TOEFL Structure & Skills for iBT success!

Hi, my name is Rebecca and in this video we'll be talking about the TOEFL IBT structure as

well as the skills, alright?

Because the exam has a particular structure and it also has certain skills that are required

in order for you to do really well, ok?

So let's discuss what these are.

Let's start first with the structure.

The TOEFL IBT exam is an exam which lasts for about 4 hours and it has 4 different sections.

They are reading, listening, speaking and writing and they come in that order, ok?

You have about a 10 minute break after the reading and listening sections, alright?

That's the basic structure which you need to be aware of.

The reading section lasts for 60 to 100 minutes, the listening section lasts for about 40 to

60 minutes, then you have your 10 minute break or so, the speaking section lasts for about

20 minutes and last of all you have your writing section which lasts for about 50 minutes.

You have 2 tasks to do there, ok?

So that's the overall structure of your exam.

Now let's look at how you can do well and in order to understand how to do well you

need to see what skills are involved in the TOEFL IBT exam.

Some students think because we are testing reading, writing, listening and speaking that

these are the 4 skills and that's that.

Well, yes and no.

In order to do well in reading, writing, listening and speaking there are a number of other skills

involved which are written on the board so let's have a look at these, ok?

Alright, so we could say that the skills that are required for you to do well on the TOEFL

IBT exam are language skills as well as academic skills.

By language skills we can say some primary language skills and some secondary language

skills.

The primary ones are the ones you mentioned in the beginning and the ones that most students

expect which are reading, writing, listening and speaking, alright?

But what else is involved in order for you to do well in these parts?

Let's look at that.

This is where some of the secondary language skills come in.

Grammar is no longer tested directly on the TOEFL IBT, it used to be in previous versions

of the test but luckily for you it's not there as a specific section anymore but we have

grammar tested indirectly.

How?

Well, when you speak you should be using correct grammar and when you write you should also

be using correct grammar.

So grammar will be tested indirectly in your TOEFL IBT exam, ok?

Also vocabulary is tested throughout, reading, writing, listening, speaking, pronunciation

does matter.

When we say that pronunciation does matter it doesn't mean that you have to speak with

an American accent or a British accent or a South African accent or anything special.

What you do have to do is to speak correctly and clearly so that anyone else who's listening

can understand you, that's the critical part.

Every single human being who speaks English has an accent.

I have an accent and each of you has an accent and that's perfectly fine.

If I tried to speak your language I would also not sound like you and that's perfectly

fine as long as I can be understood.

So that's what you should keep in mind when you're trying to speak English, to enunciate

clearly but don't necessarily try to imitate a particular accent or not.

And if there are any specific errors in pronunciation then those would need to be corrected because

otherwise somebody could understand something quite different from what you intend to say,

ok?

That's about pronunciation.

Spelling is another skill that comes in, obviously this will matter in your writing section.

And related writing skills are capitalization and punctuation.

You have to know which words to capitalize and how to punctuate your sentences and paragraphs,

alright?

So these are some of the language skills which are required and tested directly or indirectly

in the TOEFL IBT exam, alright?

Now let's look at some of the other support skills that you require which lots of times

students are not aware of and they don't understand that if they weaken those skills that's going

to undermine their success in the TOEFL IBT.

What I mean by undermine is that's going to make it more difficult, that's going to weaken

their ability for them to get a high score in the TOEFL IBT exam.

So let's look at what some of these academic skills are, ok?

The first one is skimming.

What is skimming?

Skimming is a skill related to the act of reading.

Skimming means running quickly through a passage to get a general idea of what it's about.

What does that mean?

For example, in the morning when you get the newspaper, if you still get the newspaper

at home and you don't read everything online, you see the headline and you want to know

what happened so you just read quickly through the article to see, to get a general idea,

a quick general idea of what it's about.

That's called skimming, alright?

Then after that is scanning.

What's the difference between skimming and scanning?

Scanning is when you're looking for a particular piece of information.

Skimming allows you to run through the entire passage and scanning you're also running through

the passage but with a different purpose in mind, the purpose is to look for a particular

piece of information.

For example, if you read a news story about an earthquake happening in a particular country,

you might skim the passage and then you'll have general knowledge about the earthquake

but if you happen to have family or you know someone in the area where the earthquake struck,

then you might be looking for more specific information about where that earthquake took

place, right?

So you might be looking for the name of a city, for example.

That would be an example of scanning because you're looking for the specific information.

Alright?

Another skill that you require, an academic skill, is synthesizing.

What does synthesizing mean?

Synthesizing means combining information, integrating information which you receive

from different sources.

In the TOEFL-IBT, it is an example of, synthesizing is an example of the integrated skill that

they are testing.

You are asked sometimes to read something, to listen to something and then to write about

it or to read something, listen to something and speak about it.

All of this requires the ability to synthesize or combine information, okay?

Alright.

Next point, summarizing, again, when you read and hear different kinds of information, you

want to summarize it, mention, kind of encapsulate it or summarize it in short, alright?

Write about it in short.

When you summarize, the final length of your passage is shorter than the original passages,

okay?

Another very important skill which students sometimes struggle with, actually, is note-taking.

They don't always understand the importance of that, but when you are doing a TOEFL exam

and you are doing the listening passages, you have to know how to take notes very quickly

and effectively.

This is a kind of skill in itself which you do develop as you go, as you are in school

but also more so in university because you have so much information coming at you and

you have to be able to decide which is the relevant information and which is not as relevant

and be able to record that information in some way.

This is really important on the TOEFL IBT because in the listening section, if you have

effective notes, it can help you to answer your questions.

In the writing section, if you have taken effective notes, you will be able to write

your first task very effectively where you have a reading and a listening and then you

have to combine that information, okay?

So this is another skill to work on quite separately.

Another one is paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing means basically expressing the same ideas in different words, alright?

So when you paraphrase, you take the original sentence and you express it in your own words.

You are actually not allowed at all in the TOEFL IBT or in university to copy somebody

else's words.

You are not allowed to do that because that's called plagiarism and plagiarism is a very

serious offense in universities and also on the TOEFL.

If you are asked to combine information from a reading passage, for example, in the listening

and if you copy something from the reading directly, more than maybe one or two words,

that could be evidence of plagiarism.

So you want to learn a variety of techniques to enable you to paraphrase effectively.

So make sure you also get a lot of practice doing that, okay?

And the last one is something minor.

Most students today, most young students who have grown up around computers are quite comfortable

with this.

This is keyboarding and keyboarding basically just means being able to type on the keyboard

into a computer, alright?

You need to be able to do that in your TOEFL exam, on your writing section because the

entire exam will be typed in, okay?

So that's a kind of overview for you of TOEFL skills that are required.

So next time you are studying, please bear in mind not only to work on your reading,

writing, listening and speaking, but to understand that all of these skills are going to determine

how well you do on your TOEFL.

And of course I wish you a lot of luck with your TOEFL.

If you'd like more information about the TOEFL exam, you can go to my website.

It's www.goodlucktoefl.com and if you have any other questions about English or about

TOEFL or IELTS or anything else, then please visit our website at www.engvid.com, okay?

That's it for now.

See you later.

Bye for now.