A CELPIP Filler-Word Audit You Can Run Tonight

Step 1 — Record (5 min): Two speaking answers under real timing — one story task, one opinion task. No rehearsal; the audit needs your default speech, not your best.

Step 2 — Count (5 min): Replay and tally every filler. Expect a surprise: most candidates guess half their real count.

Step 3 — Classify the trigger (5 min): Mark each filler's location: sentence start (planning gap), mid-sentence before a content word (word retrieval), or between ideas (structure gap). The pattern tells you which repair you need.

Step 4 — The pause swap (5 min): Re-record one answer with a single rule: when a filler wants out, close your mouth for one beat instead. Silence reads as composure to raters; um reads as struggle. Same gap, opposite signal.

Sentence-start fillers mean you begin speaking before knowing your point — the fix is a three-beat outline in prep time, and the task structures supply it. Mid-sentence fillers mean word retrieval — vocabulary clusters and paraphrase practice, not silence drills. Between-idea fillers mean missing transitions — a handful of connectors (what's more, on the other hand, in the end) carry you across. Same symptom, three different diseases.

Run the identical audit seven days later on fresh prompts from the speaking practice page. Fillers per minute is a number, and numbers move visibly — which is precisely what makes this fixable while “sound more fluent” is not.