The English Blog

TOEIC Preparation Videos by Kenton ESL

I'm currently teaching two groups of M1 students who will be taking the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) in March. Of course, we do regular practice tests in class, but I wanted to find some online materials which could be used for self-study. After doing some research, I came across a series of seven YouTube videos produced by Kenton County ESL (one for each section of the test). There are three videos for the Reading section, and four videos for the Listening section. Some of the videos are quite long (up to 52m), but each section of the test is explained in detail, and there are plenty of useful tips as well as sample questions based on the TOEIC's own Examinee Handbook.

NOTE
You can download a complete free TOEIC Listening and Reading test (with answers) from Cambridge English ELT. 

Related articles

Kigo TOEIC Practice Test App

Preparing for Standardized English Language Tests

Pay What You Want For Online TOEIC Practice

Road To Grammar Quiz Creator

English Addicts Online Training

I first came across Edulang's daily news-based English lesson service English Addicts back in May 2009 and gave it a very positive review. At the time, full membership cost a whopping 120 euros (though some lessons were available for free). Things rarely stay still in the digital world, however, and since December 2011, Edulang have been offering an annual subscription for just one euro. To be more exact, you decide how much you want to pay (so you could still pay 120 euros—or more—if you wished). Half the money goes to charity, which seems like a good way to persuade people to pay more than the strict minimum.

I still think English Addicts (see demo video here) is a great way of improving listening and reading skills, and there are now over 1500 lessons available in the archives. That should keep all you learners busy for a while.

Other Edulang applications available on a 'pay what you want' basis include the TOEFL Test Simulator and its TOEIC counterpart (which I reviewed yesterday).

ALSO SEE
• Fair practice and low cost in our #ELT industry (Edulang blog)
• Building a Didacticized World English Resource into a Teacher-led Course by Philip Hawkes, Pedagogical advisor, Edulang (Vimeo video)

Pay What You Want For Online TOEIC Practice

French language software firm Edulang is now offering its four of its web-based applications on a 'pay what you want' basis, with fifty per cent of the proceeds going to charity. There is a minimum one-dollar/euro transaction charge (payable by PayPal or credit card), but this still looks like a fantastic deal. One of the applications is TOEIC Simulator, which we already have installed on our school computer system. Unfortunately, students can't use the software outside the school, so this offer should be of interest to them. You can find out more about the offer here and subscribe here.

COMMENT
The 'Pay What You Want' pricing model seems to be catching on. Radiohead famously offered their 'In Rainbows' album on a PWYW basis. You might wonder why a company like Edulang would allow people to pay virtually nothing for a product that previously cost upward of 50 euros. This is what Wikipedia has to say:

Giving buyers the freedom to pay what you want may seem to not make much sense for a seller, but in some situations it can be very successful. This is because it eliminates many disadvantages of conventional pricing. It is obviously attractive to buyers to be able to pay whatever they want, for reasons that include eliminating fear of whether a product is worthwhile at a given set price and the related risk of disappointment or “buyer's remorse.” For sellers it obviates the challenging and sometimes costly task of setting the “right” price (which may vary for different market segments). For both, it changes an adversarial conflict into a friendly exchange, and addresses the fact that value perceptions and price sensitivities can vary widely among buyers.

Of course, a successful operation from the seller's point of view depends on a percentage of the buyers paying more than the minimum price. It would be interesting to know how much, on average, cash-strapped students are prepared to pay.

Kigo TOEIC Practice Test App

The Kigo TOEIC® Reading and Listening Practice Test iPhone app has a complete TOEIC Listening and Reading test, as well as hints and tips on how to improve your Improve your TOEIC score. There are two modes:
• Practice Test mode trains you to complete the TOEIC Listening and Reading test within the real time limit – improve your reading speed and learn how to answer questions quickly for TOEIC success.
• Review and Help mode gives expert guidance on every question, teaching you how to tackle TOEIC questions.

COMMENT
As far as I know, this is the only app which offers a full TOEIC test. But what I really like about this well-designed app is that you get far more than just the practice test—the Tips and FAQs and Review and Help sections are excellent. For just £1.99 you can't go wrong.

Essential Apps for English Learners: Vocabulary & Spelling

This latest post in a series about iPhone/iPod Touch apps for English learners (see below for previous posts) looks at vocabulary and spelling apps. Although there are quite a few apps for preparing SATs tests and the like, there are very few, if any, specifically for EFL/ESL. Here are a few worth checking out.

• Word List 101 ($0.99) Over 1800 words, their meanings, synonyms and examples of usage on flashcards. The words tend to be the sort you need for admission tests (GRE, GMAT, SAT), and some would flummox many native speakers, e.g., abrade, gainsay, pellagra.

