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ELT FORUM 11 (3) (2022) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

Behind a spoken discourse: Idiomatic expressions in IELTS speaking test  

 
Zwesty Aridasarie1, Sri Endah Tabiati1 

 
1Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia

 

Article Info 
________________ 
Article History: 
Received on June 16, 
2022 

Approved on November 
25, 2022 
Published on November 
30, 2022 

________________ 
keywords; idioms; 
IELTS speaking; 
grammatical accuracy 
____________________ 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 
The performance of a wider range of vocabulary mastery in IELTS speaking test is 
imperative to escalate the band score achievement. The present study sought to 

investigate the teaching of idioms in an IELTS preparation program with regards to 
the kinds of idioms taught in the class, how the students used them during the mock 

post test, and whether the use of idioms interfere with the grammatical accuracy. 

The study was in urgency to be conducted with regards to the absence of the 
teaching of idioms for IELTS at least in the past five years. The data were collected 

from the recorded speaking performance of five students at intermediate level of 
English, in both mock pretest and post test to see if there were some alterations in 

the predicted test score and a deep interview with one candidate to have strengthen 
the arguments. The results showed significant differences in the students’ 

performance of speaking in pretest and after they were taught idioms despite some 

less accurate grammar in the sentence productions. The findings of the study can 
have potential pedagocical implications for teachers of IELTS preparation classes to 

incorporate the teaching of idioms in either speaking or vocabulary lessons.  

 

  
Correspondence Address: p-ISSN 2252-6706 | e-ISSN 2721-4532 

Faculty of Cultural Studies A Building  
 

 

2JW6+WX8, Jl. Veteran Malang, Ketawanggede, Kec. 
Lowokwaru, Kota Malang, Jawa Timur 65145 
 

 
E-mail: zwesty.zee@student.ub.ac.id 
Tabiati@ub.ac.id or stabiati@gmail.com 

  

http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&&
http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&&
mailto:zwesty.zee@student.ub.ac.id
mailto:Tabiati@ub.ac.id


Zwesty Aridasarie, Sri Endah Tabiati | ELT Forum 11 (3) (2022) 

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INTRODUCTION 

Idiomatic expressions constitute a salient feature in elevating the overall IELTS speaking score. 

Idioms, which belong to the lexical sophistication dimension, are one of the scoring criteria a test 

candidate has to comply with to meet the standard of band 7 and above (British Council, 2014). 

Along with the other lexical resources namely paraphrases, style and collocations, the use of idioms 

in performing IELTS speaking test is imperative as it is the most noticeable expression the test 

examiners will orient to and reward with a high mark, even if the expressions are not delivered quite 

perfectly (Seedhouse & Satar, 2021).  

The vocabulary sophistication, including idiomatic vocabulary, has a strong connection with 

a test candidate’s communicative competence which refers to the knowledge of how to interact 

successfully with an interlocutor in a communicative exchange in an L2 (Iwashita & Vasquez, 

2019). What is meant by interact successfully is that a test candidate should be able to use the 

knowledge of the language he or she has mastered and to adjust to the context of speaking. 

Presenting in IELTS speaking test is not only a matter of producing utterances fluently, but also with 

regards to the area of sociolinguistics which enables language users to create or comprehend 

language suitable to a specific context (Abdulrahman & Abu-Ayyash, 2019). There are many topics 

in IELTS test which are relevant to the daily communication and more serious topics, such as on 

politics, economy, education policy, and so forth that each test candidate should be able to make a 

pertinent response to.  

IELTS speaking test entails a face to face interview between the candidate and an IELTS 

trained examiner (Ghaemi, 2022). The assessment of the test will be based on the four following 

criteria: fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and 

pronunciation (IDP IELTS Indonesia, n.d.). This present paper only investigated the area of lexical 

resource in the speaking assessment of IELTS since the teaching of it was usually done as an 

integrated part with the other skill lesson in some IELTS preparation programs. In addition to how 

the candidate should present in the test, there is also a kind of technical requirement in giving a clear 

presentation of the talk since it will be recorded for administrative and evaluation purposes. The 

candidate should be able to produce a clear pronunciation too since the test evaluation may have a 

double-rating system to establish  the  intra-rater  reliability  of  live  and  audio-taped  interviews 

(Nakatsuhara et al., 2020). For speaking, the examiners rate candidates’ lexical resource on the 

range of vocabulary used and the precision with which meanings and attitudes can be expressed 

(Smith, 2019).  

