halo, my name is Nicholas. i am from Bina Nusantara English Club. it is an english club in indonesia. we want to open a toefl class in our club, so we need to recruit the tutors. but i don't know the requirements for being a toefl teacher. so can you help me, please?
thx...
requirement for being a toefl teacher
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stefranicus
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:06 pm
- Location: indonesia
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toeflsmeagle
- Posts: 42
- Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:02 pm
TOEFL iBT 101: Independent Teacher-Training
Nicholas,
This is Roger in Korea, going here by the name of "toeflsmeagle." I teach TOEFL at the institute where I work. I have no credentials, other than an MA in TESL, a few years in Korea, and experience teaching elsewhere. I have not gone through any specialized certification program to teach TOEFL. I was put on the assignment by virtue of taking a previous teacher's classes.
When I stared teaching TOEFL here, I was clueless, and I was too stubborn, too pathetic, or too evasive to do the research I needed in order to do the job properly. Feedback on my courses was extremely dismal. I had a bad attitude about the class, and apparently it showed. However, because I had very poor feedback on my TOEFL classes, I found I had to repair my reputation, so I researched TOEFL thoroughly, and found out the information I needed.
Instead of being one of my burdens, it became my own personal project. I became utterly selfish about learning everything I could about TOEFL; as Ayn Rand showed, a rational selfishness is essential to one's zest for life (including for teaching). After all, taking on the TOEFL iBT means learning all the things I am not so good at: organizational skills, straightforward lateral planning, exacting assessment tools, etc. Taking this project on meant challenging my weaknesses and unleashing my strengths.
The result is that now my students appreciate my TOEFL classes, and there's even a waiting list to get in -- and they're doing great work! So I went from rotten to golden, and I turned I class I hated into a class I love.
I recommend the following sources of information:
1) the ETS website, which is http://www.ets.org, I believe. It has suggestions, PDFs, and all kinds of other material.
2) Google for TOEFL iBT Tips. A PDF exists out there that has ALL the important information on the new iBT TOEFL. I prefer to teach that rather than any other form of TOEFL, because the others will become outdated sooner than Asians believe.
3) On the ETS website, look for the workshop manual. ETS has published a teacher-training manual for the TOEFL iBT. I have it. It has all kinds of information in there on rating essays, rating spoken work, and there are even examples of the speech on CD-ROM. It's a MUST book if you REALLY want a good TOEFL program. It cost me 79 US dollars for the book plus the overnight shipping. An excellent expense for me and my students!
4) In the TOEFL iBT Tips PDF, there is a list of websites and suggestions for TOEFL iBT preparation. Here they are speaking directly to students, but their advice is easily adaptible to teachers.
5) Check out websites at American universities, especially those that have active Writing Centers that supply additional help. The OWL in Purdue, the Writing Center at Central Missouri State University (where I used to work), and other places have websites with wonderful supplementary materials.
6) About.com has an ESL page. More TOEFL links are there, I'm sure, though I've used about.com only for IELTS, the next summit to conquer.
7) Also, try to find the TOEFL writing topics on the 'Net. They exist in many formats: PDF, website, and website with links to samples.
8) Use the advice that the TOEFL iBT Tips PDF gives and supplement that with websites not aiming particularly at TOEFL preparation. Don't be afraid to bring in non-TOEFL materials that are helpful to accomplishing TOEFL ends. Did you know that the PDF doesn't recommend buying a TOEFL preparation book? They're not AGAINST doing that, but instead they recommend tasks for preparation without using such a book. You could conceivably build a course around their suggestions, and ignore TOEFL prep materials out there.
9) However, there are some great materials available. For one, there's the Longman Preparation for the TOEFL iBT, which I use. Also available are books even better than the Longman (why I don't use those books is a long story, but you can avoid the mistake I made). Two books stand out: i) the McGraw-Hill Official Guide to the TOEFL iBT, which ETS endorses; and ii) the Northstar Preparation for the TOEFL iBT, which is based loosely on the Pearson-Longman series, and which ETS partly wrote.
10) Keep in mind that there are coursebooks that are useful for TOEFL preparation but were not specifically designed for that. I currently use "Raise the Issues" by Carol Numrich, which is a four-skills book that is based on radio broadcasts from National Public Radio (aka NPR). Also part of that series are "Consider the Issues" and "Face the Issues." You may also want to consider "Impact Issues," part of the "Impact" fleet of books. This has listening and articles and may be helpful for a lower class that wants TOEFL preparation. For such books, however, much supplementation will be necessary.
