Building Supporting Skills

TOEFL EXAM PREPARATION COURSE Progress Outline and Syllabus Description Federico Arteaga C. The TOEFL exam preparation course offered at Centro Colombo Americano has shifted radically from isolated skills training to a more integrated approach, this due, of course, to the changes the exam has undergone recently. The process that has been carried out in these lessons in the last three months is described below in terms of the overall contents covered in three different cycles presented in chronological order. The fact of having the same group of students with slight variations has been of an utmost convenience. Attached is the performance report of one of the class students who already received her grades from ETS and shows how an average-proficient candidate who takes the course and commits with the assignments can perform in exam situations.

Building supporting skills: The TOEFL exam is designed upon the premise that the candidate is not only a fluent user of English as a foreign language, but also a proficient language learner with well-homed studying skills that allow him to face any challenges the academic endeavor might require. It is with this consideration in mind that the first level of the TOEFL cycle is meant to prepare student to use the strategic tools the very institution that issues the exam recommends to master. Said skills have very broad dealing in Cambridge's "Preparation for the iBT TOEFL test, by Jolene Gear and Robert Gear -available at the library- (2006). These topics include paraphrasing, summarizing, grammar, notetaking and vocabulary. Most of those registered in the course have taken some English language course such as the one in the Centro Colombo Americano or any equivalent and, although this sometimes represents an advantage in terms of common patterns and metalinguistics vocabulary, it means, as well, some common fossilized errors and grammar insecurities that might need some in-class reinforcement. Exercises are carried out in stages that lead from interdependent student work aimed at developing isolated language skills to complex tasks assigned individually with integrated production as outcome. Material used in lessons and out-of-class projects comprises realistic exam-like excerpts paralleled by authentic material on general knowledge, literature and science in proportion to the task's demand level. For development in paraphrasing and summarizing, the skills of listening, reading and speaking are targeted with situational exercises where students must make some sort of decision and/or judgment appealing to their own experience background. This

responds to the rationale that schema activation is the key for promptness in production. And so does the rest of activities carried out to specifically improve answering speed in the candidates. Vocabulary is worked much more freely as a ludics approach to the realities of language and the ever-changing nature of the same; this permits all those involved to make a freer usage of all skills in order to validate personal learning strategies. Notetaking exercises are those where students are exposed to mostly authentic material and the training occurs in a hands-on environment.

Exam techniques and practices: The average test-taking time for every candidate is four hours and a half. This constitutes an extenuating sitting for any applicant, who is expected to stay focused and responsive through the whole process. The very nature of the exam exposes students to random intensities now in writing, now in reading, etc. This is why the second module of our TOEFL preparation course uses isolated sections of exam practice samples and full, on-line test drills are assigned as homework assignments. The exercises are explored thoroughly and convenient strategies are formulated to tackle major doubts and troubleshoot in the situation itself. Also, samples from other kinds of examination are used to address specific issues needing attention1 (1). This process is accompanied by different writing exercises with diverse requirements that train the students’ ability to summon their skills at will and on demand. It has been extendedly proved that writing is the skill with which candidates present the most problems. Many different projects are carried out such as writing personal statements (required in most scholarship or grant programs by universities in United States), case essays and construction of academic paragraphs. A literature galore on the subject is available in the library, but the method used in classes responds to the one proposed by Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue in Longman’s Writing academic English (1991) and the Department of State’s Office of English Language Programs text: English grammar and technical writer by Peter Master (2004).

1

These exam samples include ECPE oficial papers, Universit of Michigan’s MELICET papers, ALCPT papers, paper-based TOEFL drills and miscellaneous testing material found on Internet.

Emphasis on productive skills: Through the exam drills and following feedback sessions, the student often realizes that understanding the material presented is not so much of a problem as it is the need to formulate an articulate point of view regarding any subject of undergraduate general bearing. Besides that, students are usually embarrassed –if not panicked- about having to respond to oral examinations in a foreign language. Add to this subjective burden the undeniable time strain and the need to train candidates in both spontaneous and prepared speaking activities will become more than apparent. Writing is also a great concern for the applicants, who are required to produce at least one essay ranging from three hundred to five hundred words of impersonal, academic prose. This represents a real challenge when one considers that in Spanish, students in undergraduate programs are seldom, if ever, evaluated in their essays based on their ability to outline ideas and supporting details with correct grammar, syntax and semantics. This policies are always more lenient in the mother tongue.