Practice speaking English with someone who listens.
For work, for moving, for the IELTS.

Why a face matters for spoken English

Almost every moment where your English is judged happens face to face: the job interview, the stand-up meeting, the call with a new client, the chat by the coffee machine. Even the IELTS speaking test is a conversation with an examiner sitting across from you. Understanding English and speaking it while someone looks at you and waits are two different skills, and the second one only improves with practice out loud.

ChatGPT’s voice conversation is an excellent English partner: fluent, patient, and happy to explain the same idiom four times. Facelet gives that voice a lifelike face on your Mac, so the practice feels like the real situations you are preparing for. You keep eye contact, you hold your thought while someone watches, and you get used to answering without a pause to translate in your head.

An IELTS-style speaking test at home

The IELTS speaking test takes 11 to 14 minutes and has three parts: questions about familiar topics, a long turn where you speak for up to two minutes on a topic card after one minute to prepare, and a discussion that goes deeper into the same theme. You can rehearse that whole shape with Facelet.

1. Ask for a full test. Use the first line below, and ask it to hold all feedback until the end, as a real examiner would.
2. Part 1, four to five minutes. Short answers about your home, work, studies and interests. Aim for two or three sentences each, not one word and not a speech.
3. Part 2, the long turn. It reads you a topic. Take your minute, jot three words on paper, then talk for up to two minutes while it listens.
4. Part 3, four to five minutes. Broader questions on the same theme. This is where examiners listen for opinions, reasons and examples.
5. Ask for the debrief. An estimated band for fluency, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, with one real example of each problem from what you said. Then answer the weakest question again.

English for work

If you are not taking an exam, practice the situations you actually face. Give a one-minute project update. Make small talk with a new colleague. Disagree with a manager politely. Explain a delay to a client. Ask a question in a meeting without apologising three times first. Each one is a two-minute role-play, and you can run it as often as you like, the evening before it counts.

Things to say

• “I’m preparing for the IELTS speaking test. Be the examiner and run a full test: Part 1, then Part 2 with a topic card and one minute to prepare, then Part 3. No feedback until the end.”
• “Now give me an estimated band for fluency, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, with one example of each problem from what I said.”
• “Let’s practice small talk before a meeting. You’re a colleague I’ve just met, and you’re a little shy.”
• “I need to disagree with my manager politely. Play my manager, and after each of my answers, tell me a more natural way to say it.”
• “Please speak a little slower, and use everyday words.”
• “Which words were hard to understand? Say them slowly, and I’ll copy you.”
• “What were my three biggest mistakes in the last few minutes?”

How to set it up

• Use the full window. Make it full screen from the View menu, so the face is life-size and the practice feels like a real conversation.
• Pick a voice with the accent you want to hear. ChatGPT’s voices differ; choose the one you find clearest. Each Facelet character remembers its voice.
• Always listening for conversation, push to talk for the long turn. For the two-minute answer, holding your push-to-talk key means a pause to think will not end your turn.
• Keep paper and a timer. Write down every correction, and time your long turn the way the exam will.

What it won’t do

• It cannot give you an official score. Facelet and ChatGPT have no connection to IELTS or any other exam board, and a band estimate is a practice guide only.
• It can mishear accented speech now and then, as people do. If it misunderstands you often, ask which word it heard wrongly; that is useful feedback in itself.
• It does not keep a record of your progress. Each conversation starts fresh, so keep your own notes.