11) Then again, there's also yours truly to contact. Go to my URL at http://www.angelfire.com/indie/tesolzone and find the link to my e-mail. You may want to mention that you're Nicholas from Indonesia.
12) And there are probably other things I could mention, but I'm getting sleepy, and need to tend to business.
A word of encouragement: the new TOEFL is worth learning about and the older ones are not, as far as I am concerned. I have no motivation to prepare students for the earlier computer-based and paper-based tests. They do not lend themselves to a dynamic, involved classroom, at least when I taught to those tests. And it;s better to prepare them for the preferred test. I understand there are legitimate situations for doing PBT and CBT preparation, so I don't want to veto that idea completely. But absent such unusual conditions, I'd prepare your students for the iBT
And that's another thing: DON'T teach to the test! Teach the skills, give them the practice they need, expose them to skills and knowledge that they need to get an excellent score, but treat the materials as means toward greater learning and greater facilitation with English. Of course, it's great to have students who WANT to get to a US college and who have that concrete goal in mind. You are not ther to have them "crack" a test, but rather to show their intelligence in managing academically-demanding English. If I think of myself as preparing them for a test, I would feel as if I were trying to have them cheat the college entrance system. This is not about test preparation, but it is about learning content (as occurs in reading and listening tasks) and of communicating knowledge and opinions (as occurs in the speaking and writing tasks). With the iBT, there is no more temptation to beat the system. This new test is the fairest one of all.
Well, now I really need to turn in. Keep up the search. Nicholas, but you might as well start your own in-house TOEFL iBT teacher preparation camp. Spend the money necessary, and you'll get all kinds of excellent results.
Roger
"toeflsmeagle"
This is Roger in Korea, going here by the name of "toeflsmeagle." I teach TOEFL at the institute where I work. I have no credentials, other than an MA in TESL, a few years in Korea, and experience teaching elsewhere. I have not gone through any specialized certification program to teach TOEFL. I was put on the assignment by virtue of taking a previous teacher's classes.
When I stared teaching TOEFL here, I was clueless, and I was too stubborn, too pathetic, or too evasive to do the research I needed in order to do the job properly. Feedback on my courses was extremely dismal. I had a bad attitude about the class, and apparently it showed. However, because I had very poor feedback on my TOEFL classes, I found I had to repair my reputation, so I researched TOEFL thoroughly, and found out the information I needed.
Instead of being one of my burdens, it became my own personal project. I became utterly selfish about learning everything I could about TOEFL; as Ayn Rand showed, a rational selfishness is essential to one's zest for life (including for teaching). After all, taking on the TOEFL iBT means learning all the things I am not so good at: organizational skills, straightforward lateral planning, exacting assessment tools, etc. Taking this project on meant challenging my weaknesses and unleashing my strengths.
The result is that now my students appreciate my TOEFL classes, and there's even a waiting list to get in -- and they're doing great work! So I went from rotten to golden, and I turned I class I hated into a class I love.
I recommend the following sources of information:
1) the ETS website, which is http://www.ets.org, I believe. It has suggestions, PDFs, and all kinds of other material.
2) Google for TOEFL iBT Tips. A PDF exists out there that has ALL the important information on the new iBT TOEFL. I prefer to teach that rather than any other form of TOEFL, because the others will become outdated sooner than Asians believe.
3) On the ETS website, look for the workshop manual. ETS has published a teacher-training manual for the TOEFL iBT. I have it. It has all kinds of information in there on rating essays, rating spoken work, and there are even examples of the speech on CD-ROM. It's a MUST book if you REALLY want a good TOEFL program. It cost me 79 US dollars for the book plus the overnight shipping. An excellent expense for me and my students!
4) In the TOEFL iBT Tips PDF, there is a list of websites and suggestions for TOEFL iBT preparation. Here they are speaking directly to students, but their advice is easily adaptible to teachers.
5) Check out websites at American universities, especially those that have active Writing Centers that supply additional help. The OWL in Purdue, the Writing Center at Central Missouri State University (where I used to work), and other places have websites with wonderful supplementary materials.
6) About.com has an ESL page. More TOEFL links are there, I'm sure, though I've used about.com only for IELTS, the next summit to conquer.
