Opening line
Thank you. And do you prefer to study in the morning or the evening? Why is that?
James Okonkwo
Part one questions
James Okonkwo
Speaking examiner and examiner trainer
Runs rooms pitched at confident fluency and advanced fluency
Face to face, across a table, from Birmingham
Not checked against people yetNot yet rated(0)
From 13 min
A session of any length
First five minutes free
Ways in to James Okonkwo
Try it free
5 minutes, no card, and the full write-up at the end. 16 of the catalogue are open on it.
Free · 5 min
Sprint
150 minutes to use in thirty days, which is about 12 conversations. For a date already in your calendar.
$66 · 150 min
Monthly
300 minutes a month, renewing. For a job search, a move, or a language you are keeping up.
$105 · 300 min / mo
For a team
One invoice for everybody, and nobody sees anybody else's conversations. For a company putting a team through the same interviews.
$25 · per seat
In James’s words
James trains other examiners, which means he examines the way the manual says and not the way habit drifts.
He moves to the next question the moment you stop, because the test rewards candidates who keep going, and a second chance would be a kindness the real exam does not offer. He has a particular ear for memorised answers: a fluent paragraph on 'my hometown' followed by a collapse on the follow-up. He will ask that follow-up. He grew up in Handsworth, taught in Lagos for four years, and has no patience for the idea that an accent is a problem. What he marks is whether he could understand you, whether you could keep going, and whether the second half of your answer was better than the first.
1min
They speak first, about a second after you press start. There is no press-to-talk and no waiting for your turn.
4min
Four minutes of the real thing, at the real pace, with the interruptions where a real one would put them.
1min
Your pace, your pauses and your filler words are counted within a second, and the score follows. Nobody asks for a card to hear it.
What a score from James is worth
How the score is worked out here
Three things, and you can read what each one actually means. None of them turn this into an exam: talk to this person as often as you like, and the score is there only if you want it.
Run on James
Cleared
Published criteria
The criteria and their weights are visible before you speak.
- Here
- Trainer-level adherence to the script: no drift, no improvised warmth, no repeat of a question the candidate let drop.
- Held by
- Published in advance; changes go through review
- Method
- Before you speak you can see what is being measured and how much each thing is worth, as percentages that add up to a hundred. That is checked automatically: a set whose percentages do not add up never reaches the site.
Nothing James is scored on has been checked against human examiners yet, so this profile carries no calibrated mark. We do not skip that check: until it is passed, the scoring does not switch on, and the mark appears the day it does.
Situations and levels
What James runs, and what a fortnight of it costs
A minute costs the same whoever you talk to: the expensive part is the model, not the person. Move the sliders to match the two weeks you actually have.
Situations
- Full speaking testAll three parts, timed, with an examiner who does not help you.
- Part one questionsShort answers about your own life, which is where most people overrun.
Difficulty
What it costs to rehearse this properly
Three runs across a week is what changes an answer. Move the sliders to your own plan. Nothing renews, and nothing is charged until you buy minutes.
- Minutes of talking in total
- 78
- What that costs here
- $34
- The same minutes with a tutor
- $300
- You do not spend
- −$266
At $50 an hour, rounded up to the 60-minute booking nobody will sell you less than.
What James says
The lines you will actually have to answer
Word for word, from James's own opening and follow-up questions, in the language they speak. Read them and ask yourself whether you could answer the second one. That is the whole decision this page is asking for.
1 of 1 shown
5
free minutes to judge for yourself
What James is like, across 1 scenario
Ratings
What people said after talking to James
Each one written after a conversation of their own. They asked not to be named, so nothing is signed: a made-up name beside a real sentence would be the one false thing on this page. Stars will arrive as finished conversations leave them.
This was a good reality check. My memorized answer sounded great until the unexpected follow-up. It left me with one very specific thing to fix.
After a session with James This one was harder than it looked. The examiner just waited when I ran out of words. Very uncomfortable and very useful. Not comfortable, but very practical.
After a session with James
2 people have talked to James and written about it. Stars will sit beside these as people leave them, and only a finished conversation can leave one.
Compared with an hour of a tutor
8 rehearsals with James for the price of one lesson
A human tutor is worth $50 an hour. What they cannot do is sell you 13 minutes, be free the morning of the interview, or cut you off mid-sentence because that is what the room will do.
One lesson, 60 min
$50
One rehearsal, 13 min
$5.72
89% less, and you can do it 8 times before the hour is paid for.
| A human tutor | Reallang | |
|---|---|---|
| Shortest thing you can buy | 60 minutes | 13 minutes, or five |
| What that costs | $50 | $5.72 |
| When you can have it | When they are free | Now, or at 6am on the day |
| Feedback in writing | About 24 hours later | 60 seconds later |
| Will they interrupt you | No. They are being kind | Yes, on purpose, at ninety seconds |
| Evidence under the feedback | What they remember | Your own sentence, checked |
| Can they hear what you meant | Yes, and that is the point of them | No. It is a rehearsal, not a teacher |
The last row is not a concession, it is the division of labour. A tutor teaches you the language. This rehearses the minutes where you have to use it, and there is no reason to buy an hour of a person’s time to do that.
Start a session
Pick the meeting, and James starts talking
There is no calendar, because there is nothing to wait for. Choose which conversation it is, allow the microphone, and a second later you are talking.
Which conversation are you having?
James Okonkwo runs 2 meetings. They are different conversations, not easy and hard versions of one, and each has its own criteria.
What counts as going well
Speak in full turns, fill the two minutes, and give reasons and examples in Part 3 without being asked.
James Okonkwo
British English · cold
- Waiting
- 0.8 seconds
- The score
- 60 seconds after
- This session
- $5.72
- After that
- $5.72
- The first 5 minutes cost nothing and no card is asked for.
- We ask for your microphone before the conversation starts, never after.
- Audio is not stored. The written record of the conversation is, because the score quotes from it.
Also free the first time
Who to talk to after James
Ranked against James on whichever line you are choosing by. Save two or three and read them side by side.
5 min freeFull speaking test
5 min freeFull speaking test
5 min freeRecruiter screen
5 min freeBehavioral round