Describe a skill you think everyone should be taught.
A policy-flavoured abstract card. It suits a candidate who can argue from a real gap they have noticed rather than from a general belief that education should be better.
The task card
Describe a skill you think everyone should be taught.
You should say:
- what the skill is
- when you think people should learn it
- how it could be taught
and explain why you think it matters so much.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Avoid the two answers every examiner hears daily: 'communication' and 'money management'. They are not wrong, but they are so broad that the answer becomes generic within thirty seconds. Narrow it hard — how to read a contract, how to cook six meals properly, basic first aid, how to disagree without falling out, how to check whether a source is reliable. A narrow skill is arguable; a broad one is a slogan.
The 'how it could be taught' bullet is the one candidates skip, and it is the most interesting. Describe the actual lesson: who teaches it, at what age, in what format, how you would know it had worked. Practical detail here is what stops the card floating.
For the final bullet, argue from consequence rather than from principle. Not 'because it is important', but what specifically goes wrong when people do not have it — the friend who signed a tenancy agreement without reading the break clause, the number of adults who cannot swim. One concrete consequence beats three abstract virtues.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
Narrow skills that are genuinely arguable
- Reading a contract, a payslip, or a tenancy agreement
- Basic first aid, or how to swim, or how to cook six meals properly
- How to disagree without falling out, taught as a practical technique rather than a virtue
Design the actual lesson
- The age, because that is where most answers are vaguest — tie it to when people first need it
- The format: entirely hands-on, real documents, forty minutes, no theory
- How you would know it had worked — the test at the end of the lesson
Argue from consequence
- One real person who lost money, time, or safety because nobody taught them
- Who bears the cost of the gap — usually the people least able to absorb it
- Why no existing subject picks it up, which is often the strongest point available
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- SKILL — how to read a contract (tenancy, phone, job offer)
- AGE — ~16, because that's when people start signing things
- HOW — hands-on: real tenancy agreement, find the 3 clauses that cost money
- WHY — friend lost £2k deposit; falls through the cracks, nobody's subject
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
The skill I'd put on the curriculum tomorrow is how to read a contract. Not law as a subject — just the practical ability to sit down with a tenancy agreement, a phone contract, or an employment offer and understand what you're actually agreeing to. I would teach it at about sixteen, because that's roughly when people start signing things. You get your first job, your first phone plan, and within two or three years a rental agreement, and nobody has ever shown you what a break clause is or why the deposit section matters. It falls through the cracks completely — it isn't really any subject's job, so it's nobody's. How would you teach it? Entirely hands-on, I think. Give people a real tenancy agreement, a genuine one, and forty minutes to find the three clauses that could cost them money. Then a phone contract, then a job offer. No theory at all. You would know it had worked because at the end they could tell you, in plain language, what they had just signed away. Why does it matter so much? Because the cost of not knowing is enormous and it lands entirely on the people who can least afford it. A friend of mine lost about two thousand pounds — his whole deposit — because he moved out two months early and had no idea the agreement made him liable for the remaining rent. He's an intelligent person with a degree. He had simply never been taught to read the thing he was signing, and I don't think that's his failure. I think it's ours.
Why this works: The card is answered narrowly and therefore convincingly: not 'financial literacy' but one specific competence with a specific lesson design attached. The third bullet — how it could be taught — is given real weight, which most candidates skip. The final section argues from a concrete consequence with a real person and a real number, and the last two sentences shift the responsibility outward, which gives the answer a genuine argumentative close rather than a summary.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- a life skill
The standard term for a practical, non-academic competence.
- it should be on the curriculum
Precise collocation for formal schooling.
- to fall through the cracks
For something nobody takes responsibility for teaching.
- hands-on
Practical rather than theoretical; ideal for the 'how' bullet.
- you pick it up as you go
Describes informal learning; useful for contrast.
- it would pay dividends later
Argues long-term benefit without sounding textbook.
- at an impressionable age
Useful for the 'when should people learn it' bullet.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- it should be on the curriculum
- “I genuinely think it should be on the curriculum alongside maths and English.”
- to fall through the cracks
- “It falls through the cracks because it is not really any one subject's responsibility.”
- hands-on
- “It would have to be entirely hands-on — real documents, no theory at all.”
- it would pay dividends later
- “Forty minutes at sixteen would pay dividends for the rest of someone's life.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Skills taught at school
Example questions
- 1What practical skills are usually taught in schools in your country?
- 2How important is it for schools to teach skills rather than knowledge?
- 3Who should decide what appears on the school curriculum?
Learning as an adult
Example questions
- 1Can you suggest why some adults are reluctant to learn new skills?
- 2Should employers give staff paid time to retrain?
- 3Do you think practical skills are valued as highly as academic ones?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Abstract and idea-led prompts. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.