The big one of course is vocabulary.

The main issue which causes problems for low level students

on the TOEIC is that they just don’t know enough words.

The listening skills, reading skills, all that stuff is important of course,

but if they can’t understand key words in the question,

if they can’t understand the meaning then

they’re just not getting anywhere from the get-go.

So that’s the single biggest problem for sure.

The other one is that the nature of the test

– the fact that it’s timed –

that’s a very calculated part of the challenge in the test design.

If they’re not familiar with the ways that the test is designed,

then they’re likely to approach the test in ways

that are not very helpful in getting a good score.

For example, a lot of Japanese students especially,

their practice in the past has been, in terms of reading

has been quite slow, word by word, sentence by sentence,

and on a timed test like the TOEIC what we often see

is that they’re running out of time.

So basically in terms of what I try to do to help

low level students do well on the TOEIC,

number one is I want to improve their vocabulary.

And actually practicing for the test,

vocabulary building has got to be an essential part

of any TOEIC preparation course.

If they don’t have that, they are not getting anywhere

and that’s that. That’s the bottom line.

The second thing is, we have to look at ways to help

them both understand and overcome the non-English based challenges,

for example, by having them read the questions first

in the listening section, and understand those, before they actually listen to the actual text.

That gives them two things.

Number one it gives them background information on what they’re listening for,

what we call in ELT terms, schema or schemata.

This background knowledge allows them to have

a better understanding of the information they take in.

The second thing is, not all the information on the actual TOEIC is essential to answer the questions.

By reading the questions first they have a focus on what they’re listening for.

So it means that if they know what they’re listening for,

it means that during the introductory statement, for example,

in the talks or the conversations, the important information they can say

‘ok that’s not what I’m listening for, that’s not what I’m listening for’,

they don’t have to expend a lot of brain power on listening to certain elements.

But as soon as they hear certain key words or related concepts,

that’s when their brains should click on and that’s when they should start to focus.

If we can get them in the habit of doing this, of making predictions about what they are going to hear

based on what they read in the questions, and having a clear focus,

it actually makes the listening task an awful lot easier.

It gives them a real leg up on actually understanding what’s going on and answering the questions.

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You know what a lot of people would say, it’s a listening and reading test

so speaking has no place, but I’ll tell you one of the main things that I’ve said over and over again

is that vocabulary and understanding natural phrases and expressions and stuff like that

is an essential component for doing well on the TOEIC.

These sorts of things are explicitly tested.

Now we could teach these things in a number of ways.

We can give them match up exercise and have them memorize word lists and stuff like that,

but I’m a firm believer that if you want to internalize language,

the most efficient and effective way to do it is to use it.

A lot of TOEIC is understanding functions like for example making requests,

making apologies, giving directions, making complaints, and the common responses for those

– understanding is the guy exceeding to the request or is he denying the request.

Basically all these natural expressions, you can teach them,

but if you want to internalize it, the best way to do it is to have them use it.

If they can use these key core language chunks themselves, then their chance of remembering it on test day,

where they don’t have time to think, it’s got to be instant recall,

the only way to get that I’m convinced is through active productive use.

You know a lot of my classes, I’d say probably about a third to a quarter of any class that I teach

basically has an interactive component – students in pairs speaking together,

doing role plays of the different situations they may encounter,

doing speeches and things like that, discussing their ideas and their predictions.

The main reason for this is not to develop speaking skills, that’s a side benefit

– it’s a big one but that’s a side benefit – the main reason why I do this is to

internalize these key chunks of language that I’ve taught them, these key lexical units,

this key vocabulary of individual words and multi-word phrases.

Because I figure if they can use it in the same sort of context as they’re going to see on the TOEIC,

their chance of being able to understand it when they hear it

or when they see it in a written form is much, much higher…