IELTS speaking test, as a matter of fact, requires much of presenting immediate response to 

examiner’s questions with regards to stating relevant supporting answers in terms of examples and 

arguments to sustain the communicative exchange. In addition, there is a higher demand rather than 

just performing the fluency in responding to questions in the test that is the ability to speak with 

wider and advanced range of vocabulary skillfully. In doing so, the targeted high score of IELTS 

speaking will not be out of reach. There have been some studies probing the vocabulary size 

including the lexical sophistication in making great accomplishment of second language acquisition 

and speaking intelligence (Appel et al., 2019; Kaneko, 2020; Kim et al., 2018) to give emphasis on 

how the involvement of sophisticated words, such as idioms, will generate greater effect in excelling 

the speaking skill.  

The importance of learning idioms for classroom practices has been studied by Qureshi et al. 

(2018) and the study revealed the EFL idioms  presented with etymological background make a 

lasting impact on the overall comprehension of language. Orfan (2020) highlighted a better 

understanding of idioms is a requirement for English proficiency and accuracy despite some 

challenges in learning idioms in classroom context. In addition, the prominence of idioms 

comprehension for non-native speakers will lead to achieve more effective communication and 

higher proficiency level (Vo & Nguyen, 2020). Ahmadi & Zarei (2020) also investigated the effects 

of three verbal mnemonic tools (grouping, stories, and conceptual metaphor) on EFL learners’ 

recognition and recall of English idioms. Those studies aforementioned are to verify the urgency of 

learning idiomatic expressions to uphold the higher level of speaking competence achievement. 

They seem to emphasize the close connection between the use of idioms and the successful 

speaking, while the absence of the urgency of including idioms in the test preparation program is still 

apparent.  

In addition, in the past five years the term augmented reality in helping students understand 

idioms have gain better popularity. The augmented reality, mostly shortened by AR, has to deal 



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much with technology-based learning activities and gamifications. There have been some previous 

analyses on the inclusion of AR in learning idioms and how the participants or learners might have 

more enjoyment in acquiring the new vocabulary item from their devices (Wu et al., 2021; Santos et 

al., 2016; Yang et al., 2018; Chew et al., 2018; Edyanto et al., 2021).    

One of the foremost investigations on this area of lexical sophistication of Indonesian learners 

was carried out by Failasofah (2018) in which she explored the learners’ word production by 

utilizing computational data. The result of the study unveiled an outstanding notion on how the 

low-level English participants could produce more lexically rich texts compared to higher level 

participants. The software used in the study was used to determine the vocabulary mastery students 

needed to function properly in foreign language. However, the study did not elaborate the specific 

test on idioms in isolation and did not have anything to do with IELTS speaking test. It would have 

been great if there were some studies conducted using the same software to measure the lexical 

diversity of the Indonesian candidates of IELTS.   

Many English schools providing the service of IELTS programs design the lessons based on 

the available resources of textbooks and a collection of past test questions. The textbooks covering 

the speaking lessons give information on the strategies to best perform in the test and highlight some 

dos and don’ts during the official test. The assessment rubric is clearly shown to the participant, as a 

part of the syllabus design, but each item in the lexical resource element has never been studied 

separately for the sake of comprehensive mastery and practices. The teaching of idioms was mostly 

inserted in vocabulary section along with the other features of formulaic language, such as 

paraphrases, collocations, and style. Thus, the learners may only have to recognize the idioms on 

the surface and not to comprehend them deeply and not to have the chance to elaborate the use of 

many useful idioms for the test.         

