Are You Ready for the TOEFL Test?

Hello everyone and welcome to Your Educational Podcast this is your host Dr. Anthony.  Our website is located at www.yepod.com and if you're a new listener, our site is for students and professionals who are seeking to improve their English as a second language.  Today's podcast is titled are you ready for the TOEFL test?  Over the years the TOEFL test has been a standard for measuring a student's English proficiency as a second language.  The term TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language.  Thousands of universities in the United States and Canada require that foreign students to submit a Toefl score as part of their application process. The reasons for this are quite clear, universities want to be sure that the foreign student is capable of handling the required courses to be completed in order to graduate.  Now over one million students around the world are able to take the test over the Internet. The TOEFL test has four parts; reading, listening, speaking, and writing.  The total time it takes to complete the examination is usually from 3.5 to 4 hours.  Each part has a value of thirty points, so the maximum total would be 120 points.  So what scores are universities looking for? The scores that most universities are looking for are in the range of 65 to 100. If you would like to get more information about the TOEFL test, go to www.TOEFL.org and register online.  So what can you do to prepare for the TOEFL test? Well, there are a lot of publishers that have instruction and practice textbooks.  One example is "The Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test" written by Bruce Rogers.  I myself use Bruce Roger's Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test for my listening class.  There are also many other textbooks that cover TOEFL test and you should be able to find one that suits your needs.  I like to turn our attention to the listening part of the test.  Many of my students tell me that listening to a dialogue between two people on CD is quite challenging.  My students tell me that they feel the speakers are talking too fast to be understood.  This hurdle can be overcome by listening over and over again to the same conversation until you have mastered it.  You need to train your mind to get accustomed to the speed of conversation of native speakers of English.  You will need to put in many hours of study on a weekly basis to be able to cover all sections of the TOEFL test.  So, how else can you prepare for the TOEFL test other than using a textbook?  A fun way to practice your listening skills is to go down to your local video store and rent a movie. There are many advantages to this idea, for instance, you can stop and rewind the segments of the movie you don't understand clearly.  Why not start a movie club?  You could invite all your friends that also are planning on taking the TOEFL test.  This is a fun way to get your friends together and have discussions about the movie.  I like to thank everyone for listening to Your Educational Podcast. All parts of Your Educational Podcast is written and published by Dr. Anthony.  I look forward to hearing your comments and ideas.  This is Dr. Anthony, signing off..........