TOEFL

TOEFL is an English proficiency test that is recognised around the world. Students who apply to foreign institutes often need to have passed this English proficiency test. Considered one of the toughest exams in the world, TOEFL students prepare for this exam for up to a year.

From speaking & listening exercises and grammatical skills to comprehension tasks, the syllabus comprises all four aspects of studying English: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. All four aspects are assessed individually and, from these, an overall grade is reached.

Objectives:

By the end of the course students will:

· be familiar with the format and directions of the TOEFL test;

· be familiar with the types of questions that are asked in each section;

· figure out their weak and strong areas

· develop the English language skills that are necessary to be successful on the test.

Reading purposes

· To practise necessary skills with short reading passages, such as understanding details, identifying topics and paraphrasing.

· To develop skills with longer reading passages, such as such as understanding details, identifying topics and paraphrasing, recognising coherence.

· To improve on summarising skills, such as completing tables and charts, creating tables and charts.

Writing purposes

· To practice necessary writing skills of brainstorming, organising, and paraphrasing.

· To develop writing skills by connecting and supporting ideas.

· To improve sentence structure and word choice.

Listening Purposes

· To demonstrate basic comprehension, such as understanding the main idea, key points, structure, purpose, conclusion, important facts and relevant details.

· To learn from listening, such as understanding various relationships between ideas (e.g., compare-and-contrast, cause-and-effect, agree-disagree, or steps in a process) and tracing the development of ideas or events throughout the recordings.

· To make inferences about an author’s opinion and what is implied in a recording.

Speaking Purposes

· Information Processing – The ability to synthesise and summarise what you have read in your textbooks and heard in and outside of the class.

· Viewpoint Formation – In some of the speaking tasks, students need to form your own opinion in response to the information you have processed.

· Delivery - Speech should be clear and have a well-paced flow with only minor lapses in pronunciation or intonation patterns.

· Language Use - Responses should demonstrate effective use of grammar and vocabulary.

· Topic Development - Responses should be sustained and sufficient for the task. They should be coherent and well developed with details and examples. A clear progression of ideas is also necessary for a high score.

Exam Structure

Reading Comprehension

In this section, you will be required to read 3-5 passages and answer 12-14 questions on each passage. The section is scored based on the number of correct reading comprehension responses.
Question type: 3–4 passages, 10 questions each
Total no. of questions: 40
Total time: 54-72 minutes

Listening Comprehension

In this section, you will hear both short and long conversations. After the short conversation, you will be asked one multiple choice question. You have to choose one answer. In the long conversations, you will be asked multiple questions based on the conversation.

Question type:

a) 3–4 lectures (3-5 minutes long, about 500-800 words), 6 questions each.

Total 30 questions in total
b) 2–3 conversations (about 3 minutes long, about 12-25 exchanges), 5 questions each; About 12 questions in total
Total no. of questions: 40+
Total time: 41–57 minutes

Speaking Section

For you to earn the highest scores in the speaking section, your responses must fulfill the demands of the task given with only minor mistakes or lapses. The test graders are looking for a highly intelligible and sustained conversation. There are three main factors that comprise scoring for the section.

Speaking questions covered in TOEFL syllabus:

a) 1 independent task (prep time: 15 sec; response time: 45 sec)

b) 3 integrated tasks – Read/Listen/Speak (prep time: 30 sec; response time: 60 sec)

Total no. of questions: 4

Total time: 17 minutes

Writing Section

The essay should effectively address a topic. The response should be well-organised and well-developed using relevant explanations and detailed support. Furthermore, it should also display unity, progression, and coherence. If you want to achieve a high writing score, make sure that you demonstrate the syntactic variety and appropriate word choice with minor grammatical errors.
Writing questions covered in TOEFL syllabus:

a) 1 integrated task – Read/Listen/Write (20 minutes) (reading time: 3 min; listening
time: 2 min; writing: 15 min)
b) 1 independent task (30 minutes)
Total no. of questions: 2
Total time: 50 minutes