TOEFL iBT Speaking Section Speaking Overview As we have repeatedly stated throughout this course, the TOEFL iBT

is designed to by a university skills exam. With that in mind, ETS has designed every section of the TOEFL iBT to test some academic feature that a student will face during their time at a U.S. university. The Speaking section of the TOEFL iBT is no exception and in regards to the necessary skills for Speaking, ETS bases this section on the following: Academic Speaking Skills

The Speaking section measures test takers ability to speak in English effectively in educational environments. Students should be able to speak with condence both in and outside the classroom. In classrooms, students need to respond to questions participate in academic discussions with other students synthesize and summarize what they have read in their textbooks and heard in class express their views on topics under discussion Outside of the classroom, students need to participate in casual conversations express their opinions communicate with people in such places as the bookstore, the library, and the housing ofce

Based upon the above reasoning, ETS has designed Six Questions to determine how a prospective U.S. university student can manage each of these different speaking requirements that can possibly be faced at any point during school.

For all speaking tasks, test takers use headsets with a microphone. Test takers speak into the microphone to record their responses. Responses are digitally recorded and sent to ETSs Online Scoring Network.

Speaking Task Types Task Type (Independent) 1. Personal Preference Task Description This question asks the test taker to express and defend a personal choice from a given category for example, important people or places, or events or activities that the test taker enjoys. This question asks the test taker to make and defend a personal choice between two contrasting behaviors or courses of action. Task Timing Preparation time: 15 seconds Response time: 45 seconds

2. Paired Choice

Preparation time: 15 seconds Response time: 45 seconds

Task Type (Integrated: Read/Listen/Speak) 3. Campus Situation Topic: Summarize, State and Explain

Task Description A reading passage (75100 words) presents a campus-related issue. A listening passage (6080 seconds, 150180 words) comments on the issue in the reading. The question asks the test taker to summarize them speakers opinion within the context of the reading passage. A reading passage (75100 words) broadly denes a term, process, or idea from an academic subject. An excerpt from a lecture (60 90 seconds; 150220 words) provides examples and specic information to illustrate the term, process, or idea from the reading passage. The question asks the test taker to combine and convey important information from the reading passage and the lecture.

Task Timing Preparation time: 30 seconds Response time: 60 seconds

4. Academic Course Topic: General/Specic

Preparation time: 30 seconds Response time: 60 seconds

Task Type (Integrated: Listen to Recording and Respond) 5. Campus Situation Topic: Problem/Solution

Task Description The listening passage (6090 seconds; 180220 words) is a

Task Timing Preparation time: 20 seconds

conversation about a studentrelated problem and two possible solutions. The question asks the test taker to demonstrate understanding of the problem and to express an opinion about solving the problem.

Response time: 60 seconds

6. Academic Course Topic: Summary

The listening passage is an excerpt from a lecture (90120 seconds; 230280 words) that explains a term or concept and gives concrete examples to illustrate it. The question asks the test taker to summarize the lecture and demonstrate an understanding of how the examples relate to the overall topic.

Preparation time: 20 seconds Response time: 60 seconds

TOEFL iBT Speaking Scoring

The speaking section is scored based on the delivery of your answer, language use and topic development. On the delivery make sure you try to speak clearly. When doing the test you will also be able to hear the responses of others responding to their questions. Try to avoid being affected by this. Training this element is easy to do on your own. Most people hate hearing their own voice, but absolutely necessary. Use Windows recorder to record your answers to your practice questions and listen for any indications that your voice is unclear, or that is it very monotone. If you have a very strong accent this can be a hindrance. This is of course more difficult to evaluate on your own. The second element evaluated in the TOEFL speaking test is the use of language. The good news here is that since the answers are quite short and in many of the questions the format is standardized, you can memorize many phrases and therefore have a great deal of the answer already premade. The third and last aspect being evaluated is topic development. You get evaluated on what you say, meaning that you here have to be prepared to organize your content based on predefined structures. Like with the writing section, you should here follow a predefined recipe and we will provide this award winning recipe for you.

Speaking Grading Criteria (Deeper Explanation) Delivery Your delivery skills are critical to achieving a great score based upon this criteria point. We suggest that you have your pronunciation evaluate by an ESL expert to ensure that your speech is clear, well-paced and minimal issues with pronunciation. The following websites are some of the best sites to work on your pronunciation: 1. http://www.manythings.org/pp/ 2. http://www.susancanthony.com/resources/esl/prondiag.html 3. http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html (this site is

incredible and we highly recommend practicing all of the sounds to improve your delivery/pronunciation. http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/# 4. http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/index.htm 5. http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/ 6. http://www.soundsofenglish.org/ Most international students have issues with pronunciation in one of the following areas: vowel sounds, consonant sounds, syllable division, stress, rhythm, intonation, blending, clusters, plural endings, object placement, grammatical endings. Discover your primary areas of difficulty because you dont want pronunciation and intonation problems preventing you from passing the speaking section.

Lesson: Do all of the pronunciation exercises we suggest in the Pronunciation Exercises Section of the Online Course. Practice makes perfect!! Language Use ETS will equally evaluate you on how well and effective is your use of English grammar and academic vocabulary. If you are using only the simple present/past and basic beginning/intermediate vocabulary your score will reflect the use of these basic elements. ETS is trying to determine your automaticity and how naturally do you speak English. Be very careful with using standard English phrases and not the weird, made-up phrases sometimes developed by non-native speakers. Demonstrating an ability to properly use idioms and phrasal verbs will make you sound more natural and improve your Language Use score. Improving your academic vocabulary and grammar, will greatly improve your Language Use score as well. Keep in mind, you dont have to over complicate your speech, as sometimes simple g rammar is necessary, but all of your speech should not be in this simple form. Great speaking is a mixture of simple, complex and compound sentence forms with a demonstration and command of verb tenses and sentence patterns (conditional, coordinate, passive, correlative). Topic Development Finally, Topic Development is utilized by ETS to score all of your speaking tasks. Topic Development is determined by how well you elaborate on a topic. The ability to elaborate comes from practice, practice, and more practice. Equally important, having a template for each of the 6 speaking tasks will greatly improve your speaking score Improvement can be made by improving your vocabulary and grammar usage, both of will need to create some templates that you can use for the six speaking tasks and practice them often

BEFORE you take the official exam. Therefore, you will be able to express and develop your ideas coherently, hence making it easy for TOEFL iBT human raters to see how your different ideas are connected. Also, displaying obvious progression, you develop your ideas in three coherent layers of meaning: main idea, support ideas, and details. Finally, in addition to being able to elaborate and coherently organize your ideas, you should make sure that you explicitly answer the question being asked. In the case of the independent speaking tasks, you are required to support your response by giving your opinions. However, with the integrated speaking tasks, you should never give your opinion; rather, you are required to summarize and integrate the speaking tasks, strictly relying on the main and critical supporting points from reading passages and talks. What feedback have you gotten from a speaking specialist as it relates to topic development?