While it may be very exciting to hear about new tech applications or about initiatives in far-flung parts of the world or even about ground-breaking pedagogical approaches, there will always be a place for learning more about the bread and butter of TEFL, ie teaching English, or, in this case, preparing students for a very important TEFL test.
I am a relative newcomer to the coaching of TOEFL and IELTS test takers so I very much appreciated the two sessions I could attend to help me with IELTS. Since IELTS is the major test instrument promoted by the British Council, one of the main sponsors of IATEFL conferences, I guess we could not expect to see any TOEFL themed sessions!
Thanks to Deb Hobbs and Sarah Philpot who each tackled different aspects of the test. Although I am keen to explore different forms of feedback as a way of promoting learning, I can see the pragmatic need for tests like these, and as tests go, I think they do quite a good job. One thing that is difficult to understand though is that IELTS and TOEFL are not just language tests, they are also language readiness tests, mostly used by aspiring university students. Native speakers can find it galling to fail a test in their mother tongue but the reason that this is eminently possible is that what is being tested here, is an academic way of thinking as well as expertise in English. It also has to be said that these tests are games with a very rigid set of rules and so a test coach’s job is also to convey these rules so that their students don’t fail because they didn’t follow the rules.
Writing Task 2
In this session we learned that there are three possible tasks and a sensible first step is to identify which task appears on the test you are taking. The three are:
- Problems and solutions
- Giving an opinion on a suggestion
- Discussing a given argument
For me, one of the most useful tips was on the opinion type task. Philpot advised test takers to state their opinion at the beginning and not at the end of the 250 words. This serves a very pragmatic purpose in that if the candidate runs out of time and fails to state their opinion then they are marked down. Imagine writing a flawless essay and being marked down because you failed to state your opinion! Doing it this way also means that the rest of the essay is likely to be couched in terms of your opinion which reinforces what you started with. It also helps in this question to have a clearcut opinion rather than a scientific opinion, “on the one hand you could say… but on the other it might be…”.
We also looked at the two or three essential parts of each type of question. So for example, the discussing a given argument type of question, involves
- your clear cut opinion
- one side of the argument
- the opposing side of the argument
Knowing how many parts there are to each different type of question helps a great deal with planning and making sure that everything is covered.
Reading: matching heading to paragraph
In this session Deb Hobbs gave us a very effective way of helping our students think about how to tackle this specific type of reading task. This was very much a classroom exercise rather than a strategy for the day of the test itself. However, the approach should prime test takers to not just dive in and start matching straight away, but to think more strategicially about the text they are working with.
The first step was to identify which of the headings might be discarded just from an initial reading. Then to put the remaining headings into a logical order. She then used the topic sentences of the paragraphs to prompt our thinking about which headings might match which paragraph. This avoids a common approach of matching words in the heading with words used later on in the paragraph which may be used in a different context
Planning
One of the common themes in both sessions was the importance for test-takers to devote some time to planning. It is understandable that in the stress of taking the test that planning is skipped but this is a very bad idea. It is reassuring to have this confirmed.
These two sessions will definitely improve the help I give to test takers in the future, so thanks very much!