Job Discussion Forums

[Minhang Oz]

A dry topic I'm afraid. TOEIC is very new in China, and I've signed to teach a corporate group. Has anyone found any useful, lively, legal ways to make this course a bit more student friendly, and to keep them awake, and dare I say alert, for the five hours a day I'm teaching them?
Suggestions based on previous experience appreciated.

[Capergirl]

I'm not really sure what you mean by "teaching" the TOEIC. Last December, my fellow ESL teachers and I prepared a group of African students for the TOEIC exam. We spent a lot of time doing practice questions from the TOEIC prep guide, complete with audiotapes. They did timed exercises and then we went over the answers together. We also gave them the same type of answer grid as what is used for the TOEIC in order to get them used to it. They learned pretty quickly that you have to pay close attention to where your pencil mark goes and to make sure that the question corresponds with the answer number on the grid.

I think that your students must have a sizeable knowledge base in business English in order to succeed in the TOEIC. I don't see how you can really "teach" it because the questions are different on each test (or at least they are supposed to be). However, the TOEIC prep is great for getting them ready for the actual exam format, which will improve their overall score. The more timed tests we did with our students, the faster (and more accurate) they were at responding to them. By the time the test date rolled around, they were more confident just knowing what was ahead of them.

[Wolf]

[kimo]

Oz, don�t know what you have learned so far about the test, but I prepped business people for it a few years ago in Japan where it was widely used. Companies find it convenient and cheaper for evaluating groups of employees and measuring progress over time. In the negative column, there were no speaking or writing sections. This might have changed. Listening and reading scores can vary widely for students who have the same total score so be careful when using previous scores to place students. I do not agree strongly that students need to know business English. I do agree that a strong grounding in general English is most helpful. Most people in Japan seemed to teach it with sample tests (usually timed) then going over the tests. Another tact would be to understand the four sections used in the testing format and teaching strategies to better help students get to the right answer. For example, in one section, testees (hehe) will see photos and hear four statements about the photo, one of which will be true. You can practice and teach students how to prepare for what they might hear by using pictures in class and have students describe the scene � weather, clothing, facial expressions, vehicles, and anything else they see in or feel from the picture. For listening, I would have students work on understanding natural spoken English and distinguishing connected speech patterns. Also, remind students over and over that an (un)educated guess equals a 25 percent chance of a correct answer with no deduction for guessing wrong while a blank equals nothing.

[Minhang Oz]

Thanks folks, I'll keep your replies and revisit them at various times. I agree with Capergirl that "teaching" wasn't really the word I wanted. And while it'll be a 5 hour day, the first 3 are TOEIC, then after lunch it's business English. The Chinese are addicted to testing, with everything from PET to IELTS, and I have a feeling this could be big in the corporate arena. So stealing a march on other potential trainers seems like a good idea, as the pay is about 3 times that of school teaching - more if you're out in the sticks, but they probably won't run TOEIC there.