IELTS Speaking Part 2: A Friend from Your Childhood – Model Answers 2026

This is a new Part 2 topic in the official IELTS Speaking question bank for May–August 2026. You have one minute to prepare and two minutes to speak. Go straight into the story. The examiner does not need an introduction.

Cue Card

Describe a friend from your childhood.

You should say:
– Who he or she is
– Where and how you met each other
– What you often did together
– And explain what made you like him or her

Model Answer

My best friend growing up was a boy named Miguel. We met on the first day of kindergarten, seated next to each other by pure chance. Within an hour we were already arguing about which cartoon character was stronger. That was effectively the beginning of a friendship that lasted through primary school, secondary school, and several years beyond.

We spent most of our free time together. Afternoons cycling around the neighbourhood, weekends at the beach building things that inevitably collapsed, countless hours playing video games at each other’s houses. We also shared an appetite for exploring places we probably should not have been in. Empty lots, half-finished construction sites, any area that felt slightly off-limits. Looking back, neither of us was particularly reckless. We just had a very high tolerance for boredom and not quite enough adult supervision.

What I genuinely valued about Miguel was his loyalty. There was one afternoon when a group of older boys were giving me a hard time after school. He walked over without hesitating, even though they were bigger than both of us combined. He did not say anything particularly clever or threatening. He just stood there, completely calm, until the situation dissolved on its own. I was ten years old and it was the clearest demonstration of what real friendship actually looks like that I have ever seen.

We live in different cities now and manage to see each other maybe twice a year. But the friendship has the kind of foundation that does not require constant maintenance. Every time we meet, we pick up exactly where we left off, which I think says more about the quality of it than anything else I could describe.

Why This Works

The answer opens with a specific scene, moves through shared activities without listing them mechanically, and anchors the answer in one concrete memory that demonstrates the friendship rather than just describing it. The closing sentence is natural and reflects genuinely.

📌 Band 7-8 Vocabulary:
– appetite for — a strong desire or liking for something
– off-limits — not allowed to enter or use
– tolerance — the ability to accept or endure something
– demonstration — a clear showing of how something works or what it means
– foundation — the basis on which something is established

IELTS Speaking Part 3: Childhood Friend Questions and Model Answers

Question 1: Do you still keep in touch with your friends from childhood?

Model Answer:
Some of them, yes, though the number shrinks over time. Social media has made it easier to maintain a loose connection without much effort. Most people from school end up as followers rather than friends in any meaningful sense. The ones who stay genuinely close are the ones where the friendship was built on something real, shared experience, similar values, genuine history. In the UK and US, research consistently shows that most adults have fewer than three people they consider truly close friends, regardless of how many contacts they have on their phones.

Question 2: How important is childhood friendship to children?

Model Answer:
Extremely important, and probably more so than adults tend to acknowledge. Childhood friendships are where children first practise the social skills they will use for the rest of their lives. Negotiation, conflict resolution, empathy, loyalty. Studies from Harvard’s adult development research, one of the longest-running studies on human happiness, found that the quality of relationships in childhood was one of the strongest predictors of well-being in later life. Children who struggle to form friendships early often carry those difficulties into adulthood in ways that affect everything from mental health to career performance.

Question 3: What do you think of communicating via social media?

Model Answer:
It is useful but it is not the same as real communication. Social media is optimised for broadcasting, not for genuine exchange. Platforms like Instagram and Twitter in the US, or WhatsApp groups in the UK, make it easy to stay visible to a large number of people without actually connecting with any of them. The research on this is fairly consistent. People who replace face-to-face contact with social media interaction report lower levels of satisfaction in their relationships over time. It works best as a supplement to real connection, not as a substitute for it.

Question 4: Do you think online communication will replace face-to-face communication?

Model Answer:
Not entirely, no. The pandemic gave the world the closest thing to a real experiment on this question. Video calls replaced in-person meetings for almost two years globally, and the conclusion most people reached was that it worked well enough for logistics but badly for relationships. Companies like Google and Apple spent billions building remote work infrastructure and then quietly required people to come back to the office. There is something in face-to-face interaction, shared physical space, eye contact, body language, that technology has not been able to replicate and probably cannot.

Examiner Tips for IELTS Speaking Part 2 Childhood Friend

Tip 1: One specific memory is worth more than a list of activities.
The moment Miguel stepped in is what makes this answer memorable. Find your version of that moment.

Tip 2: The closing sentence matters.
“We pick up exactly where we left off” is a natural, confident way to end. Do not trail off or summarise. Close it cleanly.

Tip 3: For Part 3, use real research or real events.
The Harvard study, the pandemic remote work experiment. Real references give your Part 3 answers weight and credibility.

Common Mistakes on This Topic

Listing activities without describing them with any detail
Saying only positive things about the friend without showing what made the friendship real
Opening with “I would like to describe a friend of mine…”
Part 3 answers that are opinions without any supporting example or evidence

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Childhood Friend a confirmed IELTS Speaking Part 2 topic for 2026?
Yes. This appears in the official IELTS Speaking Part 2 question bank for May–August 2026 as a new topic.

Should the friend be real?
You can adapt or invent. What matters is that the story sounds genuine, specific, and human.

How do I make my Part 2 answer sound less rehearsed?
Build it around one or two specific moments rather than a series of general statements. Moments sound real. General statements sound prepared.