Compared to the bulk of research on how salient the knowledge of idioms is in speaking skill 

and on the absence of the teaching of idioms as a separate lesson in the classroom, the present study 

proposes a novel inquiry to address the issues on uplifting lexical items of the Indonesian candidates 

by using one type of formulaic language, that is idioms for IELTS speaking test. There has been 

almost zero attempt in the last five years to investigate how the approach of teaching idioms can 

help the IELTS speaking-test candidates to better equip themselves with proficient vocabulary 

mastery. Now how would the IELTS preparation program be successful in giving a robust assistance 

to score high in the test when the teaching of one crucial item of lexis, that is idioms, is not paid 

much attention of.    

Shedding some light on the significance of idiomatic expressions for IELTS speaking test, this 

current study aims to fill the void of addressing the detailed lexis assessment in IELTS speaking test 

by further examining the candidates’ savvy of English idioms. Thus, the research questions of the 

present study are formulated as follows:  

1. How is the nature of the candidates’ speaking performance in IELTS mock speaking test?  

2. How does the learning of idioms during the course program upsurge the candidates’ oral fluency 

in performing the speaking post test? 

3. To what extent does the utilization of idioms in speaking interfere with grammatical accuracy? 

 

METHODS  

The present study uses qualitative method to describe the problems faced by the Indonesian 

candidates of IELTS speaking test in presenting a large scale of lexical resources, more specifically 

the use of idioms. The theory of lexical sophistication by John Read and Paul Nation (2002) which  

highlighted the point that the lexical superiority of the IELTS candidates was shown not only by 

their use of individual words but also their mastery of colloquial or idiomatic expressions which 

were often composed of relatively high-frequency words was used as the outmost theory referred to 

in the whole discussion. The qualitative method was used in the study since it best describes detailed 

and complete understanding of an issue (Creswell, 2014), not to mention the natural use of idioms 

when giving response to queries during the IELTS test. This strength of qualitative method is used to 

improve the understanding of the kind of problems faced by the Indonesian test-takers in using 

idioms, along with the alternative solution of the learning of idioms, in performing the speaking test.  

In order to investigate the first research question, the researcher conducted a closed observation on 

the mock pre-test of IELTS speaking taking place in the first day of the candidates’ joining the 

course. The researcher took notes on important features of the candidates’ nature of presenting the 

talk on the test based on their individual prior knowledge and skill of English speaking. The notes 



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were then used as a reference to compare the candidates’ speaking fluency before and after joining 

the course. The researcher then collected 5 students’ recorded speaking performance in IELTS 

simulated pre-test conducted in one of the most well-known English courses in Malang in 2022. The 

reason behind the option of this informal school is because it has frequent entries of IELTS classes 

and it offers quite a range of English competence levels, namely IELTS for Pre-intermediate 

students, IELTS for Intermediate students, and IELTS for Upper Intermediate students. The data 

from the pre-intermediate students’ speaking mock pre-test were the major data used in the study on 

the basis of assumption that they do not possess ample mastery of using wide range of vocabulary to 

talk on varieties of topic and of using formulaic phrases in prior communication. Additionally, to 

give deeper understanding about the issue, an interview with one of the candidates was also carried 

out to see from the student’s perspectives if the use of idioms could actually help him perform more 

confidently in the speaking mock test. These stages were performed to address the second research 

question.  

In addition to collecting the information for the second research question, the next type of 

data were the simulated post-tests of IELTS speaking at the end of the preparation program to give 

some comparative information between the performance before they got the treatment of learning 

idioms and after they got the materials on idioms to see if they would ultimately make some 

progress in speaking skill or gain higher score.  

The data were then analyzed in terms of lexical resources in accordance with the components 

of idiomatic expressions. The data were analyzed following the model of interactive data analysis 

consisting of data reduction, display, and verification (Miles & Huberman, 2014). In data reduction 

stage, the recordings were selected based on the performance of the medium-level users of English, 

or at the CEFR pre-intermediate level, presenting a full part of the speaking mock test (Part 1, Part 2, 

and Part 3). The same idioms performed by different candidates were not selected to avoid some 

repetition.  

