This criterion assesses the candidate’s ability to produce clear, understandable speech. It involves individual sounds, word stress, sentence stress, rhythm, and intonation patterns.
- Clarity: It refers to how well the sounds of English are articulated, including vowels, consonants, and diphthongs. Candidates should be able to pronounce individual words and sounds clearly.
- Stress and Intonation: It involves the use of appropriate word and sentence stress, as well as intonation to convey meaning and emphasis. Effective use of stress helps highlight important parts of speech, and natural intonation reflects the rise and fall in pitch, making speech more engaging and easier to follow.
- Band 9: Shows precise control of pronunciation features, including stress and intonation. Effortless to understand.
- Band 6: Can be understood most of the time but may have some mispronunciations that cause occasional difficulty for the listener.