"Five Must-Ask Questions for TOEIC Exam Preparation in ESL Teaching: My Approach as an English Instructor"
By Juliana Bustamante
Generally students have been studying English for many years (mostly since junior high school) and have had good and bad experiences learning English: as you know, they either like it or hate it!
Whether students enjoy learning English or not, language exams and international language certifications are very stressful for college students because they are usually required to get a specific score in order to obtain their diploma or enter an international program.
To help our students obtain their goals, we teachers have to prepare and deliver great and inspiring lessons, no matter our learners' different levels of proficiency, diverse interests or lack of motivation.
Although the class sizes we teach in higher education tend to be large, I believe it’s possible to create customized lessons that specifically target our students’ needs! In the next few lines, I would like to share how you can deliver a dynamic TOEIC preparation course tailored to your own students' needs and interests!
In-classroom needs analysis
At the university level we teachers know that we have to follow a specific syllabus or program outlined by the institution we work for. I’ve found it very useful to run a fast-tracked needs analysis in every one of my groups.
The needs analysis looks just like a survey, and I ask my students to give me their answers either on paper or through discussion.
If you would like to use this model in your classroom, you can download your free needs analysis survey below!
________________
The Survey
1. How would you consider your skills in grammar and business vocabulary?
- Very strong
- Strong
- Weak
- Very weak
2. How do you feel when answering the listening section of TOEIC exam?
- Very confident
- Confident
- Somewhat unconfident.
- Unconfident
3. How do you feel when answering the reading section of TOEIC exam?
- Very confident
- Confident
- Somewhat unconfident.
- Unconfident
4.How do you feel when answering the last part of the TOEIC exam? This is the reading section that contains long texts & charts or graphics.
- Very confident
- Confident
- Somewhat unconfident.
- Unconfident
5. In your own words, how would you summarize your weak and strong points related to the TOEIC test?
_____________
If your students have never done a TOEIC before, you can adapt or change your questions, but the idea is to get a firsthand account of your students' needs and weaknesses regarding the TOEIC exam.
Survey Results
Curious to know my student’s answers? Well, all of them said that they felt comfortable completing the listening section, although they felt they needed more practice. Here are some more of their answers straight from my survey!
Business vocabulary is interesting.
Grammar is boring.
Nobody is strong in grammar.
Reading section of TOEIC is the most difficult and tiring.
I can’t concentrate properly while reading.
I don’t have enough time to answer part 7.
They don’t know how to improve time management.
Part 5 is confusing or very hard.
I don’t know how to use reading strategies effectively.
When I finish the listening section, I am already tired.
TOEIC is very stressful and nerve-racking.
Interesting findings! Don’t you think?
Lesson planning
This is extremely challenging for me because I have groups of 22 or 24 students and as I said before, my goal is to customize the course to my students’ needs as much as possible.
How do I do that?
First of all I take care to analyze my syllabus and find the time to introduce practice activities based on my student’s answers to the survey, then coming up with the activities is just a matter of creativity! In addition, I’ve found that it’s good to help students to understand that any exam preparation has two main paths :
Path 1: Learning and developing strategies that will help them to overcome challenging questions and traps, as well as to maintain focus throughout the duration of the exam.
Path 2: Reinforcing their general knowledge of English grammar and business vocabulary (for TOEIC in this case).
Once this is very clear for your students, it’s time to put it into practice!
What I am describing as Path 1 and 2 may be very obvious for us, but it isn’t for all students. The conjunction of both paths will lead them towards a better strategy for answering the 200 questions in a short period of time and will leave them feeling more confident in using and practicing the English language every day!
Strategy Results
What can you expect as a result from this strategy?
My students all have different skills and backgrounds and have had a variety of experiences in the ESL classroom.
By becoming aware of my students' needs and areas of weakness before teaching the exam, and by teaching them the two paths strategy, I’ve been able to obtain a visible change in their use of techniques and strategies for succeeding on the TOEIC.
If you can put these techniques to work in your classroom, your students will have a changed perception of the TOEIC and improved scores to boot!
Techniques and strategies aside, I know that if by the end of the school year my learners are more confident, motivated and enthusiastic about using English, all my efforts were worth it and I will be more than ready for the next kick-off come September.
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