EIKEN Speaking Test: You Have to Earn the Interview

Most exams put speaking somewhere inside the paper. EIKEN puts it behind a door you have to open first.

You must pass the first stage before you are allowed to speak at all.

SpeakShark is free if the month between the two stages is what you want to use properly, three AI conversation sessions a day with no card.

In this guide: the gate · what the second stage is · length by grade · the month in between · what it means to prepare · grades 4 and 5 · limits · method · FAQ

Key takeaways

• EIKEN has two stages, and the second stage is the speaking test.
• You must pass the first stage in reading, listening and writing to advance.
• The second stage comes about one month later and is required for everybody who passes.
• It is a face to face interview on site, conducted entirely in English.
• Grade 1 uses two examiners, one a native English speaker and one a native Japanese speaker proficient in English.
• Lengths run from ten minutes at Grade 1 to five at Grade 3.

The gate nobody mentions

The Eiken Foundation states it directly: an examinee must pass the first stage, covering reading, listening and writing, in order to advance to the second stage, which is speaking.

Sit with what that does to a candidate profile.

A learner who talks comfortably and reads slowly is not assessed as a partial pass. They are stopped before the part they are good at. The interview never happens.

The reverse is also true and less obvious. A learner who reads and writes well, and freezes in conversation, will reach the interview every time and meet the wall there instead.

Compare that with the exams we have read elsewhere. IELTS assesses all four skills in one sitting and reports them separately, which our band 7 guide and band 8 guide cover. Linguaskill is modular by design, so speaking can be taken on its own. EIKEN sequences them and makes the second conditional on the first.

What the second stage actually is

Four published characteristics, each of which changes how you should prepare.

A face to face interview. Not a recording, not a computer. A person opposite you.

Conducted on site by qualified examiners. At the test venue rather than remotely.

Conducted entirely in English. No fallback into Japanese, even at the lower grades.

Required for all who pass the first stage. Not an optional extra for candidates aiming high.

The phrase the Foundation uses for its purpose is worth keeping: designed to directly evaluate an examinee's ability to speak and interact in English. Interact is the load bearing word. It is a conversation, not a monologue delivered at a marker.

Length and examiners by grade

Two things fall out of that table that the table itself does not say.

Grade 1 gets double the examiner attention. Ten minutes with two examiners is twenty examiner minutes, against five minutes with one at Grade 3. The top grade is scrutinised four times as heavily by that measure.

The steps are small. Grade 2 and Pre-2 Plus are both seven minutes, and the whole range spans five minutes to ten. Nobody is being asked to sustain a long performance; they are being asked to interact well in a short one.

For Grade 1, the Foundation specifies that one examiner is a native speaker of English and the other a native speaker of Japanese who is proficient in English. For all other grades the examiner may be either. That pairing at the top grade is a deliberate design and we cover what it implies in EIKEN Grade 1 and its two examiners.

The month in between

The second stage is given approximately one month after the first.

Exam preparation almost never hands you a window like that: a known date, a known format, a single skill, and four weeks with nothing else to revise. Most candidates waste it, because finishing a written exam feels like finishing.

A simple use of those four weeks:

1. Week one. Speak for five to ten minutes a day on ordinary topics, out loud, unscripted, to build tolerance for the format.
2. Week two. Add interaction: answer questions you did not write, and practise asking for clarification politely.
3. Week three. Work on the sounds and hesitations that recur, which needs feedback rather than more volume.
4. Week four. Full length rehearsals at your grade's timing, then rest before the day.

The part that stalls self study is the feedback in week three, because you cannot hear your own pronunciation the way an examiner does. That is what SpeakShark is built for: unscripted conversation with native accent AI teachers and instant phoneme level feedback. The free plan is three sessions a day with no card, the pricing page shows the paid tier, how it works explains the mechanics, and our comparison of speaking apps is honest about the limits.

What that structure means for preparation

Do not defer speaking until you pass. The month is short and the habit takes longer than the month.

Do not over prepare speaking at the expense of reading. The gate is the first stage. Brilliance in the second is worth nothing if you never reach it.

Practise interaction, not presentation. The stated purpose names speaking and interacting, and a rehearsed speech answers a question nobody asked.

Expect English only. Even at Grade 3, five minutes with no shared fallback language is a different experience from a classroom conversation.

For how other exams handle the same skill: Aptis speaking format, TOEIC speaking, OPIc against TOEIC speaking, Linguaskill parts 1 and 2, and the EIKEN grade and CSE score overlap.

Grades 4 and 5 are different

The second stage is not given for Grades 4 and 5. Since 2016, both have separate online speaking tests in which examinees record their answers.

Those are not required in order to pass the Grade 4 or 5 test. Everybody who registers for the first stage at those grades is eligible to take the speaking test, and those who pass it receive a separate certificate stating they passed the speaking test of that grade.

That is an unusual arrangement worth understanding on its own terms, and we look at it in EIKEN Grade 4 and 5 speaking, optional and separately certified.

Where EIKEN sits among the exams we have read

Putting the structures side by side is the fastest way to see what is unusual here, and it changes what preparation means in each case.

EIKEN is the only one in that list where failure elsewhere prevents the speaking assessment from happening at all. In IELTS a weak reader still speaks and still receives a speaking band. In a modular exam the candidate can buy the speaking module alone.

That produces a specific and slightly perverse consequence: EIKEN generates no evidence of speaking ability for the candidates who most need to demonstrate it, because those candidates are stopped at stage one. A learner who has lived in an English speaking environment and reads poorly will look, on paper, like somebody with no assessed speaking ability at all.

Two practical readings follow. If EIKEN is the exam you must take, the reading and listening work is not a distraction from speaking practice; it is the price of admission to it. And if you need evidence of spoken English for a purpose that accepts other exams, a modular option may show your strength where EIKEN structurally cannot.

What we could not verify

We did not read the task descriptions for any individual grade's interview, so nothing here describes what you will be asked.

We did not verify pass marks, scoring criteria or how the interview is marked. The Foundation publishes the format on the page we read; the marking detail was not on it.

We did not check test dates, fees or venues, which sit on a separate administration page we did not read in this session.

How we researched this guide

The two stage structure, the requirement to pass the first stage before advancing, the approximately one month gap, the requirement for all who pass, the grades administered, the face to face on site format, the English only rule, the length and examiner table, the Grade 1 examiner pairing and the Grade 4 and 5 arrangement all come from the Eiken Foundation of Japan's own EIKEN speaking tests page, opened directly in a browser rather than summarised from a preparation site. The four week study suggestion is our own advice and is labelled as such.

We are a speaking improvement tool. We are not an exam preparation provider, and we are not affiliated with the Eiken Foundation of Japan or any exam board. For formats, dates and current requirements, go to the exam body directly. Use SpeakShark to make your spoken English stronger, and use official material to learn the test.

• Site: speakshark.com
• Support: speaksharksupport@gmail.com
• Free tier: 3 AI conversation sessions per day, no card

Sources

• EIKEN speaking tests, Eiken Foundation of Japan
• EIKEN Tests, Eiken Foundation of Japan
• CEFR global scale, Council of Europe
• EIKEN Grades, Eiken Foundation of Japan

FAQ