Posted on by The IELTS Tutor
Recently, one of my students asked this:
“Will my IELTS band score be affected if I don’t make eye contact with the examiner? The book says that if you show a lack of confidence, you will not get a high score.”
Quite often, candidates rely on information that may get lost in interpretation if this information is not explained clearly. Evidently, my student was a bit anxious as he was under the impression that he had to make eye contact with the examiner. Thiscan be a bit worryingfor candidates who are introverts and are particularly nervous around people they have not met before.
The good news is: no, you will not lose any marks if you do not look at your examiner. Your speaking is not marked on eye contact or any physical gestures you make throughout your interview.So, you can rest easy, knowing that you can talk to your handsor to your examiner’s clock if you want to. It will NOTinfluence your IELTS band score at all.
Having said that, it would be a good idea to look at your examiner in the eyebecause not only is it polite to do so, but it would certainly help in building yourconfidence, especially if yousee yourexaminer smiling at you.You will not get a high scoreif you lose your fluency and coherence, keep making grammar, vocab and pronunciation errors. But certainly not if you do not look at theexaminer!
If looking somewhere else will help you to gain more confidence in replying to questions and giving your talk, then by all means, look somewhere else! If you feel braverusing your hands while you speak, go ahead and do it. Your assessor is only interested in what you have to say, that’s all. Everything else is irrelevant.
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Until next time!