The next stage, the data were displayed to be elaborated further in the discussion section. The 

pre-selected audio recordings were carefully observed based on the nature of the lexical resources 

they produce during the speaking test, whether they were able to use any idiomatic expressions. In 

addition, the display of the use of idioms during the post test was also elaborated to see if there was 

some interference with the grammatical accuracy from the sentences the candidates produced using 

idioms.  The displayed data were then verified to withdraw a conclusion by checking the final score 

the students got from the IELTS mock post test taken place at the very end of the course program. 

The score on the lexical resources given by the examiner, or the class teacher, was used as a 

reference to verify if the students have made clear attempts of using the idioms skillfully so as to gain 

higher score compared to the one they had in the pretest.  

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

The nature of the candidates’ speaking performance in IELTS mock speaking test 

The absence of idioms in pretest  

The first research question is intended to describe the nature of the candidates’ speaking 

performance before joining the program and the answer for the question was the absence of idioms 

during the test. Only one out of five candidates used idioms in the simulated speaking pre test while 

the other candidates used none of any idioms. The response the candidates performed during the 

pretest was mostly general with regards to the the use of daily words and expressions without any 

attempt of using any word complexity. 

 

Table 1. Idioms used in IELTS Speaking Pretest 
Candidate No Idoms  Meaning  

1 None  - 
2 None - 

3 Rain cats and dogs Rain heavily  

4 None - 
5 None - 

 

In the speaking pretest, the candidates were given a chance to fully perform their English 

mastery in answering many questions on a wide variety of topic, including the topic of ‘weather’ in 

speaking part one. The above data is the information of whether the candidates were familiar with 



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the use of idioms about weather. The question of the test was ‘How is the weather in your country 

recently?’ and most of the candidates seemed to not have any idea of considering the use of idioms 

about weather at all, and went on with giving some general response by saying more or less ‘it’s 

raining a lot for some days’ to suit with the empirical situation taking place at the moment of 

speaking. Only one candidate was able to show his ability to use idiom appropriately by saying ‘it’s 

raining cats and dogs sometimes’ along with his natural expressions when saying this so the 

utterances he produced sounded native-speaker alike.  

The response consisting idiom of weather by Candidate 3 is actually a good sign of 

vocabulary richness or sophistication a test taker could initially present. The expression ‘rain cats 

and dogs’ is quite commonly used to describe the heavy rain taking place closely around us, and 

Candidate 3 might have said it often in his daily communication. It seems to be the most frequently 

used idiom when referring to the rainy season. Candidate 3 had the ability to use the idiom naturally 

and fluently into the utterances because he might have heard the expression much and then had 

some chances to use it in many appropriate situations before, so when asked about weather in his 

speaking pretest, he did not hesitate to express it as his response to the question. This indicates that 

the exposure to idioms on daily communication is meaningful for the IELTS test candidates to 

upsurge their vocabulary mastery and to score higher especially in the assessment of lexical 

resources of the test.  

In accordance with the assessment of lexical resources of IELTS speaking test, the examiners 

of IELTS tend to notice idioms and reward their use with a high mark even when they are not used 

accurately in context (Seedhouse & Satar, 2021). The examiners will easily capture the expressions 

as to distinguish the level of the candidates’ vocabulary mastery and they can refer to the specific 

band score, that is at least 7, which states where the feature of the idiomatic expression begins to be 

noticed. As a consequence, Candidate 3 was at least within the range of band 7 in speaking due to 

his ability in generating an idiom and as his speaking performance went along, the examiner of the 

mock test could start to adjust whether the score would continue to rise or dip.             