7) Also, try to find the TOEFL writing topics on the 'Net. They exist in many formats: PDF, website, and website with links to samples.
8) Use the advice that the TOEFL iBT Tips PDF gives and supplement that with websites not aiming particularly at TOEFL preparation. Don't be afraid to bring in non-TOEFL materials that are helpful to accomplishing TOEFL ends. Did you know that the PDF doesn't recommend buying a TOEFL preparation book? They're not AGAINST doing that, but instead they recommend tasks for preparation without using such a book. You could conceivably build a course around their suggestions, and ignore TOEFL prep materials out there.
9) However, there are some great materials available. For one, there's the Longman Preparation for the TOEFL iBT, which I use. Also available are books even better than the Longman (why I don't use those books is a long story, but you can avoid the mistake I made). Two books stand out: i) the McGraw-Hill Official Guide to the TOEFL iBT, which ETS endorses; and ii) the Northstar Preparation for the TOEFL iBT, which is based loosely on the Pearson-Longman series, and which ETS partly wrote.
10) Keep in mind that there are coursebooks that are useful for TOEFL preparation but were not specifically designed for that. I currently use "Raise the Issues" by Carol Numrich, which is a four-skills book that is based on radio broadcasts from National Public Radio (aka NPR). Also part of that series are "Consider the Issues" and "Face the Issues." You may also want to consider "Impact Issues," part of the "Impact" fleet of books. This has listening and articles and may be helpful for a lower class that wants TOEFL preparation. For such books, however, much supplementation will be necessary.
11) Then again, there's also yours truly to contact. Go to my URL at http://www.angelfire.com/indie/tesolzone and find the link to my e-mail. You may want to mention that you're Nicholas from Indonesia.
12) And there are probably other things I could mention, but I'm getting sleepy, and need to tend to business.
A word of encouragement: the new TOEFL is worth learning about and the older ones are not, as far as I am concerned. I have no motivation to prepare students for the earlier computer-based and paper-based tests. They do not lend themselves to a dynamic, involved classroom, at least when I taught to those tests. And it;s better to prepare them for the preferred test. I understand there are legitimate situations for doing PBT and CBT preparation, so I don't want to veto that idea completely. But absent such unusual conditions, I'd prepare your students for the iBT
And that's another thing: DON'T teach to the test! Teach the skills, give them the practice they need, expose them to skills and knowledge that they need to get an excellent score, but treat the materials as means toward greater learning and greater facilitation with English. Of course, it's great to have students who WANT to get to a US college and who have that concrete goal in mind. You are not ther to have them "crack" a test, but rather to show their intelligence in managing academically-demanding English. If I think of myself as preparing them for a test, I would feel as if I were trying to have them cheat the college entrance system. This is not about test preparation, but it is about learning content (as occurs in reading and listening tasks) and of communicating knowledge and opinions (as occurs in the speaking and writing tasks). With the iBT, there is no more temptation to beat the system. This new test is the fairest one of all.
Well, now I really need to turn in. Keep up the search. Nicholas, but you might as well start your own in-house TOEFL iBT teacher preparation camp. Spend the money necessary, and you'll get all kinds of excellent results.
Roger
"toeflsmeagle"
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StephenfromNZ
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 12:34 pm
- Location: Tangshan, Hebei, China.
TOEFL teaching
Interesting and helpful post Roger.
TOEFL and IELTS preparation are growing and lucrative areas in China where rising incomes are permitting many families to send their (only) child abroad. Many "language schools" are tapped into it and have Chinese English teachers doing most of the work teaching exam skills.
In terms of native English speakers teaching these exams skills, I think we do have something to offer, especially if we come from a Western university background.
Cambridge English Teacher has an online IELTS training course, but it seems you recommend doing our own custom preparation for teaching TOEFL.
I'm not sure if you're still in the industry, but regards anyway.
Stephen in north-east China
TOEFL and IELTS preparation are growing and lucrative areas in China where rising incomes are permitting many families to send their (only) child abroad. Many "language schools" are tapped into it and have Chinese English teachers doing most of the work teaching exam skills.
In terms of native English speakers teaching these exams skills, I think we do have something to offer, especially if we come from a Western university background.
Cambridge English Teacher has an online IELTS training course, but it seems you recommend doing our own custom preparation for teaching TOEFL.
I'm not sure if you're still in the industry, but regards anyway.
Stephen in north-east China