Foreign language instruction should begin in kindergarten

What is coherence?

Coherence can be various things.

1.  There is a very definite connection between coherence and understanding. If someone understands what your meaning is, then you are being coherent.

2. A related idea is just to think about who you are talking to and what they asked.  How can you say something to them clearly that answers their question? There is a connection between clarity and coherence.

3. Coherence is also partly about linking your speech together. This can mean using linking words. The most common in speech are and but and because!!

4. Coherence is also about linking ideas together – just like in a paragraph or essay. This means organising what you say so that your answer is “a whole“. All the bits within it fit together. This should be familiar from writing. The difference in speaking is that the structure is looser.

If you are a visual person, look at the picture below. It shows different things (cogs) working together to produce a something – an understood idea. This is what you are trying to do in the test. Your speech should link together and produce an answer that illustrates your ideas so that the examiner understands: