TOEFL iBT Book Reviews

[Ed Provencher]

I'm currently using these textbooks in a TOEFL iBT prep course for middle school students.

NorthStar Building Skills for the TOEFL iBT (Intermediate)
Lingua TOEFL iBT Core Topic Guide Vol 1-4
TOEFLing Writing Level 2


NorthStar Building Skills for the TOEFL iBT (Intermediate)
This is a great textbook. It is the first of a three part series (Intermediate, High-Intermediate, Advanced). It has a variety of activities for reading, writing, listening, speaking, and integrated tasks. It comes with a cd which is easy to use with the book. I also have the teacher's guide, but I do not recommend it because it doesn't have too many bright ideas for conducting class. The only suggestion I took from it was having the students cover the answers to the pre-listening vocabulary to make guesses about the words' meanings by looking at the context. The book's variety of activities, moderate difficulty, and user friendly layout make it an excellent all-in-one prep book. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the other books in this series.

Lingua TOEFL iBT Core Topic Guide Vol 1-4
These great books are in a 4 volume set. They are filled with 60-80 short academic passages. At the end of each reading passage are 3-5 questions. The following topics are included:

Vol 1 History & the Arts
Vol 2 Social Sciences
Vol 3 Biology, Archeology, & Anthropology
Vol 4 Empirical Sciences

I like to give my students 5 minutes to read a passage and to take notes on the passage. I tell them when there is 2.5 minutes remaining and 1 minute remaining. When the 5 minutes is over, the students take turns summarizing the passage verbally, using only their notes, with a time limit of 1.5 minutes. When they are finished with their verbal summary, or time runs out, I review the passage with them paragraph by paragraph to help them find the important points and the flow of ideas throughout the passage. Finally, I ask the students to answer the questions for me. Depending on the skill of the student, I can do 3-5 of these passages in a 50 minute class. The passages can be really challenging, but I think using the books in this way makes class go by quickly for the students and they gain valuable integrated skills with a time pressure element included.

TOEFLing Writing Level 2
I'm not impressed with this book. It is the third and final book of a series (Starter, Level 1, Level 2). It is written specifically for Korean students, complete with Korean writing in the chapter introductions, and full translations of reading and listening passages into Korean. The Level 2 book is impossible, even for me, a native speaker of English. However, if you are a speaker of Korean, you might like to look into using the Starter and Level 1 books. These two books offer a step-by-step approach to skill building specifically for the TOEFL iBT writing tasks. I am using the Starter book as a supplement to the Level 2 book. It's ridiculous how hard the Level 2 book is. During class I find it diffucult to help students understand the reading and listening passages. I don't know why the publisher made such a huge departure from the format and process of the Starter and Level 1 books.

I've started to supplement my reading class with Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test: iBT Reading. I don't have much to say about this book yet except that it is just like the actual test, meaning students who grapple with the activities in this book will definitely be experiencing relevant practice.

I've recently spent over $200 on TOEFL iBT prep books in search of the perfect book. I have too many to list here and now, but when I have collected enough information to make a comment, I'll post it here. Let me know if you have any questions.

[hancockinc]

I see that you are using different books but what is the best well rounded TOEFL IBT Book? Any thing will help.

[Ed Provencher]

I see that you are using different books but what is the best well rounded TOEFL IBT Book? Any thing will help.

NorthStar Building Skills for the TOEFL iBT (Intermediate)

This is the most rounded of the books I reviewed, because it has a bit of everything in it, and is user friendly. In other words, it is not too challenging for my students and it is an easy book to teach.

However, it does not have practice tests in it and if I could choose the books my students use to prepare for the TOEFL iBT, I'd make sure I was giving them lots of practice tests. That means I would prefer to use books like the Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test: iBT Reading. This test is so hard that I believe students must take practice tests over and over again while developing the strategies for success.

I have not looked at the High-Intermediate, or the Advanced versions of the NorthStar book series, so I can't be sure about them. It's possible that they become more challenging and have practice tests in them.

[eslweb]

I did a round up a while back and I've got plenty of books I wasn't too keen on! You can take a look at: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/exams/TOEFL.html

There's a few handy resources too, so I hope it's handy.

James