CELPIP · SPEAKING DESCRIPTION
CELPIP Speaking
Eight recorded tasks in fifteen minutes. No examiner, no second take, and a preparation window measured in seconds.
CELPIP Speaking at a glance
Eight tasks, fifteen minutes, and a microphone. You never meet an examiner: prompts appear on screen, a timer runs, and your answers are recorded for raters to score afterwards.
| Task | Name | Preparation | Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Giving Advice | 30 seconds | 90 seconds |
| 2 | Talking about a Personal Experience | 30 seconds | 60 seconds |
| 3 | Describing a Scene | 30 seconds | 60 seconds |
| 4 | Making Predictions | 30 seconds | 60 seconds |
| 5 | Comparing and Persuading | 60 seconds to choose, then 60 seconds to prepare | 60 seconds on the second screen |
| 6 | Dealing with a Difficult Situation | 60 seconds | 60 seconds |
| 7 | Expressing Opinions | 30 seconds | 90 seconds |
| 8 | Describing an Unusual Situation | 30 seconds | 60 seconds |
Task 5 is the irregular one. Its first screen gives you sixty seconds to choose between two options and nothing to say out loud; the speaking happens on the second screen.
Advise one person about a situation. One of only two tasks that give you a full 90 seconds.
Tell a story from your own life. Past tenses, in order, with one thing that actually happened.
Describe a picture to someone who cannot see it. Position language carries the whole answer.
Say what happens next in the scene you just described. Future forms, and a reason for each one.
The odd one out: on the first screen you only choose between two options and say nothing at all.
Someone has to be disappointed. Choose who, say it politely, and leave the relationship intact.
Take a position and defend it for a minute and a half. The other long task, and the one that rewards structure.
Describe something odd in a picture to someone who needs to understand it without seeing it.
- Tasks 1 and 7 give 90 seconds. Every other speaking task gives 60.
- Tasks 5, 6 and 7 let you choose between options; the choice itself is never marked, only what you do with it.
- Some tasks show a picture, some are text only.
- A blue bar shows the time left and a grey bar shows your microphone level. If the grey bar is flat, you are not being recorded.
Each response is rated separately on four dimensions: Content/Coherence, Vocabulary, Listenability, Task Fulfillment.
How it is scored
Human-rated on Content/Coherence, Vocabulary, Listenability and Task Fulfillment.
The level you get is reported on its own, from 1 to 12, and for levels 3 and above it is the same number as your Canadian Language Benchmark. See the speaking scoring page for the detail.
Practise this section
Worked examples with answers and explanations are on the CELPIP speaking samples page.
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