• Vocabulary Cartoons ($0.99) Uses mnemonics based on humorous cartoons and rhyming words to present 580 words. Once again, some words are ones you do not come across every day (peccadillo, chattel, bilk). A free 'lite' version is also available.

• My Word Coach ($4.99) Offers a fun and challenging way to improve verbal skills through a series of engaging activities and exercises. Activities include word recognition, spelling challenges and vocabulary definition, including 16,800 words from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. My Word Coach also adapts its difficulty level to match your skills, and monitors and rewards your progress to help you express yourself better.

• TOEIC Master Vocab Guide ($5.99) Contains over 2,500 vocabulary items drawn from past papers. All words come with detailed definitions, explanations, IPA & example sentences. Other features include:

• British and American pronunciations of all headwords in real native voice
• Random quizzes drawn from the vocabulary dataset, giving you unlimited practice
• Detailed score display & analysis to help you to review & remember
• Bookmark function allowing personal notes on searched words enabling you to better organize and centralize learning resources
• History to let you easily keep track of searched words

Also see TOEFL Master Vocab Guide.

EARLIER APP REVIEWS
• Grammar Apps
• Dictionary Apps
• News Apps
• e-Book Apps

Slideshow: TOEIC Vocabulary Quiz

Here's a slide presentation I put together to practice TOEIC vocabulary with my students. I put them into teams of three and asked each team in turn to pick a number between 1 and 30 (see Slide 2). They then had to come up with a sentence describing the picture. I gave from 0 to 3 points for each sentence taking into account relevance, range of vocabulary, accuracy and pronunciation. The team with the most points after 3 or 4 rounds was the winner. I'm sure you could use the pictures in many other ways, however.

TOEIC Picture Quiz

View more presentations from jeffreyhill.

FOOTNOTE
The number links on the second slide don't seem to work on this version of the presentation. You can download the original PowerPoint here. (Click on the pictures to return to the slide with the numbers.)

Job Quiz Slideshow

Here's a slideshow I did for my students to practise job vocabulary for the TOEIC. The answers are on the last slide.

Job Quiz

View more presentations from jeffreyhill.

LESSON IDEAS
1. You could use this slideshow in various ways. I put my students into teams of three and gave them a copy of this worksheet. I then showed them the slides and got them to fill in their answers on the sheet. Afterwards, I went through the slides again, checking the answers and getting the students to describe what the people do in their job.
2. As a follow-up, you could play a game of What's My Line using this list of jobs. (See here for a classic example.)

How (not) to improve your TOEIC score

JoongAng Daily reports that police in Seoul, South Korea, have detained two suspects on charges of raking in some 50 million won ($38,750) from 28 university students and job seekers in exchange for using electronic devices to send test takers answers to questions on the Test of English for International Communication, or Toeic. Full story >>

COMMENTS

All of our new students now have to get 750 on the TOEIC before they can graduate. I hope this story doesn't give them ideas!

Free Online TOEIC Classes

Simon Bourn from englishonthe.net is giving a series of free online TOEIC classes on WiZiQ. Session #2 is scheduled for Tuesday 10th February from 1pm to 1.45pm CET (GMT +1). You can watch a recording of Session #1 here. Four sessions are planned in all.

Tools for TOEIC Success by Simon Bourn

Get your own Virtual Classroom

Comments
I watched the recording of the Session #1. Besides giving a useful overview of the TOEIC, Simon had some great tips on building vocabulary. If you follow the class live, you can chat with Simon in real time. I'll be recommending these classes to my students, who have to get 750 on the TOEIC as a condition of graduation.

Financial Crisis

You can get the latest Financial Crisis and Credit Crunch news from the UK and how it is affecting the global economy from Telegraph.co.uk

If you're fed up with reading about the financial crisis, have a look at the financial crisis in pictures.

Lesson idea: Use the pictures for TOEIC-style listening quizzes. Make up four statements about a pic, only one of which is true. Read them out to your students, who have to say which is the correct one. Or get your students to come up with the statements and test each other. Here's an example:

A: All the men are working on their computers.
B: The traders are all speaking on the phone. 
C: None of the men is wearing a jacket.
D: The tailors are in the office. (there's usually one stupid option on the TOEIC)

By the way, the answer was C in case you were wondering.

100 ways to improve your TOEIC score

Now that all new students at the Normandy Business School have to get 750 on the TOEIC before graduation, we're looking for ways to boost those TOEIC scores without spending more lesson time than absolutely necessary doing TOEIC exercises. That's why I was interested to come across an article from Alex Case on UsingEnglish.com which gives 100 suggestions for improving your TOEIC score. Of course, many of the ideas will apply to improving your English in general. Alex also has an excellent blog called TEFLtastic, which has EFL-related news, reviews, articles, tips, lesson plans, worksheets etc.