TOEFL TEST 19th NOVEMBER

[Paul Brown (MA CELTA)]

Dear students studying hard for the TOEFL test on 19th November,

 Remember to learn the common tricks for grammar, as usually examiners do not ask you about regular grammar so learn about the things which are unusual in english. Sentence correction can usually be learnt by knowing about 30 common irregularities in grammar. Remember if you don't know the answer right away, try to get the answer by using a process of elimination. You have a choice of A,,B,C or D. So if you don't know which one is right, eliminate ( take away ) the ones which cannot be right, so that will increase your chances of guessing right.

For TWE make sure your essay has both structure and ideas, remember while having good ideas is good, it is better to have a solid structure as this ensures that you do not fail.

Let us know your experience both in how you studied and how you get on in the test!

we will offer tips and advice for toefl students too in the future.

have fun, and good luck with studying and the exam!

Paul

[socheat!]

Dear: Mr Brown,

I am so happy to find out that there is a nearby resource which is created by a professional author whose aims is to emprove al the cambodian English learning students's knowledge and skills.

First, I would like to introduce myself to you and to all of the beautiful members who support this site: My name is Socheat, I am a preparatary TOEFL student at the moment.

 Actually, I planed to participate in the 19 November test but I was late to register.However, I am very lucky to be able to register for the 14 January test, why?
Because after this January test, the new format of TOFEL will be replaced, it means that the examinee will also be tested their Speaking ability.

By the way, I post this message to you today because I have several problems that I am facing during the preparation course, and I think maybe others students face the same problems as me either, so I hope you will help me to solve them.

First, I am not sure about the type of essay that I will be tested.
When I prepared for IELTS, I found out that there are only two types of essays ( I mean in task 2) which exist very often in the exam.
How about the TOEFL?

Second, I heard that some students did nothing during the writing exam. Isn't the writing needed anyways?

Third, about the materials, there are lot of books about TOEFL in the market, so it is very difficult for the students to chose the one which provides not only the best tehniques ,but also the right format of practice tests that the students will have during the exam.

Finally, it will be helpful, if you can inform us the TOEFL test date, the name of the centers, and update information about TOFFL on your site.

Yours faithfully,

From: Socheat

[Paul Brown (MA CELTA)]

Hey Socheat,

 Great to have you onboard the fastest growing online english language teaching forum in south east asia!

I will answer your questions as best i can.

I know about the 19th November test as i currently tutor some students towards this exam and all three of them are doing the TWE, the writing part.

Ielts exam actually has 6 types of essay which will also be available once i have time to develop the elearning modules which can be seen on this site.However, you are right in that the "smoking should be banned"Do you agree type is the most common, although beware occasionally you do get one of the other five, so you need to know them all.

The big differences between IELTS writing and TWE writing are

1.TWE publishes the full list of the 155 topics and you will be asked one, this list will be uploaded onto the TWE content section of this site soon as well as some model essays written by students to show the difference between a band 0 through to a band 6, which is the top score. On the other hand, IELTS do not give the list and most students who do ielts find that even though they know a lot about writing stucture, they dont do as well as they should because they have difficulty with the ideas, as they are seeing the exam question on the day itself. As TWE publishes the possible essay titles, if you are properly prepared you should have some ideas about all the topics. So that is a kind of advantage in some ways.

2. The TWE is more personal style of writing, hence most of the 155 questions include the pronoun YOU to indicate that you should personalise your answer.For example, "Some people prefer eating at restaurants while others prefer eating at home, which do YOU prefer", in this way the structure words you can use are expanded to mean that you can use personal opinion structures much more than you can in IELTS.

3. TWE is in cambodia a written test ( not yet available on computer ), this is the same as IELTS except that TWE is 30 mins and IELTS is 40 mins, so this makes knowing structure and being able to use it quickly much more important in TWE.

IS THE TWE OPTIONAL

Yeah, some students can opt not to do the TWE part of the exam, but these are usually students who have been accepted on a course at a foreign University on the premise that they will first do some pre language english learning program before they start their course. If you do the TWE you can get credit to get directly onto an academic program abroad without having to take extra english classes once you get there.

WHAT BOOK IS BEST

ha ha ha, good question, all books contain good parts, but most of them concentrate on practice and more practice, i will soon be developing an online module for the sentence correction part of TOEFL which will show the students the commonly asked questions. Remember you dont have to know everything, you just have to know enough to pass, because it is an exam,

I will have a book review section coming soon too, where i will explain which books are good for which purpose and i will recommend students to buy the ones which are the best.

TOEFL DATES

Yeah, great idea, i will try to keep students informed of all the test dates and centres, this site is just developing, but that is a good idea. I know about the November 19th test as i am training students for that test with TWE myself.

SPEAKING

Actually the speaking part of TOEFL was introduced in January 2005 and the reason was because TOEFL was losing ground to IELTS, more students were taking IELTS as it had a speaking part. Also IELTS was becoming and still is acceptable in US Universities, which never used to be the case before. Anyway luckily for you as i have heard ( i will confirm when i know for sure ) the speaking is based on the same list of topics that you have for TWE. The only annoying thing about the TOEFL speaking section is that you will be expected as far as i know now to talk into a computer, and your voice will be recorded. So it is a bit impersonal. At least in IELTS you get to speak face to face with a person!

Thats about all i can help you with right now, but get all your friends involved in this part of the discussion forum, and when we start the chatrooms, one of the chatrooms will focus on TOEFL.

Thanks for your support, I hope these answers help you a little bit Socheat and welcome to the site, your postings and questions are always welcome,

study hard  :wink:

Paul

[asheap]

Third, about the materials, there are lot of books about TOEFL in the market, so it is very difficult for the students to chose the one which provides not only the best tehniques ,but also the right format of practice tests that the students will have during the exam.

Hello. I am a stutent to prepare the TOEFL test too.
I bought 2 books in Cambodia. As a student,  if i can evaluate both books,

1. The Heinemann TOEFL Preparation Course / Heinemann, M.Kathleen Mahnke & Carolyn B. Duffy

It contains all part of TOEFL test including vocabulary. I like its vocabulrary part which explains how to remember words. According to Korean TOEFL preparing community, its LC part have a tendancy to be longer than LC of the original PBT TOEFL test and it is for intermediate. Their evaluation is
★★★★☆.

2.  TOEFL CBT SUCCESS 2003 (I don't have this book now, so it's name can be incorrect)

I like this book's structure explanation part. BUT it has a severe problem. Some answers of its questions are wrong. For example, some exercise problems consist of 10 questions, but its answers are 12. I think the answer part of this book may be the 2004 or 2005 version of it, and question part is 2003 version. I tried to find exact answer list of it in internet, but failed.
However, according to Korean TOEFL preparing community, its original book is the best TOEFL book written in english, which was evaluated as ★★★★★.

I hope this little information can help you. ^^

[Paul Brown (MA CELTA)]

that is a fantastic idea,

 a book review section from students who have to use the books,

 fantastic idea man!

 if you are testing toefl on November 19th and there are any grammar questions you dont understand, post them up, and the students and me can have a go at them for you,

good luck with your studies,

Paul  :lol:

[Long Sarou]

Dear Paul,

I just want to try on how to post my message. I am not sure it will post on the site or not.

Any way, I am interested very much in toefl test and I always practice to do it everyday, but I am still not good.

I hope it will hope for posting this message.

Thank you!
Sarou