Roland, an international French student, came to America a couple of years ago. Because he needed to score 26/30 on the speaking section of the TOEFL iBT, he started taking TOEFL lessons so he could reduce his non-native speaker accent and improve his speaking score which has been stuck at 22-24 pts. His progress has been slow but steady.
Recently, he scored 26/30 seven consecutive times on the practice tests that he submitted at on online TOEFL iBT service. He is speaking fluently, is pausing appropriately with natural sounding tone, and has stopped slurring his vowel and consonant sounds of American English. In short, it is much easier to understand him.
Finally, in addition to improving his pronunciation, Roland has a much better command over his grammar and language use and uses appropriate details to support his generalizations. As his online TOEFL iBT teacher, I am greatly pleased at his progress that he has made so far, and it will bring me no greater joy when he passes the TOEFL iBT. Go Roland go!
| This article was written by Michael Buckhoff–co-founder and materials writer for Better TOEFL Scores and The 7-Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT, Composition and Linguistics Professor, TOEFL Specialist, ESL Master Instructor, and Placement and Testing Coordinator for California State University, San Bernardino.Follow more posts and videos from Michael at Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube. |