all right well the big one of course is
vocabulary the main issue why causes
problems for low level students on the
TOEIC is they just don't know enough
words they listening skills and reading
skills all that stuff is important of
course but if they can't understand key
words in the question if they can't
understand the meaning then they're just
not getting anywhere from that from the
get-go so that's the that's the single
biggest problem for sure the other one
is that the nature of the test the fact
that it's timed and that's that's very
that's a sort of calculated part of the
actual challenge in the actual in the
test design if they're not familiar with
the ways that they that the test is
designed then they're likely to approach
the test in ways that are not very
helpful in getting a good score for
example a lot of a lot of Japanese
students especially are their practice
in the past has been in terms of reading
has been quite slow word by word
sentence by sentence and on a timed test
length of TOEIC what we often see is
that they're running out of time so
basically a lot of in terms of what I
try to do to help lower level students
do well in the TOEIC number one is that
I want to improve their vocabulary in
actually practicing for the test
vocabulary building has got to be an
essential part of any of any toy
preparation course they don't have that
they're not getting anywhere that's that
that's the bottom line second thing is
we have to look at ways to help them
both understand and overcome the kind of
non-english based challenges for example
by having them read the questions first
in the listening section and understand
those before they actually listen to the
actual text that gives them two things
number one it gives them background
information on what they're listening
for what we call in ELT terms schema or
schemata
this background knowledge allows them to
have a
better understanding of the information
they take in second thing is not all the
information on the actual TOEIC is
essential to answering the questions by
reading the questions first they have a
focus on what they're listening for so
it means that if they know what they're
listening for it means they can you know
during the introductory statements for
example in the talks or in the
conversations the important information
they can say okay that's not learned
listening for that I wanna listen for
they don't have to expend a lot of
brainpower on listening to to certain
elements but as soon as they hear
certain key words or related commando
concepts that's when their brain should
click on and that's when they should
start to focus if we can if we can have
them get them into habit of doing this
of making predictions about what they're
gonna hear based upon what they read in
the questions having a clear focus it
actually makes the listening tasks awful
lot easier and gives them a real leg up
on actually understanding what's going
on answering questions you know what
it's a lot of a lot of people would say
well it's a it's a it's a listening test
say so listening and reading tests that
speaking has no place but I'll tell you
one of the one of the main things that
I've said over and over again is that
vocabulary and understanding natural
phrases and expressions and stuff like
that is an essential component for doing
well on the topic these thoughts things
are explicitly tested now we can teach
these things in a number of ways we can
give them a match up exercise and have
them memorize word lists and stuff like
that but I'm a firm believer if you want
to internalize language you're most
efficient and effective way to do it is
to use it you know a lot of a lot of
TOEIC is based on understanding
functions like for example making
requests making apologies giving
directions making complaints and the
common responses for those understanding
is the guys is the guy acceding to the
request there is he denying the request
basically all these natural expressions
you can teach them but if you want to
internalize it the best way to do it is
to have them use it if they can use
these key core language chunks
themselves then their chance of remember
bring it on test day where they don't
have time to think it's got to be
instant recall the only way to get that
I'm convinced is through active
productive use a lot of my classes let's
say probably about a third to a quarter
of any class that I teach as is
basically has an interactive component
to be students in pairs speaking
together doing little role plays in the
different situations they may encounter
doing speeches and things like that
discussing their ideas of their
predictions the main reason for this is
not to develop speaking skills that's a
side benefit it's a big one but it's a
side benefit the main reason why I do
this is to internalize these key chunks
of language that I've taught them these
key lexical units is key vocabulary
individual words and multi work world
phrases because I figure if they can use
it in the same sort of context as
they're going to see on the TOEIC their
chance of being able to understand it
when they hear it or when they see it in
a written form is much much higher
you