Korean Job Discussion Forums

[50 Won]

Seasons greetings! I'm starting a new job teaching TOEFL(speaking) to middle and high school students next week. I'd appreciate any advice or ideas that you might wish to share. Also, your past and present experiences, both good and bad would be most helpful.

Gom-bey!

[ddeubel]

Ain't nothing like the real thing baby....

Meaning, go at it direct on. Photocopy the test booklets, run test after test, practice, practice, practice. Ain't no way around the real thing....

DD

Sorry if this is rather short shrift advice but it is all that really can be said of value here...

[gang ah jee]

[ddeubel]

Opps, I have to slow down. Didn't see the (speaking) part. Sorry.

But I would do a lot of real active listening exercises. When playing, don't be afraid to stop the cd and ask students to respond. This keeps it "live' and real rather than passive.

Do a lot of practice using gambits, situational phrases which the students through repeated use, will then acquire.

DD

[Missile Command Kid]

TOEFL speaking is one of the more difficult sections of the iBT TOEFL exam. Six components, 20 minutes total:

1) Personal experience
2) Personal preference
3) Integrated speaking I
4) Integrated speaking II
5) Conversation
6) Lecture

Personal preference & personal experience have students speaking about basic topics. The kicker is that they only have 15 seconds to prepare a response, then 45 seconds to speak. Not very long at all. Integrated speaking I and Conversation both involve listening to a conversation. ISI, however, asks students to read a short passage before commenting on the spoken conversation. Integrated speaking II and Lecture both involve listening to a lecture. Same as before, ISII has students reading a short passage before the lecture starts. ISII and Lecture are the most difficult part of this exam. Don't quote me on this, but prep for ISI and ISII is read for 45 seconds, prepare for 20 seconds, speak for 60 seconds; prep for Conversation and Lecture is 30 seconds, speak for 60 seconds.

Teaching tips: in my opinion, if you're teaching the TOEFL exam, your students better be learning how to write and speak with other teachers. You need to focus on getting your kids very familiar with the test format and leave nitty-gritty details like grammar to other teachers. You will need to teach note-taking - EXTREMELY important for the spoken section - and other speaking-related skills such as enunciation, clarity, and pacing. In a testing situation, native speakers of English tend to make their response one long sentence: "This happened, and that happened, and this happened again, and that happened again, and then this happened..." You need to get your kids to practice full stops: "This happened. Next, that happened. Later, this other thing happened." It's much easier to listen to, and they'll score much higher if they do this. This is a priority and is very easy to stress while they practice.

And with that, the heart of my advice: practice, practice, practice. Get your hands on a good TOEFL book that has plenty of practice questions and a CD so your throat won't go hoarse from reading conversations and lectures. You also need to record your students with a tape so they can get used to speaking to a machine, not a human. It embarasses the kids to no end to have to listen to themselves speak, but it really, really helps them to hear what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. Also, it helps *you*, because it gives you a second (and third, and fourth, and fifth...) time to critique their speaking abilities. Don't hesitate in ripping their speaking habits apart, and continually stress that this is just practice, so they shouldn't feel embarassed. Others might disagree, but I've really struggled with giving homework for a TOEFL-S class. The entire speaking section is only 20 minutes long; what's the use in giving somebody homework to practice a response that they will only have 15, 20, or 30 seconds to prepare in real life? If somebody else disagrees, please respond! I'd personally love to hear it.

I would strongly recommend that they do real practice tests every quarter at the very least. Yes, this costs your school money, but it's an invaluable way of tracking progress, much more effective than any marking scheme you could come up with. I've done practice tests that I've created and online tests, and the online tests were by far better.

Not sure what else to say. I'd like to stress again that somebody who's teaching TOEFL-S should *only* be teaching the test, and shouldn't be spending time on grammar or other points of spoken English. To get a perfect score on the TOEFL-S exam, you need to be an intelligent, native speaker of English - it's not only challenging, it's extremely stressful. Knowing the test is only half the battle; they need to speak like native speakers too. Hope this helps!

[50 Won]

Thank you all, I appreciate the feedback!