Many students purchase books and use the endless resources on the internet to help them prepare for their exams.  That is great, and I definitely recommend reading anything you can about the exam, but that method doesn’t include speaking practice.  You can read all about the speaking section, possible question topics and example answers, but that is all passive learning.  

If you really want to be ready for the speaking portion of the exam, you need to actually practice speaking.  Speaking by yourself in the mirror is a great way to get comfortable for the speaking section, but the mirror doesn’t make corrections and give you feedback.  

During my IELTS or TOEFL practice sessions on Skype, speaking and writing are the two parts of the exam that are  most efficiently practised online.  As with all of my sessions, the student decides our path and  what they want to focus on.  For example, some may only want to focus on IELTS speaking part 2, while others want to focus on improving their writing and then fill the remaining time with speaking practice.  Each student is different, so I make sure that they are getting exactly what they need.  Also, in our CEFR (A1 to C2), we focus more in the Use of English part, due to the fact that most people find it the most difficult part of these exams.

During our sessions, we will use actual exam questions and practice with the according time limits from the exam.  This is a major part of taking the exams, if you are not ready to do things with the time limit, you are probably not going to get the score you need.

Time after time I hear about students taking Exam Prep courses at local language schools and feeling cheated that they didn’t get enough time to actually practice or the attention they needed from the teacher.