Compared to what happened to Candidate 3 of the test, as the result indicated about the 

nature of the candidates’ speaking performance during the simulated IELTS speaking pre-test, there 

was the absence of idioms as a part of lexical sophistication required in aiming for a higher range of 

score in IELTS for the other four candidates. The four candidates were mostly unfamiliar with the 

use of less frequent expressions which can help them uplift the score of the speaking test in terms of 

vocabulary assessment. Most of the candidates’ responses relied much on daily words to answer a 

wide range of topics in the test and this indeed avoided them to score high for their first test of 

speaking in IELTS preparation course. When asked about weather, none of the four candidates used 

idioms in their response since they might not have had a lot of exposures to the use of idioms in their 

daily practices. It is quite likely that they once heard the idiom of raining cats and dogs, or maybe 
under the weather, but because they did not have many opportunities to practice saying them when 

the context was appropriate, then the expressions did not come easily from them during the pretest.    

To give more comprehensive and satisfying elaboration on the nature of the speaking before 

the candidates joined some lessons on idioms, one candidate was interviewed. Candidate 2 was 

given a series of questions on how he did the speaking pre-test and his overall response was that he 

did not have any idea that sophisticated words would play important role in achieving high score in 

IELTS speaking test. The only thing he knew was that he should be able to keep talking and present 

a lot of ideas into his talk without any hesitation. The knowledge of the importance of less frequently 

used expressions was out of his consideration at all.   

In addition to Candidate 2’s prior knowledge on the use of idioms, he mentioned that he was 

once exposed to the use of idioms, such as it’s a piece of cake, break a leg, no pain no gain, etc, including 

the one about weather raining cats and dogs. However, he had never used the idioms much in his daily 

conversations, except break a leg since he used it quite often to transfer a positive outlook to motivate 

his classmates for the test or even himself whenever he bumped into some difficulties during college 

projects. During the pretest when asked about weather, the candidate did not have a single shot on 

any idioms to be presented. He further described that he had a mixed feelings during the pretest 

which were excited, nervous, and confused at the same time, and the feelings affected his initial 

performance in the test a lot. He could not think clearly of what he said and whether what he said 

was all relevant to the questions and he indeed had no idea if he could remember any idioms he 

could show off to the examiner during the test. Another fact was revealed here, that the exposures of 



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the idioms in everyday communication is a crucial factor determining the ability of an IELTS test 

taker to use the idiomatic expressions fluently and naturally as expected from band 7 and higher.     

The response by Candidate 2 about the absence of the knowledge of using idioms strengthens 

the urgency of the teaching of idioms in a separate lesson in the classroom. As stated by one of the 

IELTS teachers of the school, Ms. Octa, many schools were not able to provide the teaching of 

idioms in isolation because the school academic administrators believed that the lexical resources 

element in speaking has already covered all the candidate’s needs of scoring high in IELTS test, 

while in the real classroom practice, idioms were never mentioned of. 

 

An upsurge in the candidates’ use of idioms  

The IELTS preparation program lasted for about three months making some attempts to assist the 

IELTS test candidates to grasp all important strategies to master for the sake of gaining the targeted 

score they had had in mind even before joining the class. The program covered all skills required for 

the test and the syllabus design was fixed by the academic coordinator to suit the course time 

allotment and skills coverage. However, there had not been any lessons on idioms taught separately 

for many years until some class instructors saw there was the urgency of teaching idioms to the 

students in the class to help them score high in vocabulary assessment. The lessons of idioms were 

then carried out separately from any other vocabulary focus and were included in the speaking 

practice dedicated to use idioms to give a talk on some relevant topics.  

The lessons on idioms were conducted three times in the preparation class where the students 

were given a list of useful idioms for IELTS speaking test under some topics. The students were then 

asked to categorize them into different big themes, such as weather, feelings, life lesson, etc., and 

then the class had to agree on which topics to be discussed in the first, second, and third meeting on 

the specific timetable of the course. The students had the exposures to some choices of idioms they 

could use during the speaking test, so they could initially familiarize themselves to the type, the 

meaning, and the suitable contexts of the idioms they had at hand. Each meeting of idioms lesson 

gave the participants a huge opportunity to practice using the idioms they have learned into a variety 

of classroom activities, such as in a role play, a speech, and a simulated interview of IELTS. The 

purpose of having a variety of activities on idioms was to give the participants much exposure on 

how the idioms sound and finally they would be able to use them in the appropriate context or 

situation. The class instructor supervised the speaking practices in the classroom quite closely when 

the students were engaged in a pairwork to see if they were able to use the idioms naturally and 

whether the idioms fitted into the context. At every end of the lesson, the teacher would give the 

feedback focusing on the accuracy and appropriacy of using idioms during the practice, and in the 

following meeting they were asked to complete some mini quiz to check their better understanding 

of idioms.      

