TOEFL course design question

[voxangelorum]

Hello,

this is my first post. I have just recently finished designing my own 12-week course for iBT TOEFL prep. Basically I took one of the models from one of the few available books and I injected a whole lot of review and even more pure skills-enrichment. That's a gross summarization but the result took me about 4-5 days of planning and compiling. But I still wonder about how it measures up to other courses and I have been looking for syllabuses (syllabae?) with which to compare. Even as I write this I know I wouldn't just hand over all that work for free but I also know that when I took my TESL certification there was a two-page list my prof gave me on internet resources (different teacher from iBT workshop.) I've found testden practice test, and other TOEFL prep.s and none of that is what I'm after.

In my iBT workshop and in my TESL certification course, I studied and had a whole lot of practice in creating lesson plans and practicing and critiquing them as well. But I never had to design a 12-week stretch and I think TESL would be easier than TOEFL anyway. I'm thinking the process must be slightly more self-directing than the sorts of activities I'm doing - religiously studying the students' progress and making daily changes to the materials to address apparent deficits (especially trends).

I'm allowing this to happen because I know from a community of public school-teacher friends that every new teacher (in the public school system anyway) has a 'hump' of a few years where they build up their repertoire and then (comparatively) relax just modifying that core body of material over the subsequent years, and if that's what a regular TOEFL teacher (private school, no prep time paid) does then I could live with that, assuming it gets easier.

But at the moment I am mostly just wondering if I am the only resident in Up-To-My-Earsville Course Design, TOEFL country. I'm not even sure this is a legitimate question, I'm just feeling that this is wrong somehow and wondering if anybody concurs. I am finding that my nights and parts of my weekends are gone as I ascend to this task and I'm thinking, "this can't be what everyone else is doing, can it?"

-TOEFLaholic i.s.o. 12-step program

[joshua2004]

Hello,

Basically I took one of the models from one of the few available books and I injected a whole lot of review and even more pure skills-enrichment.

I am finding that my nights and parts of my weekends are gone as I ascend to this task and I'm thinking, "this can't be what everyone else is doing, can it?"

I think the tactic you are taking in preparing them for the toefl might be causing the problem. It sounds like you are doing skill building. Targeting specific skills to teach them for the toefl. There is so much to cover and don't even get me started on retention.

I approach the toefl in a more "testing skills" and "whole language" approach. I am preparing my students for the format of the tests by giving them practice tests and discussing strategies for each section. And I approach the skills by doing large amounts of reading and listening activities. I think of whole language as using a shotgun to kill a fly. In reading diverse and interesting materials, you cover virtually all aspects of language skills. The rest can be targeted and taught. It also doesn't hurt to teach the straight forward rules like using are/is.

I believe a student learns more English from the discussion of grammar than from being "taught" it.

Lastly, you definitely need to find a different way to structure your class. Some common strategies involve not assigning work that requires lots of your revision or grading. If you are reading an article for class, find many ways of using it. For example:
asking comprehension questions. Dictate the questions to students and have them write them down. Then they check spelling.
make a worksheet where you take out some words from the article and have a student, or you, read the complete article and they fill in the blanks.
Take out the sentences from the article and split them in two. Students have to put the parts correctly together.
There are many things you could do with one article that would be effective toefl prep. www.breakingnewsenglish.com has lots of activities that I think are good prep for toefl. I also use http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/index.cfm a lot.

[voxangelorum]

...actually I am using a kind of testing and emerging 'skills deficits' address approach, which involves studying the students and picking specific exercises for trends spotted in diagnostic pre-tests. I didn't make that clear but it'd have been too much to cover anyway. But thanks for the reply. Something you said gave me an idea for a curriculum tweak.

You're definitely preaching to the choir about whole language approach, (and grammar in context and other similar tesl concepts.) But I am finding that even in larger waves of integrated skills activities the students' progress results seem to suggest a need to alternate between periods of activities that lean on input skills vs. output skills, at least according to what they are demonstrating. I am happy though that there does seem to be some retention and development going on.

As it turns out, I am having to work less and less for the course (it is really directing itself) and the students seem to be very happy... at least for the moment. So in hindsight I guess I was just getting over the hump so to speak.

[joshua2004]

I am glad you are not working so much on the course. I really understood it as that and was hoping you would find a way to make it easier on yourself but it sounds like you know what your doing and it is all working out.

Josh