Body language, thinking time, a story bank, inside out perspectives and the experience question: the same five habits work in the English and Chinese orals alike.
By Janice Hia · 2026-07-15
The English and Chinese orals look different on paper, but they are built on the same moment. In English Paper 4, candidates plan a response to a video clip and then discuss a related topic with the examiners, worth 20% of the grade. In Chinese Paper 3, candidates read a passage aloud and then hold a conversation with the examiner about a video clip, worth 50 marks and a full 25% of the grade, which makes the oral even heavier in Chinese than in English. Different languages, same skill: a real conversation with an examiner about something you just watched.
The main English and Chinese orals for 2026 ran from 13 to 17 July, but this is not a post you file away. Chinese B candidates sit their oral on 23 September 2026, prelim orals come around every year, and next year's cohort starts preparing now. The five habits below work in either language, and if you want the English paper's specific strategy, our How to Win in Oral guide goes deeper on that side.
Examiners read you before they hear you. Sit up straight, make regular eye contact, and let yourself smile naturally when the conversation allows it. Project your voice so the examiner can hear your answers clearly, because a good answer delivered into the table is a good answer wasted. And if the nerves hit while you are waiting, take one slow, deep breath before heading to your seat, then walk in knowing you are more prepared than you feel.
When a difficult or unexpected question lands, the goal is not to answer instantly, it is to avoid panicking. A short holding phrase gives your brain a few seconds to organise while your mouth stays composed:
The same move works in Chinese, so prepare your own equivalents in advance, along the lines of "这个问题很有意思，我认为……". One caution: these phrases buy seconds, not minutes. Use one, then land your actual answer directly, the way our English oral guide puts it: the first sentence after the holding phrase should still answer the question.
Every year students walk in having bet their preparation on two or three predicted themes, and every year the video is about something else. Build a story bank instead: a small set of real experiences from your own life that you know inside out, rehearsed until they are flexible, so you can adapt one story to fit whatever theme appears, whether that is school, family, community or technology. The story stays the same, and only the angle changes.
Strong answers widen as they go. Start from yourself, then move forward through family, school, society and finally what the government or the community could do, proposing ideas from the inside out.
An answer that starts with "for me, personally..." and ends at the national or even global level shows the examiner the range in your perspectives from you widening your own view, not from a template.
True change is ultimately a two-way street: it begins when a single individual has the courage to take the first step, but it only lasts when the community meets them with shared responsibility and mutual respect.
As individuals, we must play a dual role: we have to be the spark bold enough to initiate change, and the pillar responsible enough to support others when they do the same.
One of the most common question types in both languages asks about your own experience. Set the scene quickly with the 5W1H basics, who, what, when, where, why and how, and then give the experience its arc:
That last beat is the one most students skip and the one examiners lean in for, because the reflection is where a story stops being a recount and starts being an answer. A story bank entry rehearsed through these four beats is ready for almost any experience question, in either language.