To add to the results of the second research question, the following table shows the kinds of 

idioms the candidates used mostly in post test after the lesson on idioms was delivered in the 

classroom based on the topics of questions asked by the examiner.  

 

Table 2. Idioms used in IELTS Speaking Post Test 
Topic Idoms  Meaning  

Feelings  Over the moon  Extremely happy  
 To be on cloud nine  Very happy or joyful  

 Get on my nerves  (someone/something) makes you 

annoyed 
Weather  Rain cats and dogs  Rain hard/heavily  

 Under the weather  Feeling unwell  
Others Every cloud has a silver lining Believing that every bad situation 

eventually leads to something good  
 Better late than never It is better to do something late than 

not to try it at all 

 Keep an eye Watch carefully  
 Once in a blue moon  Happening very rarely 

 

The information in Table 2 presents how the candidates’ idioms were used in the appropriate 

context in relevance to the questions asked by the examiner during the test. The meaning of the 

idioms was given to check if the candidates’ idioms were in line with their overall response in 



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sentence production. Most of the idioms stated by the candidates were on how to express their 

feelings, especially happiness about certain experiences they had in the past. Additionally, there 

were two idioms about weather and more idioms on different context which cannot be categorized 

into a specific topic.  

The idioms displayed in Table 2 were mostly used by the candidates during their speaking 

post test as a result of them joining the lessons of idioms which were delivered three times out of the 

whole meetings in the course. The candidates were given a list of idioms for them to use at any 

appropriate context in IELTS speaking during the classroom practices and they were encouraged by 

the class tutors to use the idioms whenever there was a right timing. Since the candidates had been 

familiar with many idioms presented in the classrooom, they were finally able to use them in the 

simulated post test successfully with regards to the relevance to the topic and questions raised by the 

examiner of the test. 

In terms of the type of idioms used by the candidates during the simulated speaking post test, 

the expressions to describe feelings were the most popular among the other idioms. The data 

presented the expressions of happiness such as to be on cloud nine and over the moon were in the 

replacement of the word ‘very happy’. Some candidates used these idioms to describe their feelings 

on the questions about their past experiences on going abroad for the first time. The idioms were 

relevant in use because most people may share the same feelings of joy when they had the chance to 

visit another country. The candidates used the idioms to state that they were more than happy to see 

a foreign country and to stay there for a while for some purposes. The followings are the 

transcriptions of some examples of the expressions mentioned by the candidates: 

 
Candidate 1: That was my first time going abroad so I was over the moon when I felt a different vibe 

from my country. 

 

The idiom I was over the moon above was to answer the question of the candidate’s first 

experience of going abroad in IELTS speaking part 1. The response was relevant in terms of 

meaning and it was also supported with a clear reason of why the candidate was more than joyful to 

have such experience in another country. The candidate went on with giving more details on the 

statement of why he was happy by saying that the atmosphere he had abroad was different from the 

one he had in his original country, especially about the cleanliness of the surrounding and the less 

polluted air. This idiom was on point with regards to the accurate meaning and form at the same 

time. Another example of the idiom used to express happiness was stated by Candidate 4: 

 
I went to visit Singapore the first time when I was in third … er … or maybe fourth semester. I was on 

cloud nine, for sure, because … um … I travelled far from Malang and it is out of country. I see many 

beautiful places and there are also a chance for me to speak English with people there. It was exciting.   

