only avoid repetition, but to impress in terms of 'lexical resource' (your range of vocabulary) as well. Alternative words for some categories of speech will be described in more detail in the video further below, but first...

Practise

Before we get started, I would like to see how well you know your linking words. Download the exercise below and make a note of the correct phrase in each sentence. When you have finished, download the file below the exercise to see the answers.

Download the file below for the answers:

How did you do? When you're ready, watch the video for more information on linking words:

Present

I should clarify that 'not only' is the only adverbial from this video that triggers inversion, so don't worry about having to do that with the others! If you'd like to see a few more alternative words and phrases in other linking word categories, here's a link to my other linking word video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs0sZwcDnzI