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[wayne432]

One of my Japanese friends asked if I could help him out by giving him some TOEIC lessons (as he has been giving me Japanese lessons for quite some time). He doesn't want anything he could do on his own (like those TOEIC workbooks you can buy.) He is at a high level in terms of TOEIC.

I was wondering if anyone might have some insight as to how to give him lessons outside of directly drilling him with practice tests. Any recommendations at all would be helpful, thanks.

[wintersweet]

Although it is technically a TOEIC book, I'm about to start using this:
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/elt_projectpage.asp?id=2501049
It's a communicatively-oriented book, which is unusual, rather than yet another book full of practice questions. I think I like it, and it should be different from the drill-drill-drill books he's probably buying off the shelf at the Japanese bookstore. I think I'll have to do some work to adapt it for going through it with my client one-on-one, but I think it'll work.

At any rate, the first thing you need to do is find out where his weak points are. It's hard to give any recommendations until you know that. My Japanese clients have mostly struggled with the listening part, particularly the part with the pictures. I don't know what the real TOEIC questions are like, but the practice ones are often somewhat bizarre, so you have to work on strategies like "what's the LEAST WRONG answer?" But it varies--one client is totally fine on all of the non-grammar reading, whereas another can't get through it because he's spending too much time reading Every. Single. Word. (Not necessary to answer about 75% of the questions.)

Actually, I guess that points out two things I think would be useful: 1) Take an entire practice TOEIC yourself, if you can. I'm in the process of doing so myself. It'll help you get familiar with the style of the test and its timing, etc. 2) Teach some general test-taking strategies, such as predicting the right answer for the grammar "reading" questions, and reading the questions first on the reading-"reading" questions. What strategies he can actually use depend on his actual skills, though--if his grammar is shaky, prediction will backfire, I suspect. Assuming the practice TOEICs I have seen from various companies (including Cambridge) are at all accurate, TOEIC is very aware of "Japanese English" and purposefully includes "Japanese English"-style grammar among the wrong answers.

Some of the correct choices may be subtle and hard to explain--if these are among the things he's having trouble with, and he is capable of reading in English but doesn't, I would suggest that you start reading interesting articles together or help him find engrossing, easy fiction and nonfiction to read on his own. A lot of the TOEIC questions seem to be easy for people who've been exposed to authentic English but difficult for people who've only been around textbook and katakana English/wasei-eigo.

Anyway, just some ideas.

[Glenski]

Do a search for what Joseph Falout has written (2 publications at least) on teaching TOEIC. Good stuff. He (and I in turn) has not done the drill and kill routine that IMO is fairly ineffective to really learn how to achieve a good TOEIC score.

A student first needs to realize that.

A student then needs to find ways to improve reading speed, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension. Falout and I have each done things similarly (me adapting from him) to do just that.

Get your student to reading a lot and studying the new vocabulary. Read the appropriate stuff for TOEIC.

Study how words are built. What makes "industry" and "industrial" different as noun and adjective, for example? Or "industrialize" a verb.

Have him read some easy stuff (like graded readers) daily (Yes!) to keep the English input in general.

I can show you how to practice a "reading sprint" to exercise the basic skills that will enable him to read faster, but it is like going to the gym: it has to be done often. Impress this upon him, too.

Use the Voice of America (VOA) listening sites or Randall's ESL Listening Lab site for listening practice, but Falout has a few other nifty techniques, too, that you can practice together.

Rogers' books on TOEIC have drills but even more. Rogers describes what students should look for. Students should understand how a WH question is formed, compared to a yes/no question, a tag question, a negative question, etc. and how various types of answers are possible. He also shows much more, including the straightforward tips on how to prepare for the test itself (sleep enough, study a little not a lot every day, etc.).

PM me if you want more, or do a search here. I've contributed more on this topic, as have others.

[wintersweet]

Right, I agree with Glenski--my previous GRE students looked at me like I was insane when I advised them to get enough sleep the three or so days before the test. (Recently a Japanese student flat-out told me "We believe that staying up all night studying means you are a good student. Sleeping is being lazy." Uh, OK! Want to compare GRE scores...?) So perhaps you'll need to dig up some reading practice consisting of research comparing test-takers who do overnight cram sessions compared to those who study at a good pace and get their sleep, haha.

Graded readers are a good idea if he is not past that level. I vastly prefer Cambridge's (they have an online placement test, and I think can be purchased at Junkudo) but everyone is different.