Andrew TS #9

Date/Time: 07/1/2021 10:00 a.m.

Location: Conversation Over Line 

Topic/Skill: TOEIC Test Prep, Speaking

Feedback provided to tutee: Since Tina would like to improve her English for the sake of passing the TOEIC test, I prepared a number of questions similar to those found on the TOEIC. The TOEIC is structured a bit different than the TOEFL, at least in the way that it tests the students understanding of English. The speaking test starts with simple read aloud questions but eventually move to asking the test takers to express their own opinions. I really like this method of testing because it starts by just testing simple things like pronunciation and intonation, but  as the test ramps up in difficulty so do the grading criteria. There are a number of different question styles, the one we started with was pictures. I had collected an assortment of stock images and had Tina describe them to me the best she could. She did fairly well but still struggles with progressing or fully expressing her thoughts. While it wouldn't happen during the real test, I asked Tina further leading questions about the pictures when she started to struggle. She was able to give further descriptions of the things I asked about but continued to have difficulty fully describing the images when left to her own devices. After this we worked on verbs forms. While Tina can organize a sentence and pronounce it clearly no problem, she still has problems with verb form and articles. To work on this, I had a number of sentences with blanks in place of some of the verbs. I would provide her with the correct verb for the blank, Tina would then have to give me the correct form of the verb for that sentence. I had an additional set of sentences to use for practicing articles, but we ran out of time in our session and so they will be used in a later session. 

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Preparing for this tutoring session was pretty educational for me. This was my first time looking into the TOEIC test so I was very interested in seeing how it structured versus other English Exams. As stated in the prior section, I really like how they have set up the speaking portion of the speaking test. I particularly like the order in which it tests English speaking skills and how it increases in difficulty as the test progresses.

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