OET Speaking: role-plays, criteria and practice

Verified on 6 October 2026.

OET Speaking is 2 role-plays. For each one you get 3 minutes to prepare, then 5 minutes of conversation in your nursing role, with an interlocutor playing the patient, a relative or a carer. You are marked on 4 language criteria and 5 clinical communication criteria, from a recording. OET Test Handbook 2026.

By OETify editorial team.

How the test runs

Speaking is set for your profession. The interlocutor is the person who talks with you in the role-play. OET Test Handbook 2026.

Check that your regulator accepts the option you choose. OET: book a test.

The test starts with a warm-up of about 2 to 3 minutes, which is not marked. Then come the 2 role-plays, each with its own preparation time. Only the role-plays count. The interlocutor does not mark you: your performance is assessed afterwards from an audio recording. OET online Speaking user guide; OET Test Teachers Handbook 2024.

Your Speaking test may be on a different day from the other three sub-tests. OET test regulations.

A card with communication choices

Written by OETify for practice; the consultation is made up and the appointment plan is for communication practice, not clinical advice. To try a full timed role-play, use the Speaking role-play practice task.

Setting: a nursing outpatient clinic. You are arranging a patient’s first hearing-test visit.

• The visit is on Thursday at 10am, in the hearing clinic on level 2.
• The patient should report to the clinic reception with their appointment card.
• If they cannot attend, they call reception to rearrange.
• The patient worries about missing spoken instructions in a busy waiting room.

Your tasks:

• Ask what the patient already knows about the visit.
• Explore their concern about hearing instructions.
• Explain the place, time and arrival steps in small pieces.
• Offer to ask reception about a written check-in instruction.
• Check how the patient will arrive or rearrange the visit.

Cues for your practice partner

Your partner reads these on their own before playing the patient, and does not reveal every concern at once.

• Begin by saying the clinic visit sounds confusing.
• When asked what concerns you, explain that you may miss spoken directions.
• You had assumed reception was on the ground floor; say so when the nurse explains arrival.
• If offered written instructions, accept them but ask who will arrange them.
• When asked to describe arrival, repeat where you will go; if the nurse skipped a detail, say you are unsure of it.

Use only these made-up details, never real patient information. The card can lead to different conversations; there is no single correct script.

Fix the question before adding information

OET’s glossary describes a compound question as several questions asked without time to answer, and a leading question as one that builds in an assumption, making it harder to disagree. OET Speaking assessment criteria glossary.

To check understanding, the glossary recommends asking the patient to say the information back. It calls this “chunking and checking”: give a small piece of information, pause, then check. OET Speaking assessment criteria glossary.

Here is how the patient’s answer changes what the nurse says next:

Nurse: The hearing clinic is on level 2. Where will you go when you arrive?

Patient: To the main reception on the ground floor?

Nurse: Please go to the hearing clinic reception on level 2. We can ask about written directions for you.

Patient: Who will arrange those?

Nurse: We will contact reception about that request. What would you like the written directions to include?

Checking first uncovers the mix-up about the location before the nurse moves on to the time. The last question responds to the patient’s worry about hearing directions. This shows Information Giving and the patient’s perspective in action; it is not a scoring formula. OET Speaking assessment criteria.

The 9 criteria

Speaking has 4 language criteria and 5 clinical communication criteria. OET Test Handbook 2026.

The OET Speaking assessment criteria define these, and the glossary explains the behaviours behind them.

Language criteria are marked from 0 to 6 and clinical communication from 0 to 3. The top language bands describe speech that is easy to understand, fluent, appropriate and flexible. For language criteria, 0 means no response and 1 is the lowest band for a response. For clinical communication, 0 is ineffective, 1 partially effective, 2 competent and 3 adept. OET Speaking assessment criteria.

You do not need to sound like a native speaker: the top Intelligibility band allows a first-language accent, as long as it does not make you harder to understand.

Each performance is marked twice and quality-checked, and OET does not publish how criterion bands become your 0 to 500 score. OET Test Teachers Handbook 2024; OET results and scoring.

Practise with a partner

Ask a partner to play the patient on the card above and to answer freely. Afterwards, pick one exchange and compare it with a criterion in the table. Then run the card again with your partner keeping the wrong-floor assumption until you check their understanding, and compare your response with the example above.

OET’s Speaking preparation page has separate guides to the language and clinical communication criteria, plus Nursing, Medicine and Pharmacy role-play videos.

Practise Speaking in OETify

No partner? In OETify you take a live role-play with an AI partner who plays the patient or relative and responds to what you say. Afterwards you get feedback on your language and the clinical communication criteria, from a transcript; OETify does not assess pronunciation or accent. Your free baseline includes a live Speaking role-play, so you can try it straight away.

OETify is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by OET.