Job Discussion Forums

[Glenski]

I've just learned that in 3 weeks, I will be teaching a TOEFL preparation class to 2 high level 3rd year Japanese students (current scores are 550-600). I've taught them other English courses before, so we are familiar, but I have never taught a TOEFL prep class.

We will meet 4 times a week, so that means I need to create that many lesson plans every week! A daunting task, indeed.

Of course, I'm scouring the Net for whatever I can glean and/or download in that short period of time, plus I'm talking to my school's Japanese teacher of the regular TOEFL class to see what the "lower" level kids are getting, but I would greatly appreciate any advice. I'm guessing I'll have to provide lessons in all 4 of the language areas (reading, writing, speaking, listening), but FOUR LESSONS A WEEK!!!!

[denise]

I've taught a few TOEFL classes at my school. The students are at a much lower level than yours-they're generally in the 400-450 range. The class meets five times a week, and most of the teachers say that it is the most "by the book" class that we offer. (I'm not saying that's good or bad--that's just the way it turns out.)

To supplement the book activities, I would throw in activities in which the students write their own questions. For the listening section, they recorded their own conversations and questions. For the grammar section, they would each choose a grammar point and give a short presentation on it. Their reading scores/abilities/interests were generally so low that I was hesitant to throw in games and activities for that section.

I would also do weekly vocabulary work--things like getting them to recognize prefixes/roots/suffixes, introducing them to idioms and phrasal verbs, etc.

I would take them to the computer lab every week or so--sometimes to give them free time to work on online grammar quizzes (and for the most part they were good about staying on task) and sometimes to guide them to specific TOEFL-related websites.

We do our own in-house institutional TOEFL, which does not include the writing or speaking sections, so I can't comment on those.

d

edit: Oh, and a lot of emphasis on the process of elimination--getting them to find wrong answers to increase their chances of guessing correctly.

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Hi Glenski:

With TOEFL - and that kind of serious teaching load, you might want to
consider asking your school to invest $40 to $60 in something like this:

http://www.longman.com/ae/marketing/toefl/

[Glenski]

Thank you , Kent and Denise, for your suggestions.

Anyone else, please? Hard to believe there aren't more ideas.

[Celeste]

For TOEIC and TOEFL prep, I also teach speed reading strategies. I think it is also important to have lots of extensive reading as well as inntensive reading strategies. I would try to do a few classes on tone. (exercises on changing articles from casual to formal language and vice versa) I generally have the opposite problem- at my workplace we offer a course that is essentially billed as "How to pass the TOEIC" and consists of 4 lessons of 3 hours each. (Pain in the butt to write new curriculum for every year!)

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Konichiwa Glenski-san:

You've probably found most of these already, but just in case:


http://www.testmagic.com/

http://www.english-test.net/toefl/index.html

http://www.englishtestprep.com/toefl/index.htm

http://www.learn4good.com/languages/spec_english_toefl.htm

http://www.emse.fr/%7Eyukna/ENG/lessons/english.htm#TOEFL

http://www.english-online.org.uk/toefl/toeflhome.htm

http://esl.about.com/cs/toefl/a/a_toefl_2.htm

http://supervoca.net/example/toefl.html

http://www.tesol.net/toefl.links.html

http://www.examenglish.com/

http://www.free-toefl.com/

http://www.eslgold.com/


All of the above links offer free TOEFL content, although 1 or 2 require registration.

[moonraven]

Over the years I have paired physical actions with listening exercises and that seems to help with memory--can't tell you why, but it does. Some students suggested that the activities (more or less calisthenics) cause more oxygewn to flow to the brain....

It also keeps TOEFL listening exercises such as minimal pairs from boring people into comas.

[Glenski]

moonraven,
Please elaborate on your "physical actions" that students do. I'm not about to have kids exercise while taking part in listening exercises, but I would welcome knowing more about what you do...exactly.

[once again]

From my experience of teaching TOEFL..you may also need to give them a crash course in American history so they can contextulize the reading comprehension passages. Not to say that TOEFL is culturally biased in any way whatsoever.

[been_there]

Loads of good ideas: just also remember to throw in some test-taking skills, like Diane mentioned; eliminating the wrong answer, pacing yourself so you answer ALL the questions, reading the answers first (for the reading section), remembering key words (listening section), stuff like that.

[moonraven]

Glenski: The pairing of physical activity with listening comprehension exercises has been shown to stimulate retention. Someone with whom I work brought up information about this earlier today, so this is not something I cooked up out of the whole cloth. If you don't want to use this information with your groups, don't. But don't be snide.

[Glenski]

Here we go again. Moonraven, I was not being snide. I was not doubting any scientific validity to adding some exercise to studying (English).

I just wanted to know what it was that you had your students doing in the classroom. Is that so hard to understand?

You often write about putting your students in discussion groups, nothing more. What "physical activity" do you have them do to accompany this?

[Guy Courchesne]

Outside of TOEFL prep classes, I've sometimes used the physical acitivty of tossing around a crumpled up ball of paper during quick vocab or pronunciation drills. I find the physcial activity adds a little fun to the class as well as a new dimension for retaining the language.

More direct...for practice, I've used charades, and for communicative activities, I've used silent physical activity for students to show understanding when receiving directions (go left, pick up the ball, jump) from other students. Kids stuff I'll admit.

[moonraven]

No--You WERE rude and snide. As usual. Since you said you had no interest in incorporating any of the activities that I do--which are far more wide-ranging in scope that "putting students in discussion groups" (which, by the way I do NOT do; I use a cooperative learning model, which means students WORK in groups)--why bother to engage me on this forum?

"Calisthenics" covers a multitude of activities--for the minimal pairs activities there is a different position to assume for answer A, B, C and D. Students can do some of the arm and leg positions while seated. They can do other positions (squat for A, jump in place for B, etc.) while standing. They can also run to different corners of the classroom. Actually, what they can do is pretty much unlimited.

These exercise activities help sedentary students literally get off their butts in the learning process. And for younger, more active learners, they help in blowing off steam while learning.

[Glenski]