TOEFL

The TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) is required by almost all
North Indonesian universities as one part of the application process. Many
Americans find that the exam is surprisingly difficult, and familiarity with the format will help prepare you for the complexity of the questions your students might ask. Teaching TOEFL preparation classes is very different from teaching conversation classes in that they require an excellent understanding of English grammar, well beyond what native speakers usually possess. The TOEFL exam is made up of three parts: Listening and Comprehension, Structure and Written Expression, and Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary. Your should be aware that some TOEFL classes are designed specifically to help students "beat the test" by developing test-taking strategies. If you believe that you might be asked to teach TOEFL classes, purchase additional study materials and practice exams before you leave, as they will invariably be more expensive in your destination country and/or half written in the native language.
Other TOEFL preparation books are listed in "Recommended Reading" at the end of this chapter. While you could probably convince the school director that helping students with the Listening Comprehension section would be the best use of your and the students' time given that you are a native speaker, students will also most likely want to ask you grammatical questions from the Structure and Written Expression section. The more preparation you have, either through TESL classes or studying on your own, the better you will be at answering these questions. The following breakdown of sections will give you a better feeling for the exam:
Listening Comprehension Section
This section is arguably the section with which students struggle most, especially if they have never lived in North America. It consists of both short and long dialogues and passages that are read only once to students at the normal rate of speaking, rather than the slowed-down rate of speaking to foreigners that they may be used to. There are four different types of exercises in this section:
Choosing the sentence closest in meaning to the one spoken on the tape
Example: Statement on tape: "Brian hasn't heard from his mother since last month." Possible answers: (A) Brian's mother doesn't hear well. (B) Brian's mother hasn't been in touch. (C) Brian heard his mother's voice. (D) Brian and his mother are close.
Responding to one question that follows a short exchange between two speakers. In this section, a man and a woman have a short dialogue, then test takers are asked a question, usually along the line of "What does the man mean?" or "What does the woman imply?"
Answering several questions about a longer dialogue between two speakers. Questions in this section ask general questions about the dialogue, such as "Where does this conversation probably take place?" and specific questions on what was said, such as "What did the woman do after breakfast?"
Answering specific questions about information contained in a short lecture, such as what you would be asked to do after listening to a professor in a lecture class.
In all of these sections, test takers only hear the sentence, dialogue, or lecture once and the question once. The only thing printed in the test book are the possible answers to the question. The best thing you as a teacher can do to help students is to speak at a normal rate rather than artificially slowing yourself down, and to run through practice exercises with them so that they get used to concentrating on the words read to them and retaining the information long enough to answer up to five questions per reading selection. Also, since many of the sentences and shorter dialogues test idiomatic expressions that cannot be understood by translating each word separately (for example, to "hook up" a telephone), you can help students to identify and make a list of these word combinations for memorization. TOEFL preparation books often have good lists of the most common idiomatic expressions. Make this grueling process of memorization more fun by having an "idiom of the day," and give recognition to the students who can come up with the best sentences using the expression.
Structure and Written Expression Section
Structure Questions
Questions in the structure half of this section involve sentence completion.
1. A student when it is not clear what is expected in the classroom.that should ask
should always ask
always ask
all ways should ask
The previous question tests knowledge of adverb placement, and the answer is (B). When a verb phrase consists of a modal and a main verb, the adverb is placed between them.
2. Experts ____________ feel that they can use this technique to analyze the memories and fears of the patient.
use hypnosis
who hypnosis use
whose hypnosis uses
who use hypnosis

This question tests understanding of dependent clauses, and the answer is (D). The word order in a clause follows the subject-verb-object pattern: who (subject) use (verb) hypnosis (object)
Written Expression Questions
Questions in the written expression half of this section involve identifying errors in the sentences.
1. Written forms of expression have been use since the prehistoric era.
A B C D
This question tests knowledge of verb forms, and the answer is (C). There is no problem with (A) because it is the plural form of a noun and therefore does not require and article. (B) is also correct because its plural form agrees with the subject. (C) is incorrect because the past participle form of "to use" requires an -d ending. (D) is fine because even though "era" is a countable noun, in this case it can be used in the singular.

2. Electricity produced by nature is called static electricity because it exerts a forceful when it is stationary.

A B C D

This question tests word form errors, and the answer is (C). The noun force, not the adjective forceful, is needed in this sentence.

Going through practice exams is not a very productive way to teach a TOEFL class. Studying materials that break down the tested skills into lessons or chapters will save you a lot of agony in breaking down each question and explaining why particular answers are right or wrong, as we have just done. Useful materials do not only help students, for example, identify nouns in a reading passage, but explain that nouns fall into two categories—count nouns (which have singular and plural forms) and noncount nouns (which have only one form—information, rice, water, oxygen, mathematics). Understanding this difference helps students to understand why a sentence should read "Mathematics is my favorite subject" rather than taking a plural form of the verb. Useful materials will give lists of these types of nouns, and exercises to practice their use.

Once you have gone through the lessons and exercises with students, it is still up to you as a teacher to keep the class lively, otherwise your students may lose interest in this admittedly tedious task. The "More Activities" section above includes some grammar games that can be adjusted to suit beginning classes (nouns and verbs) or more advanced ones (prepositional phrases, comparatives and superlatives).
Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Section
Vocabulary
The format of this section will be familiar to any North American who has taken a standardized exam. In the first half, a sentence with an underlined word is given. Test takers then have to identify a synonym to the underlined word from the four possibilities.
An efficient computer can run several programs simultaneously.
at the same time
at the same speed
in the same way
in the same sequence

Reading Comprehension

In the second half of this section, a passage, usually from a college textbook, is presented and test-takers are asked to answer several questions about the information contained in the selection. Some of these questions relate to specific facts in the text, others ask for the main topic or theme of the selection, still others ask about what can be inferred from the selection (implied information, the author's tone). TOEFL preparation texts give hints as to how test takers can go through this section more quickly (i.e. reading the questions first, then searching for the answers in the text) but you as a teacher can only do so much to prepare your students for this section. There is no way to predict the topics of the reading passages or the vocabulary they will test. You can only recommend that students get their hands on whatever English textbooks they can—biology, chemistry, psychology, economics, geography, business, history, art, music, and literature—and that they study the vocabulary in them at home. You may want to make copies of selections that you find or provide some class time to answer questions on certain vocabulary words. Remember that getting the general idea of what type of language is used in college texts is much more important than understanding every single word.