Week 3 begins — IELTS Speaking Decoded. This week goes inside each scoring criterion to show exactly what the examiner measures. We start with Fluency and Coherence: the most widely misunderstood of the four, and the one that trips up even strong English speakers.
Examiners count 4 specific things — not speaking speed
Fluency is assessed on: frequency of hesitation, frequency of self-correction, frequency of repetition to buy time, and ability to speak at length without prompting. Examiners note ticks every time they hear a hesitation or false start.
Fluent speech with jumbled ideas still fails coherence
Coherence is assessed separately from fluency and is often neglected. You can speak without hesitation and still score low on coherence if your ideas jump around without logical connection.
Coherence requires: a topic sentence before expanding, discourse markers to signal direction ("in contrast", "as a result", "to elaborate"), and ideas that build on each other rather than restarting from scratch.
Answer, explain, signpost — the 3-part habit
The most effective way to build fluency and coherence at the same time: answer first (state your point), then explain (expand without being prompted), then signpost the direction ("What I mean is...", "To give an example...", "The reason for this is...").
Practise 90-second monologues on any topic without stopping. The discipline of not stopping builds fluency. Structuring your thoughts coherently during those 90 seconds builds coherence. Both skills develop together.