Course founder of STEALTH, “The 7-Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT,” Michael Buckhoff announces the launch of two important speaking and writing courses now available to international students who need scores of 26 and 24 on the speaking and writing sections of the exam. Buckhoff has been teaching TOEFL preparation online since 2007 and has helped 1000’s and 1000’s of students reach their target overall and subtotal reading, listening, writing, and speaking scores. Both the TOEFL Speaking and Writing Boot Camp courses arose out of the need of the many non-native healthcare workers in the United States who need more practice to improve their speaking and writing proficiencies.
TOEFL Speaking Boot Camp Course
This course is recommended for students who have already met their reading, listening, and writing subtotal requirements on the TOEFL exam but who still need to score 26+ points on the speaking section.
“There needs to be an inexpensively priced TOEFL speaking course,” says Buckhoff, “for those students needing to get high scores on the speaking section.” If fact, Buckhoff developed the course so students could get feedback as they practice the pronunciation and speaking practice tests available. For instance, after students complete an independent or integrated speaking practice test, they will e-mail the 45 or 60 second audio file to Buckhoff, who will listen to, evaluate, score, and provide feedback by e-mailing the 3-10 minutes of audio feedback back to the student who completed the practice test. It usually takes about 24 hours for the students to get the speaking mentor’s comments after having completed a speaking or pronunciation practice exercise.
The TOEFL Speaking Boot Camp course also addresses the pronunciation problems that enrolees have by allowing them to complete two pre-tests and a post-test:
1. Pre-test for vowel and consonant sounds: In this case, students complete the pre-test, after which Buckhoff determines which of the 13 vowel sounds with which students are having difficulty. In addition, Buckhoff will determine which of the 26 consonant sounds with which students are having trouble. Once Buckhoff makes his intelligibility assessments, he then creates a personal pronunciation study path that each student can follow so that he/she is able to make significant, lasting pronunciation improvements
2. Pre-test for syllable division and grammatical word endings, word stress, sentence rhythm, intonation, and thought groups and blending: Once students have a good grasp on the basic sounds and spelling patterns of English, they complete the second pre-test, and Buckhoff again makes an intelligibility assessment and creates a personalized pronunciation learning path that each student follows so that s/he can make long-term pronunciation improvements.
3. Post-test to diagnose any remaining speaking and intelligibility problems that the enrollees may have: After students have mastered all parts of the pronunciation section of the TOEFL Speaking Boot Camp Course, they complete a final post-test, after which Buckhoff will determine which intelligibility areas on which students still need to improve. Similar to the pre-tests, Buckhoff will create a personalized learning path telling students what they need to improve on over the next few months to continue to make the progress so that they can speak more fluently and clearly.
Finally, the TOEFL Speaking Boot Camp course offers language-use practice in four areas:
1. Vocabulary: Students study vocabulary by learning new words and by writing down those new words onto note-cards so that they commit these college-level words into their long-term memory. In addition, much of the feedback that these students get after having completed a speaking practice test relates to inappropriate word choice errors or vocabulary limitations that the students may have.
2. Grammar: After taking the grammar diagnostic pre-test, students study the lessons with which they are having the most difficulty. In addition, after listening to practice tests, Buckhoff will correct any grammatical errors that his students may have and recommend specific lessons to strengthen their weak points. In addition, if Buckhoff notices that students are limited by grammar, Buckhoff will show the students what they could have said which would have demonstrated better control over the grammar proficiency, and then he will recommend specific grammar lessons that these students can study so that they will expand their grammar proficiency.
3. Reading: 70 reading practice tests are offered in the course so that students can read, take notes, and orally summarize the main ideas and most important support points of the passages. Enrollees are encouraged to make 60 audio recordings of their summaries so that they can listen to and evaluate them for self-study purposes.
4. Listening: 40 listening practice tests also afford students the opportunity to listen, take notes, and then use their notes to make 60 second oral summaries of the passages for self-study purposes.
After the 30-day TOEFL Speaking Boot Camp course, each participant will have had the chance to complete many speaking practice tests (as many as 30!) and to complete many language-use exercises so that she/he will be able to improve his score on the speaking section of the TOEFL exam.
To see the course outline and to join this TOEFL Speaking Boot Camp course, follow the link: http://onlinetoeflcourse.com/product/30-day-toefl-speaking-boot-camp-course/
TOEFL Writing Boot Camp Course
This course is recommended for students who have met their subtotal requirements in the reading, listening, and speaking sections but who need to score 24+ points on the writing section of the TOEFL exam.
“This course is a long time coming,” says Buckhoff, “since many of the TOEFL prep courses like Magoosh do not offer writing correction services.” Buckhoff developed the TOEFL Writing Boot Camp courses so that TOEFL iBT online tutors via Skype would not be the only option for those students who are barely getting buy and who can not afford to pay tutors 25-100 dollars an hour.
First of all, enrollees complete an independent writing practice test, after which Buckhoff reads, evaluates, scores, and error corrects the essay so that students can see what changes they need to make with their writing to score 30/30 points in this writing task. Buckhoff uses state-of-the-art Camtasia screen capture technology as he re-writes each student’s essay, uploads it to You Tube, and then e-mails the 30-60 minutes of video comments to the student who completed the practice test.
Second of all, participants of the TOEFL Writing Boot Camp course complete an integrated writing practice test, after which Buckhoff performs another error correction video showing the student what changes need to be made in order to get a perfect score of 30. In a similar manner, Buckhoff will e-mail each student a link to the 30-60 minute correction video.
After the completion of both writing practice tests, Buckhoff will recommend specific lessons in the TOEFL Writing Boot Camp course to strengthen students’ writing weaknesses. In a similar manner, students complete vocabulary, grammar, reading, and listening language-use exercises on a weekly basis so that they become more comfortable writing in English. For example, students are encouraged to takes notes as they practice reading and listening to academic passages in the course, and then they write 3-5 250 word summaries of the passages each week for self-evaluations.
In all, at the end of the TOEFL Writing Boot Camp course, students will have had two essays error-corrected by video, they will have completed an additional 17 writing practice tests, all of which will have been scored by TOEFL writing mentors, and they will have had plenty of language use practice to improve their writing proficiency.
To see the course outline and to join this TOEFL Writing Boot Camp course, follow the link: http://onlinetoeflcourse.com/product/30-day-toefl-writing-boot-camp-course/