Michael Buckhoff

Michael Buckhoff is the founder, owner, and materials writer for an online TOEFL course. His course is called “The 7-Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT.” The TOEFL mentor has helped 1000’s of students reach their target TOEFL scores since 1994.

Michael Buckhoff: Early Years

In 1985, Michael Buckhoff served a Spanish-speaking mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. On his two-year self-supporting mission, Buckhoff taught the gospel to migrant workers located in Northern California. Many of his contacts could not speak English, so Buckhoff learned Spanish so he could communicate with them. Buckhoff learned the culture, in addition to the language, and developed a sincere love and respect to the people whom he taught.

Buckhoff remembers on one occasion that there was a devastating flood in the Yuba City/Marysville area. In January 1986,  after 30 days of almost continuous rain, the levees containing the raging Yuba River collapsed. The floodwater covered the Marysville area with floodwater which was more than 10 meters deep in some spots.  Buckhoff and other missionaries help the Marysville residents clean their homes after the floodwaters receded.  In some cases, Buckhoff rode on boats with Marysville’s residents to help them retrieve their belongings.  Serving this mission helped Buckhoff appreciate the value of service, especially to the underprivileged members of our society.

Michael Buckhoff: Undergraduate Education

Michael Buckhoff’s love of the people with whom he served in his mission motivated him to pursue an undergraduate degree in Spanish at Brigham Young University. Buckhoff learned teaching methodologies. He took many classes to learn more about the history of Spanish-speaking countries such as Spain, Mexico, and countries in Latin and South America. He studied Spanish literature, grammar, and linguistics extensively.  Near the end of his studies, Buckhoff wrote a research paper exploring the dialect differences between the dialects of Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico and Spain. All of his undergraduate classes were completely in Spanish, so Buckhoff continued to develop his Spanish proficiency. He completed his BA in Spanish in 1992.

Michael Buckhoff: Graduate Education

After completing his BA in Spanish from Brigham Young University,  Buckhoff decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in English Composition at California State University, San Bernardino in 1992 (CSUSB).  Part of his preparation focused on teaching English as a second language (TESL). Therefore, Buckhoff completed 500 and 600 level courses in composition theory, linguistics, and TESL. To complete his MA Degree in English Composition/TESL, Buckhoff wrote a book titled ” The Explicit Teaching of Implicature to ESL Students and its Effect on their Performance on the Listening Section of the Test of English as a Foreign English (TOEFL).

Michael Buckhoff: Teaching Experience

Buckhoff’s  very first teaching job was as an ESL Instructor at the Modern Language and Experience Program at La Sierra University in Riverside, CA from September 1992 to June 1995.  After his interview with Janet Weighall, who was the director of ESL program at the time, Ms. Weighall asked Buckhoff if he could teach a vocabulary class. Buckhoff agreed to teach the class and to his surprise, he only had 10 minutes to prepare for teach the first class.

Michael Buckhoff: Web Development Experience

In 2009, Buckhoff decided to reach out to international students all over the world. Many of these students could not afford to study English or TOEFL at an English Language Program because of the expensive tuition and travel abroad costs.  Therefore, through Better TOEFL Scores, Online TOEFL Course, Quora, You Tube, Twitter, Facebook, and “The 7-Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT,”  Buckhoff has been helping students from more than 60 countries to prepare for the TOEFL iBT.

Better TOEFL Scores

Better TOEFL Scores is the blog from which Michael Buckhoff has published 1000’s of TOEFL prep articles to help students prepare more effectively for the TOEFL iBT. Students post questions daily at his blog, and Buckhoff offers TOEFL preparation guidance. This web site has millions and millions of views.

Online TOEFL Course

Online TOEFL Course is Buckhoff’s official web site. There students can enroll in a variety of TOEFL courses suited to their personal needs.  In addition, Buckhoff publishes content-rich TOEFL preparation articles to help student improve their scores. Compared to other TOEFL preparation web sites, Buckhoff’s courses are inexpensively priced. In addition, he allows students in these courses to send him pronunciation, speaking, and writing practice by e-mail. In return, Buckhoff error-corrects the speaking and writing practice. Therefore, these students can monitor their progress.

Quora

As a Quoran, Buckhoff has written more than 381 articles to answer questions from students who are preparing for the TOEFL iBT.  He has more than 408 articles with over 200,000 views to those articles.

You Tube

With more than 12,000 subscribers and more than 4 million views, Buckhoff is one of the most popular TOEFL You Tubers on the Internet.  Buckhoff has produced more than 6,000 videos answering students’ TOEFL preparation questions.  Many of Buckhoff’s videos contain tips and tricks for getting a high TOEFL score.

Twitter

Similarly, Buckhoff reaches out to international students through 7,000 tweets and 1,200 followers.

Facebook

At this Facebook page, Buckhoff accepts friend requests from international students. Moreover, he answers questions that they have regarding TOEFL preparation.  Currently, Buckhoff has 2,076 friends. Most of them are international students desiring to study at English-speaking universities. Buckhoff gets messages daily from these students. Then he offers advice and tips to more effectively prepare these students for the TOEFL iBT.

The 7-Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT (STEALTH)

At the heart of everything that Buckhoff does is his Moodle Site “The 7-Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT.” This renowned TOEFL mentor used his vast experience to create the materials for this course. In fact, Buckhoff spent 7 years to create the content and wrote more than 10,000 pages.  Buckhoff converted all this content into  700+ vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, listening, reading, writing, and speaking lessons.  Since 2009, 37,500 students have enrolled in this course, with many of the enrollees reaching scores of 100+ points.

Unlike many TOEFL preparation courses, students at STEALTH can send pronunciation, speaking, and writing practice to mentors who provide audio and written corrective feedback at no extra cost.  Indeed, students can send speaking and writing practice tests daily, and they get their feedback about a day later.

Hobbies

Buckhoff’s first priority is love of God and family. His second priority is service to his international students. Finally, Buckhoff has spent more than 41 years logging in more than 100,000 miles of long distance running.  Buckhoff competed in middle school, high school, university, open, and even as a 40+ long distance runner. Buckhoff has a passion for long distance running.  In fact, at age 45,  Buckhoff competed in the World Track and Field Master’s Championships and finished 5th place. Buckhoff believes that if you try hard enough at anything in life that you can reach a high degree of success. He encourages all his students to work hard to achieve their target TOEFL scores and that they should never give up on their dreams. Enjoy the following video of the best 5,000 meters that Buckhoff ever ran:

If you wish to contact Michael Buckhoff, you can e-mail him at mbuckhoff@aol.com. Also, you can go to his website at http://onlinetoeflcourse.com to enroll in one of his courses.