The saddest e-mails I get from students who need to take the TOEFL are those that ask, “Can you help me? I need to take the TOEFL iBT soon – one even said ‘next week.’ ” I received another a few days ago. I don’t like to answer those e-mails, because the answer is often, “No, I can’t.”
It takes time
It takes time to develop general language ability. It takes time to develop academic language ability. It takes time to develop academic skills. And it takes time to learn test-taking strategies. Three weeks, or sometimes even three months, are not enough!
To succeed on the TOEFL, you will need all of those:
- conversational English
- academic English
- academic skills, such as essay writing
- test-taking skills
What to do
As soon as you know that you need to take the TOEFL, you should do two things:
- Become familiar with the TOEFL. A good place to start is to take the TOEFL tour. You can find more information in a post called Check out the TOEFL that I wrote for the ESL Podcast blog.
- Evaluate (measure) your English ability and academic and test-taking skills.
Here are two good ways to to evaluate your skills:
- Take the TOEFL practice test (Check out the links at the bottom of the page.). You should do this as soon as possible and, again, during your preparation process to see how you are doing. One of my recent students, a nurse from Taiwan who is preparing to do graduate work in the U.S. has been doing this, and it has been very helpful.
- Talk to a good, experienced TOEFL tutor, especially one with college or university teaching experience. A good tutor can help you evaluate your language, academic, and test-taking skills and suggest specific ways to improve them.
After you know your strengths and weaknesses, you will have a much better idea of what you need to do to get ready for the TOEFL.
Academic English is changing
If you expect to simply memorize information from your textbooks and lecture notes, you may have a rude (sudden, unpleasant) surprise when you come to an American college or university. Today students need to do much more. They need to be able use all the language skills – reading, listening, speaking, writing – inside and outside of the classroom, alone and in collaboration (working together) with other students, to investigate, create, and report. The old idea – that the purpose of teachers is to pass their knowledge on to the students – is dying. Instead, a new idea – that the purpose of the teacher is to help students learn how to learn for themselves – is growing. And, with the new idea, a new set of language skills is needed. Those are the skills the TOEFL iBT is designed to measure.
Don’t wait! Start now to prepare for the TOEFL.
Warren Ediger
warren [at] successfulenglish [dot] com
