Lin, who is looking for an Online TOEFL Course, landed on a web site called “The 7-Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT.” Wanting to learn more about the Online TOEFL Course, Lin e-mailed the founder, materials writer, and owner Michael Buckhoff.
“TOEFL Speaking!!!” were the key words in the subject heading of the e-mail, and it indeed got Michael’s attention as he was checking his e-mail messages yesterday. In the body of the e-mail, Lin told Michael that she had taken the TOEFL four times, each time getting 22-24 points on the speaking section.
The main reason she wrote Michael the e-mail was that she wanted to know 1) why she kept getting the same score and 2) how Michael’s Online Course would help her score at least 26/30 points on the TOEFL iBT exam.
The first thing Michael told her was that it was likely that she kept getting the same score due to some problems with one of the following: delivery, language, or topic development. Delivery deals with pronunciation issues, and, since Lin was stuck at 24 points, it could be that she was having some problems with her pacing, stress, or intonation. If language use was a factor in her speaking score, it meant that she was having grammar or vocabulary problems. In addition, if she scored lower because of language use problems, it could be that she was was using mostly basic grammar and vocabulary and that she was avoiding the more advanced structures/words. Aside from delivery and language use problems, Lin could also be having some problems with topic development, meaning that she needed to improve the organization and development of her responses.
The second thing Michael told her was how his pronunciation and speaking sections of his Online TOEFL Course could help Lin score higher. Lin needs to complete the pronunciation pre-test so that a TOEFL iBT pronunciation specialist can listen to and evaluate her pronunciation as it relates to vowels, consonants, syllable division and grammatical word endings, word stress, sentence rhythm, intonation, thought groups, and blending. Furthermore, since Michael’s Online TOEFL Course has thirty independent and twenty integrated speaking tasks, Lin can also begin completing responses online at Michael’s Voxopop Discussion Group, a web portal allowing her to record her practice responses online so that TOEFL iBT speaking specialist Michael Buckhoff could evaluate her responses.
And that is pretty much it. Lin will be able to improve her TOEFL speaking score as she works with an Online TOEFL speaking specialist to help her improve her pronunciation, grammar and language use, and topic development.
| 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. |