Any native speaker take TOEIC recently? How was it?

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I am considering taking the TOEIC (all 4 parts) soon to make some side money helping students prep for it.

Has anyone here taken the test as a native speaker? I figured getting at least a near perfect score is rather easy to do, but I also hear that tests like TOEIC are not geared toward native speakers and can cause them to slip up if they forego using some strategies and/or underestimate it.

Has anyone here offered TOEIC/TOEFL/IELTS/GEPT prep directly with students and not through an employer? Curious about your experience.

2

I took it for the same reason as you, but it was about 15 years ago, so only listening and reading. My biggest issue was staying awake.

3

Grit your teeth and work through some of these.

4

Oh yeah for sure. My attention span for the practice tests I have taken so far is the weakest link by far. I really need to train for this aspect lol.

Thank you kindly! Will add this site to my regimen. I feel like making less than…say a 950…won’t be ideal for marketing myself, so doesn’t hurt to prep for sure.

5

I very much doubt you won’t hit 990.

One other thing, TOEIC is teeth pullingly painful to teach.

6

I can see that honestly. My goal is to just do it very part time so as to mitigate this issue. Hopefully going to try to reduce the boring by integrating conversation practice as well, if the student is happy to do that at least.

7

That will help a bit. Otherwise it’s just a massive short-term vocabulary build plus obscure grammar. Grammar translation is unfortunately the best way. Appalling test washback.

8

Sad to hear that. I’ve taught for it before, but not in a couple of decades; I’d hoped things had improved. I used to feel a mix of pride and shame at how much students could better their test scores without any noticeable improvement in English ability - and how little correlation there seemed between their ability to communicate with me versus their test scores.

9

I have a university student that fits this bill.. I told her she had to watch any English speaking TV series in her spare time over the summer and recap the episodes she’d watched in class. She upped her score from 450s to 800 this month.

10

That’s awesome. I have also had decent success with this kind of method in the past while private tutoring. Really helps students connect with the language instead of just associating it with boring books/rote memorization. Something all too common here sadly is how English is just treated like any other school subject. I would hate it too!

11

Be glad you don’t have to train kids to take the English portion of the South Korean college-entrance exam.

12

I taught it once at a language academy in the states (about a dozen years ago). I couldn’t stand my students looking so bored and subconsciously blaming me for the class’s tedium so told my director to assign me different classes or I walk. I was teaching general English courses by the end of the month.

EDIT: On second thought, I might’ve been teaching TOEFL. But really, it’s all the same shit.

13

I’ve just finished teaching a TOEIC course this semester. I was kind of tricked into teaching it, but it’s hopefully gained me some guanzi with admin.

I actually quite enjoy teaching exam preparation with motivated students as at least they all have a common interest. That only applies to IELTS (and TOEFL, once) though, definitely not TOEIC, and only with genuinely motivated students. I cannot see how any teacher could make a TOEIC class entertaining.