 

The candidate used another idiom to show his feeling of joy I was on cloud nine when 

describing his first experience of going to another country in the past. He used the idiom accurately 

in a way that he used the expression in appropriate context and also in accurate grammatical 

structure. The idiom was also supported by reasons or examples behind his joy accordingly. Instead 

of saying that he was basically happy with the experience, the candidate showed his knowledge of 

one idiom to share the same meaning as happy to make attempt for gaining higher score of 

vocabulary mastery.  

Having known that some candidates used the idioms to describe feelings, especially 

happiness, there was actually an interference of the first lesson on idioms taught in the classroom. 

The students were given a list of the most common idioms to express feelings on a wide variety of 

topics they might encounter in IELTS speaking test. This first lesson introduced the students to 

useful idioms to replace the word happy, interesting, exciting, and some other similar words and to 

the importance of idioms to score higher in the test. Since these idioms were deemed flexible and 

ready to use to give response to many topics requiring the overall impression of any experiences, the 

students easily stored them in mind and finally picked them up during the test. 

To give a close look at how well the candidate performed the idiomatic expressions during the 

post test, Candidate 2 shared his thoughts about this. His first impression towards his ability to use 

some idioms about weather and feelings was amazing. He was a bit surprised at first that he could 

remember to use appropriate idiomatic expressions when answering questions about the weather 



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and his past experience of first going abroad. He could use the idioms about feelings easily because 

he had expressed them during the classroom practices and he added more self-practice at home to 

make sure that he could express them naturally. He also shared the feedback given by his instructor 

upon the completion of the course that he developed his vocabulary mastery significantly and his 

predicted speaking band score levelled up. He felt that the teaching of idioms gave him more 

confidence to use some ‘cool’ vocabulary to sound a little like a native speaker of English.  

In accordance to what Candidate 2 had shared about his speaking experience in post test 

using some idiomatic expressions, it is clear to see that the teaching of idioms separately from the 

other language focus in an IELTS preparation class was way more than just important. By having 

much exposure on useful idioms for some topics discussed in IELTS test, the candidates could gain 

their fluency of producing more sophisticated words into their talk. With more fluency of idioms 

which are relevant to the topic of discussion in IELTS test, the candidates were also helped to gain 

the confidence in speaking because they have been able to widen their vocabulary range to attempt a 

higher score in the test. Even though using idioms is not the only way to help students upsurge their 

confidence in performing their speaking skill in the test, since there are more items of evaluation to 

address, the element of idiomatic vocabulary is clearly stated in the area of lexical resources in the 

speaking rubric which the candidates could easily access from many sources. Band score 7 and 

above requires the candidates to be able to use the idiomatic vocabulary skillfully, so the idea of 

teaching idioms in the IELTS preparation class is urgent. 

 

The use of idioms in speaking interfering with grammatical accuracy 

While the candidates were able to use the idioms in their post test after joining some lessons and self 

practices, the use of idioms in their complete response was not always error-free. There were some 

inaccuracies in the candidates’ sentences even though, in terms of fluency, the content of idioms was 

already in coherent with the questions raised in the text.   

Despite the fluency of using idioms in the speaking test, the candidates’ attempts to use them along 

with the other words in the responses were not always error-free. In other words, the fluency of 

using idioms was not hand in hand with the grammatical accuracy. Since the candidates paid much 

attention to score high in terms of lexical resources, the accuracy was somehow neglected, as shown 

from one the candidates’ statement as follows:  

 
Almost every house has a car and they drive wherever they like so it cause a traffic, very terrible, and it 

really disturbs me, like … it’s get my nerves, like that. 

 

In terms of sentence accuracy, the statement above consists of some errors that I scrutinized 

as follows:  

  
 Almost every house has a car and they drive wherever they like ….  

