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English Today’s TOEFL Speaking Course is designed to assess English proficiency in non-native speakers who want to achieve academic success as well as effective communication. How this book is organized There are four main sections and one practice test in this course. Introduction Understanding what each section requires you to do Chapter 1 Practicing organizing and synthesizing information Chapter 2 Developing coherence Chapter 3 Focusing on clarity of speech Practice Test Practicing with questions designed according Speaking The purpose of the speaking section is to evaluate your ability to speak coherently both on your opinions and experiences as well as on information that you have read or have heard. The speaking questions fall into two categories, independent and integrated. For the two independent speaking questions, you should draw upon your own experience and knowledge. For the remaining four speaking questions, you will speak about what you read and/or hear. Your ideas need to be well-organized and the language you speak needs to be accurate enough to be easily understood. In particular, each question type will require test-takers to organize their ideas and speak toward different goals: Question | Task | Materials | Length | Tasks | 1 | Independent | None | | Describe your experience. | 2 | Independent | None | | Give your opinion and explain why you think this. | 3 | Integrated | Reading Conversation | 100 words 200 words 60-90 seconds | Restate the opinion of the speaker and the examples used. | 4 | Integrated | Reading Lecture | 100 words 200 words 60-90 seconds | Explain how the example from the lecture supports the passage. | 5 | Conversation-based | Conversation | 300 words 90-120 seconds | Restate suggestions and tell which you think is better. | 6 | Lecture-based | Lecture | 300 words 90-120 seconds | Summarize what you heard. |
Study tips for speaking
- Master the North American English phonetic system as best as you can. Pay special attention to difficult distinctions such as: b/v, f/p, r/l, s/th, j/z, s/sh, the vowel sounds in bat/bet, it/eat, and shirt/short. Also practice pronouncing the diphthongs (combined vowels) as one short, continuous sound rather than two separate ones. These include the sounds in the following: hey, bye, boy, and go.
- Practice speaking with a North American inflection. This involves moving the lips and opening the mouth more and speaking more from the mouth and nose than from the back of the throat.
- Practice using the pauses and intonations you learn when studying for the listening section.
- Practice speaking at home. Use one of the independent writing topics as a speaking topic. Give yourself 15 seconds of preparation time. Use this time to think of your main idea and details/examples to support it. Speak for approximately 45 seconds on the topic. (Also practice with 30 seconds of preparation time and 1 minute of speaking time, as this will be the case for the integrated exercises.)
How speaking will be scored ETS graders will score test-takers’ responses according to the following scale: Score | General Description | Key Points | 4 | The response answers the question or prompt well. The speaker is easy to understand and there are only minor mistakes with grammar or pronunciation. | Fluent speech that is easy to understand and follow, appropriate use of grammar and vocabulary, ideas explained clearly | 3 | The response answers the question or prompt, but not all of the ideas are fully developed. The speaker can be understood, but there are some clearly noticeable mistakes in speaking. | At least two (2) of these problems: pronunciation, pace of speech, wrong word choice, limited use of grammar structures, or incorrect grammar | 2 | The response gives only a basic or minimal answer to the question or prompt. Most sentences can be understood, but some effort is required by the listener because speech is not fluent and pronunciation is not accurate. Some ideas are not clearly explained. | At least two (2) of these problems: speech is choppy (not fluent), mistakes in pronunciation, wrong word choice, only use basic grammar, poor use of grammar, only basic ideas are presented, explanation is absent or limited | 1 | The response is very short, does not show full understanding of the question or prompt, and is hard for the listener to understand. | At least two (2) of these problems: poor pronunciation, speech is choppy (not fluent), long or frequent pauses, poor grammar makes ideas difficult to understand, use of obviously practiced or formulaic expressions, lots of repetition of expressions in the prompt | 0 | There is no response or the response is not related to the question or prompt | No response to grade or response is not related to the question or prompt |
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