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From Which Point I Should Teach Them? | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 4929 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes  Speaks: Indonesian* | Message 1 of 7 08 April 2014 at 10:14am | IP Logged |
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Hey guys, some people want me to teach them English in order to pass the TOEFL test. The matter is, I have never even taken that test yet, and they demand me to teach them English from the scratch. Now what I want to ask: What is the first thing needs to be taught when teaching certain language to someone? Is it subjects? Is it verbs? Is it nouns? Numbers? Or the most common words? If the answer is the last one, what are the most common words in English? Thanks for all your input.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6497 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 08 April 2014 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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Say no. If they want someone to teach them a whole language they should go to a course or hire a personal teacher - they can't expect you to do it for free. And if you haven't the experience and maybe not even the education to do it you will both waste your time. Edited by Iversen on 08 April 2014 at 12:51pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4238 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 3 of 7 08 April 2014 at 6:09pm | IP Logged |
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You can recommend they take formal classes but at the same time offer to give them tutoring privately.
If you have formal language training and a certificate, you can teach people for a fee. Otherwise you can still offer help as a friend without charge. Preparing people for a TOEFL test is more involved than learning simple sentences like subject, verb & object. There are paragraphs you need to read and then answer questions based on your comprehension. It would take more than half a year to get someone's language level up to intermediate but still there is no guarantee they'd be able to pass the test. You can look through a sample TOEFL test book to see the kids of questions being asked and make a decision whether you want to teach or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3686 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 4 of 7 08 April 2014 at 6:45pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I'd say NO unless it's really good friends with no money. Main reason is, what they want is something you're not very likely to be able to give them.
Not everyone who knows a language can teach it. Not everyone who is a native speaker can teach. Some people do turn out to be surprisingly good even with no prior teaching experience and no formal training, but they will definitely be the minority. Heck, even many people with a teacher's certificate and a few years of teaching experience are more suited to other kinds of work! Assuming it's good friends who can not pay for any classes and want to learn from scratch (so you're their only way of learning), then you should just start from the scratch. Any decent beginner's textbook with a lot of exercises you can get will be OK. Start from there and see what happens. If someone knows no English whatsoever, even thinking of passing TOEFL should be put on hold - it will be months before even the simplest TOEFL mock (sample) tests should be even attempted. EDIT: There are no shortcuts. Read this forum, search for ideas. Tell you friends how to do effective self-study. Help them as much as you can either by selecting topics/articles to discuss together, checking their writing for mistakes, practicing pronunciation. A teacher is just a guide that helps you stay on the path. Most work is still done by the student himself. At home. Sitting down and studying. Vocab, exercises, etc. I've done some teaching (and studying) in my time. If a student just expects the teacher to miraculously TEACH them everything they'll ever need to know during short class hours, then they're doomed to fail. Edited by day1 on 08 April 2014 at 6:50pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| languagenerd09 Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom youtube.com/user/Lan Joined 4894 days ago 174 posts - 267 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai | Message 5 of 7 08 April 2014 at 7:44pm | IP Logged |
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I've had students prepare for TOEFL before and it's basically where you're examined in
reading, listening, (then a mandatory 10 minute break) then speaking and writing. You would need to ensure that you understand and are aware of the process to the exam and what the general questioning styles are. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 4929 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian* | Message 6 of 7 09 April 2014 at 4:28am | IP Logged |
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OK, thanks for all your inputs. Right, looks like I also have to learn it from the scratch. Btw, the English they use on TOEFL is American English, right? Edited by Monox D. I-Fly on 09 April 2014 at 4:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3686 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 7 of 7 09 April 2014 at 8:49am | IP Logged |
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There are a lot of TOEFL practice test samples, TOEFL learning books, TOEFL vocabulary books, even more specifically TOEFL speaking practice books. For someone with a good English level it's just as simple as doing as many sample tests as necessary until you reach the desired score. That is how I have prepared for such standardized tests before. It worked for me - I tested above my actual language level. Several weeks before the test date all I did all day was practice tests (timed myself and all), with the result being that I passed the test better than I expected.
There might be some special ways to teach for the test, but I believe doing sample tests is a good way to do it. The only trick I know of is to teach the student how to do educated guesses. Faster reading comes with timed practice. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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