HOW TO TEACH A TOEFL OR IELTS CLASS Crucial Advice for ESL or EFL Teachers

General Rules For Teaching TOEFL or IELTS Exercises:

Avoid lecturing unless you are practicing ‘listening to a lecture.’

The students must learn to succeed at the test on their own, the more they can figure things out on their own, the better. Memorization wont solve most things.

Your job is to guide, instruct and facilitate skill building.

As a rule ask lead questions, don't ‘tell’ things.

All the material they need is right in the textbook, your job is to make it comprehensible and as interesting and motivating as possible.

Set Tasks for students to do and let them do it.

Avoid having students do things alone, unless it is a test exercise or self-assessment activity. Pair or group work is crucial to the success of this class.

It is all excellent speaking and listening practice. Peers acquire more language and language skills from each other than from the teacher.

When possible, practice activities in an enjoyable manner.

In groups students can compete at listening, speaking reading or writing tasks. Gentle competition and ‘games’ are useful strategies for fluency and learning skills.

The canned digital audio chunks are useful on many levels, but give some listening practice by actually speaking sections yourself.

Such speech is more natural and students can practice listening for phonemic differences and intonation patterns better.

Constantly encourage students, they will feel overwhelmed.

Your students need to learn how to relax

Yes TOEFL is a serious endeavor, but stress is debilitating and is the primary cause of test-failure. Your students need to learn how to relax a bit while being focused, intent and well practiced. Make sure humor and periods of relaxation are part of the class. Even “Every one stand up! Stretch!” will be a welcome diversion.

Have students sit in different seats every day.

Every student has many things to teach every other student. Since pair and group work is a major part of the class and of the process, make sure they all have a chance to benefit from the skills and knowledge base of each other.

Stay on track but be flexible.

The curriculum is set up so that all major components are covered but there is a a lot to cover. As you progress, feel free to cut some activities or add others. Walk that thin line between getting everything important in but not overloading the students.  If students show real strength in one area or skill, move on to a skill or task they are weak in. Your task is to work most intensely where they are weakest.

Start with a warm-up.

Always start every class with a ‘warm-up’ activity germane to that day’s focus, a useful, enjoyable listening activity for example. You can work on such skills without mentioning TOEFL and it will get them motivated, in the right mental framework and ease them into the ‘serious’ part of the class.

End every class day with ‘wrap-ups.’

This means helping the students bring key information learned together. Such-final wrap-up activities can be oral or written and should be focused but light hearted. A board game reviewing prepositions or an ‘exit ticket’ of summarizing a paragraph are good examples.

No matter what, always put important information, examples and final projects on the board or distribute copies.

In this way what was studied and accomplished will be reinforced and will ‘stick’ with students and they can take notes or handouts and study them later. Some students do better with quiet personal reflection.

Always review what was accomplished the previous class.

Remember, these students have a break in between each class and two days off for the weekend. A review of the previous class and the wrap up/takeaways that ended it will bring them back to the focus and keep the continuity.

Insist that students do their homework and practice the tests and test exercises assigned.

It is the crux of the class! If students arrive without doing them, consider setting them in another room to do the test work they didn't do. The point is that if they don’t do the test work assigned, they will not be in sync with the class and the lessons and will detract from the other students learning.

Always end each day on a positive note.

Be sure to say something positive to each student about their progress. Remember, TOEFL test success is about confidence as well as preparation. Helping students gain that confidence is crucial to their success. Always remember to have some fun every class. Being serious and strict all the time actually inhibits learning!