New TOEFL teachers are from one of three camps: those who primarily have ESOL experience, those who have taught other standardized tests more, and those who\u2019ve taught little or none of either. The most common of those three, as far as I\u2019ve seen, is the first group, so this post will focus primarily on that aspect. In other words, we\u2019re not going to address the more general issues of teaching ESOL here; I\u2019m assuming you already have some background in teaching English.<\/p>\n
The question here is how the teach the TOEFL, <\/i>specifically.<\/p>\n
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Put the fill-in-the-blanks worksheet away. Sure, grammar exercises are a great way to learn the rules, but they\u2019re a stepping stone toward a much larger goal\u2014correct grammar in<\/i> communication<\/i>\u2014and the TOEFL is an advanced test. Your students should already have seen the vast majority of the basic rules of English before.<\/p>\n
In other words, your students will generally need practice using<\/i> English more than they\u2019ll need to learn about how<\/i> to use it.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean you should shy away from teaching grammar entirely, but as much as possible, focus on correcting student-generated written and spoken mistakes. Let the students guide their own grammar improvement by revealing where their weaknesses lie. If they honestly haven\u2019t learned a grammar point before, then yes, it\u2019s worth breaking out that workbook. But if they\u2019ve studied the third conditional multiple times, there\u2019s not that much point in bringing it back in the same old way. Instead, remind students of the rules when they make mistakes, and fix the issues organically.<\/p>\n
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As is always true in ESOL, most students have a weak area or two. They may have a lot of experience speaking with coworkers or friends but no real experience writing in academic English. Or it\u2019s possible that they\u2019ve studied English entirely through grammar- and vocabulary-based exercises and are completely uncomfortable with speaking.<\/p>\n
The TOEFL, then, will present a challenge or two for most students; they\u2019ll have to use their weakest English skill, and they\u2019ll have to do so under pressure. Know your students and know what they need. If speaking is a source of stress, be sure to give your students time in class to practice it. Remember that a straight lecture is boring and relatively unproductive. You need to give students the opportunity to speak, write, and correct themselves in order to really engage them and get some effective practice.<\/p>\n
One of the better ways to get that experience is to do practice TOEFL questions constantly<\/a>. After all, the TOEFL isn\u2019t just<\/i> a test of how well students can get by in real world situations; it\u2019s also a test of how well they can deal with the specific format of the test itself.<\/p>\n But if you have longer, more intensive lessons, be sure to break up that TOEFL-specific practice with other formats to keep your students engaged. Formal debates are a great way to get everybody speaking and set up a friendly competition. Chain stories (with peer proofreading and required vocabulary words!) offer a fantastic creative outlet and help break from the eternally dull 5-paragraph essay that students should be practicing for the essay. There are tons of ways to get students using English and having fun\u2014don\u2019t be afraid to break from the test and use them every now and then.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And now, we come to the elephant in the room. Teaching the TOEFL is more than just teaching English. To an enormous extent, it\u2019s about learning the test.<\/i> In order to be a really outstanding teacher, you have to know every detail about how the test is built so you can relay that on to students.<\/p>\n To that end, the first thing you should do is get to know the official<\/a> material<\/a>. Do every single ETS practice test you can get your hands on. And as you work through those tests, think carefully about two things:<\/p>\n Getting in the heads of both students and test-makers is the best way to understand good test strategy. Don\u2019t<\/i> blindly trust whatever you see in a text book. There will be times that a book recommends something that\u2019s not a good idea, either for a specific student or in general. You need to know when that\u2019s the case and why, and the best way to do so is to learn the test inside and out.<\/p>\n Once you know the test very well yourself, then it\u2019s time to consider the advice in books.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clearly, not every classroom will be equally set up any material. In some cases, each student has a computer. In others, the students don’t even have their own book, and the teacher hands out photocopies.\u00a0As is true for all ESOL classrooms, be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of different material formats. Photocopied handouts are great for off-the-syllabus work on\u00a0specific skills that you notice your students lack, but students will inevitably lose them, and they’re bulky, expensive, and time consuming to do regularly. Books are great for getting large classrooms all on the same page, but you have to know when to use and when to skip material within, and they can be expensive for students (TOEFL books in particular). Online practice\u00a0material<\/a>\u00a0is fantastic for\u00a0assigning homework and monitoring students’ progress easily, but it’s not always possible to use during class time if you don’t have\u00a0a connected classroom.<\/p>\n If you’re planning on using a book, be aware that some unofficial books have false information or material that doesn’t simulate the actual TOEFL well. So you\u00a0shouldn\u2019t be getting all of your test knowledge from unofficial books, but even so,\u00a0the right TOEFL book<\/a> will help a lot in teaching test strategy\u2014you\u2019ll find good ideas that you might not have thought of on your own, and you\u2019ll have a wealth of exercises for students to practice the smaller skills necessary for the TOEFL.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re teaching a single student or a small group, you\u2019ll want\u00a0a book with step-by-step exercises, one that focuses on those skills and specific question types. To that end, I highly recommend you own either Cambridge<\/a> or the Complete Guide<\/a> (ideally you should have both to pull from!).<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re teaching a classroom, you need more than that. You also need group and\/or pair exercises and a little bit more variety to keep people engaged. Oxford\u2019s book does that well. You can also come up with those classroom activities yourself, of course, or draw from non-TOEFL materials.<\/p>\n And finally, it\u2019s absolutely vital that you bring some official material into the picture, too. In the course of their studies, every TOEFL student should see the majority of the official practice tests available at least once. Nobody creates TOEFL practice quite like ETS does.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A TOEFL classroom is only partially devoted to the TOEFL itself, in the end. The test asks for comprehension and communication above all else, and that\u2019s the same exact goal that any other ESOL lessons have.<\/p>\nTest Strategy<\/h2>\n
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Appropriate Material<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s Not So Different<\/h2>\n