PTE Retell Lecture: Template, Tips & Practice Materials for 2026

PTE retell lecture assess candidates’ listening and speaking skills. They are required to listen to the lecture and retell it by summarising it. The retell lecture section evaluates candidates on three main criteria: content, oral fluency, and pronunciation, each with a maximum score of 5. To excel in content, focus on summarizing relevant lecture points, and avoiding irrelevant ideas. For oral fluency, avoid repetition, hesitations, or losing key points, while paying attention to phrasing, rhythm, stress, and intonation. In pronunciation, use clear and understandable speech, and correctly pronounce plurals, past participles, consonants, and vowels. 

This PTE retell lecture section comprises 3 to 4 lectures lasting 30 to 90 seconds each, with no negative marking. After a 3-second pause, candidates have 10 seconds to prepare, including 1 second before the microphone opens. They then have 40 seconds to record their response. Visuals, like pictures or videos, may accompany the audio, aiding comprehension. This PTE speaking task presents real-world scenarios, requiring candidates to summarize and convey information from academic or professional lectures accurately.

PTE Retell Lecture Template

1. Topic

The initial point to address in your response is the lecture's topic. To start your response, focus on the lecture's main subject. The speaker usually mentions it right at the beginning of the audio, so make sure to listen carefully.

2. Main Points

To craft a comprehensive response, identify and jot down 2-3 key points, that the speaker emphasizes during the lecture. These key points are essential elements to include in your summary.

3. Conclusion

At the end of the lecture, pay attention to what the speaker concludes or the overall idea they convey before concluding.

Structure your response as follows:

"The key point of the lecture was about [topic]. First, the speaker discussed [phrase 1]. Then, he/she mentioned [phrase 2] and [phrase 3]. Finally, he/she concluded that [conclusion]."

PTE Retell Lecture Tips

1. Effective Note Taking

You’ll be given 10 seconds to prepare your response after the lecture stops. Taking notes is essential to frame the summary in the right way. Write important words like adjectives and verbs. Don't use single words; write short sentences to avoid confusion.

2. Avoid Pauses 

Pause or using filler words affects your score and fluency. Don't pause for more than 3 seconds as the microphone will stop automatically. Avoid saying fillers like 'uhm' or 'aah.' Use words like 'furthermore' or 'moreover' to connect ideas.

3. Focus on the Continuation

Your speech needs to be a summary of the lecture heard. Work on the flow of the sentences. The summary you provide needs to be like a single speech or lecture rather than a formation of separate sentences. 

4. Use Templates

Create and practice templates for re-telling. Before the lecture begins write the information based on the template to get started effectively. Focus on the topic of the lecture, three key points and a concluding sentence. Organizing this way will help you to retell the lecture in a better way.

5. Speed and Tone

While speaking focus on your speed and tone, maintaining an average speed will help you convey the information with better pronunciation and fluency.

6. Follow the pattern

Start with the introduction covering the topic and then address the three main points and end with a conclusion. If you can’t finish the main points within the time limit, don’t worry just give a glimpse and then move to the conclusion. It will give the impression that you know how to start and end your speech.

7. Adjust Volume

Test takers often do not consider adjusting the volume. Remember, you can adjust the volume if you are unsure about the speech you’re listening to and for better clarity.

8. Practice listening to different accents

Don’t just practice listening to one particular accent. It is essential to get familiar with multiple accents like British English, and American English. Also, it is important to consider listening to a variety of subject lectures.

9. Don’t neglect the image

For each of the PTE Lecture questions, there will be an image. This image is related to the lecture you’re about to hear. Thus, you need to consider guessing the topic of the lecture and construct a mindmap.

10. Time Management

Practicing time management effectively is crucial. Use the 10 seconds after the lecture to organize and edit your notes. The subsequent 40 seconds are crucial for retelling the information, so pay close attention to your notes and the time to ensure a clear and concise delivery.

PTE Retell Lecture Practice

1. You will hear a lecture. After listening to the lecture, in 10 seconds please speak into the microphone and retell what you have heard from the lecture in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response.

Audio

This class is about the post-emancipation African American experience. It is about American history. And I hope that point is frankly very obvious, but one never quite understands or can anticipate all of these things. It is about American history fundamentally. At its course, at its core excuse me, the course is about citizenship, the most important keyword for the entire class. The course is about citizenship, how one becomes a citizen, what one does to preserve that citizenship. At its core then, the class asks the question: what does it mean to be American? Now I will ask this question explicitly a few times in the class, but it implicitly is woven through so much of what I’m going to be talking about. What does it mean to be American?

Answer

The lecture explains that the class is about the post-emancipation African American history, which in a broader way is about the American history. The course will explore topics like citizenship and what is being an American actually involved.

2. You will hear a lecture. After listening to the lecture, in 10 seconds please speak into the microphone and retell what you have heard from the lecture in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response.

Audio

Let me go to Hemingway and talk a little bit about him, in many ways as a kind of gateway or a guide to a global vision of American literature. Hemingway was very much a world traveller. Basically, you can get a map of the world by just looking at his writings, but he had a special love of the Spanish language. So For Whom The Bell Tolls–we’ll be reading this in class-is about the Spanish Civil War. And Hemingway was there as a war correspondent, but we can see that he actually got into combat situations right here. It’s really interesting to think about Hemingway as both a journalist and also a novelist.
The global dimension of Hemingway, but also the global dimension of the Spanish Civil War itself. It was a civil war, it was between two sides fighting in Spain, but it was also very much an international war in the sense that Russia was a part of it, Germany was a part of it, Italy was a part of it. It very much was a gathering of a lot of nations converging on the soil of Spain and fighting.

Answer

The lecture is about the Hemingway and his global vision as shown in his literature. Hemingway love to travel and ride about various countries but they especially loved the Spanish language. He wrote “So For Whom The Bell Tolls” a book on Spanish civil war. He was a part of this civil war as a journalist but got involved in it much more than that just like Hemingway ridings Spanish civil war was also a global event as it involved Russia, Germany and Italy as well.

3. You will hear a lecture. After listening to the lecture, in 10 seconds please speak into the microphone and retell what you have heard from the lecture in your own words. You will have 40 seconds to give your response.

Audio

Let me remind you what we had started to talk about. The class is organized into three fairly specific topics. The first of which is extrasolar planets. Planets around stars other than the sun. Exoplanets, so-called. That’s our topic. One of the things that I pointed out last time is that, surprisingly enough, very–until ten years ago none of these were known. And it’s only a very recent development that there’s any actual evidence that these things exist. So, one question you might ask is why are these things so hard to find? The science fiction folks seem to have no trouble; they just sort of go around in their spaceships and find these things all over the place.

And to consider that question let me show you a picture. Here’s a picture of a star. This is the star Sirius. It’s the brightest. It’s a blow-up obviously of a photograph plus a little Photoshopped arrow. That’s not a celestial object So, this is a blow-up of a photograph of the star Sirius. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky to the–easily visible with the naked eye. In fact, as I say, the brightest star. It’s one of the closest stars. It’s a little bit brighter than the Sun intrinsically, but it’s ten light years away or so.

Answer

The lecture is about exoplanets which is one of the three our topics that the class is structured into. Exo plants have become known in the last ten years only, they are quite hard to find and the lecturer explains this by giving the example of Sirius which is the brightest star in the sky and actually closes to us but even that is ten light years away.

Other PTE Speaking Question Types

• PTE Personal Introduction
• PTE Read Aloud
• PTE Repeat Sentence
• PTE Answer Short Questions