 

The sentence violated the pronoun reference where the subject ‘they’ in they drive did not refer 

to the correct subject, that is ‘house’ written in singular noun thing. Also, the verb ‘drive’ attached to 

pronoun ‘they’ also did not support the accuracy of the statement since it was meaningless that the 

‘house’ could drive. The clause should have been written more appropriately by Almost every house 

has a car and its owner drives wherever he likes … . Other errors detected in the response above were: 

 
… so it cause a traffic which should be replaced by so it causes a terrible traffic 

… it’s get my nerves which should be replaced by it gets on my nerves  

 

The samples above strengthened the argument that it was pretty challenging for the 

candidates to balance between the fluency of using idioms and the accuracy of the sentences. There 

should be more efforts committed by the candidates to perform well in both sections of lexical 

sophistication and grammatical awareness since they are all assessed carefully in the official IELTS 

test.   

In giving response to whether the use of idioms could particularly interfere with grammatical 

accuracy, Candidate 2 made a strong impression. He described his struggle with managing both 

fluency and accuracy in speaking skill even before he was introduced to idioms. He added that the 

suggested ideas of using idioms into his speaking performance in IELTS test added up more loads 



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177 

 

on his shoulders in a way that he might have surrendered his grammar awareness and would pay 

more attention to the use of sophisticated vocabulary. One clear example is taken from the above 

grammatical mistakes in saying gets on my nerves by one of the candidates. There was a tendency for 

the candidates to memorize the main root word, such as get my nerves or get nerves, while the accuracy 

of the subject-verb agreement of the sentence was carelessly neglected. They wanted to show off 

their new skill of using the idioms into practice so they somehow memorized the expressions, but 

unfortunately they ignored the grammatical awareness. They did not adjust the idioms consisting 

verbs, for instance, because they thought they have produced the new sophisticated words. The 

candidates preparing for the IELTS test might find the idiom lesson a new experience or it sounds 

intelligent when they are able to generate many of the idioms during the speaking test, so they will 

be very likely to feel overwhelmed in using them without a careful control of the sentence pattern.     

The example was quite an interesting response from the candidate as a matter of fact, since 

the candidates of IELTS test should ideally have more or less equal English competence in both the 

fluency and the accuracy of the utterances they produce. However, it turned out to be not an easy 

task for each IELTS test taker had to deal with in a preparation course for scoring high in both 

mastery, but still it is quite likely that by having more practices on the use of sophisticated words in 

speaking but with a strong supervision on grammatical accuracy. So, at the and the candidates 

preparing for the test would be equipped with a satisfying skill in performing both fluency and 

accuracy at the same time in the official IELTS test  

 

CONCLUSION 

Idiomatic expressions were deemed novel by some students preparing for an IELTS test. The nature 

of their speaking skill during the IELTS mock pretest was more on the fluency of the talk without 

significant hesitation with less knowledge on the importance of using idioms. The maneuver of 

idioms by the candidates in IELTS speaking test was two folds. As an attempt to perform a wider 

range of lexical sophistication required in attaining higher score, there was a strong drive from the 

candidates to master some expressions they learned earlier in the preparation program to put into 

practice in the test. The idioms they learned during the meeting in the class could help them perform 

better fluency and higher score in terms of lexical resource element of evaluation, as adjusted to the 

avaialbale scoring rubric. On the flip side, the use of idioms was not always in alignment with the 

accuracy of sentence production which could interfere with the evaluation of grammatical 

awareness. The candidates’ issue of not being able to modify the idiomatic expressions to suit the 

correct subject-verb agreement in the sentences were always present. In short, to score perfectly in 

IELTS test, the candidates are highly expected to perform both language fluency and accuracy 

equally well.  

The present study was conducted with the scope limitation of an IELTS preparation program 

for students of pre-intermediate level of English. Should there be other researchers interested in 

developing the discussion of this subject matter, the analysis on a wider scope of students’ English 

competence is deemed necessary. Observing the IELTS preparation class with lower English 

competence, such as the elementary level, should bring meaningful contribution to the learning 

output of delivering the lesson of idioms in the classroom. In addition, the further study can also 

compare the learning output of idioms for all levels of English users preparing for IELTS speaking 

test.     

 

FUNDING STATEMENT 

The research is a non-funded study that it does not receive any fundings from any agencies or 

institutions 

 

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