Ive been teaching for 4 months and I have group TOEFL prep class for 3 hours once a week, plus a private TOEFL PREP class 2 x 2hours every week. 

 

I �m finding this quite difficult to prepare for as well teach my usual daily classes as I am having to learn the test, how to grade it appropriately and how to teach exam prep technique for the student (as well as the teacher).

 

It �s quite overwhelming and I �m worried because it �s a huge responsibility - I will effect whether these people will be accepted in university or not!  It scares me a little.  I know I �m doing a good job as a teacher in my ADV and UPP INT classes - but this is a different kettle of fish!

 

Any advice or observations?

 

 

 

1. There is this author Longman who has a book to practice TOEFL, the key of this book is some tips the author teaches you so your students can crack the exam easily.

2. Make them read "The Economist", national geographic and BBC, they all have webpages where you can find news or interesting articles. The reading part of the TOEFL can be difficult because we are not use to read scientific, history or any high level of english literature. So get them used to be in touch with new vocabulary and to make them understand what they are reading is so important.

3. Do the exam by yourself so you can know what you are teaching, www.free-english.com has great and free toefl practices online, really similar to what you will find if you do the exam on paper or in the computer.

4. Learn that the grammar part is easy if you learn to recognize the basic structures or grammar rules, there is always a verb missing, a pronoun that is wrong, and adverb instead of and adjective, verbs in a wrong time, articles where they are not need, etc.

5. The listening section maybe the easy one, but they need to be concentrated and they need to train themselves to listen and remember most of the important things in the conversation.

6. Test practices are the key of this exam, it is a long test so you have to be prepared physically to be in a chair for a long time, concentrate a lot, and read carefully so you can spot the mistakes in the grammar section, or so you can fill in the gaps what is missing. The same for the listening pay attention and understand the conversations, for the reading part read carefully and read more than once if you need.

 

There is plenty of exams online you can use for them to practice they even tell you your mistakes.

 

Hope you find this helpful, it was for me and I recently did the exam with a 590 score, wish I get more but not bad for someone who did it like four times and always get like 524.