Listening Skills Practice: Many Links

Here is a list of links to several online resources for listening skills practice. Enjoy!

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/
http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docid=146238
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/index.shtml
http://www.eltpodcast.com/
http://elta-rhine.blogspot.com/2006/12/new-home-of-business-english-pod.html
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/
http://www.englishcaster.com/blogs/
http://www.elllo.org/00MXText/00-MixerIndex.htm
http://www.englishthroughstories.com/scripts/scripts.html
http://web.ku.edu/idea/
http://www.librivox.org/
http://carterandrigby.mypodcasts.net/
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-listening-downloads.htm
http://www.usingenglish.com/links/Listening/
http://www.esl-lab.com/
http://www.soundportraits.org/
http://accent.gmu.edu/browse.php
http://www.storycorps.net/listen/
http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/poets/toc.html
http://www.princetonreview.com/vocabminute/default.asp
http://www.wiredforbooks.org/
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=thedailyenglishshow

Listening Practice for the TOEIC and Business English, Part II

Here are three more very useful websites for TOEIC or Business English listening practice:

For British accent training, listening and reading practice, vocabulary building, and several other useful language learning resources, go to BBC Learning English.

Also check out ESL Podcards, which gives you accent training from countries like Australia, England, Canada, and the United States. Quite useful for students who feel nervous about comprehending different accents. MP3 files and transcripts available. You can download and study the transcripts before listening, or just read and listen together. The podcasts are all fairly short, which Coach True thinks is better TOEIC and Business English training than listening to long reports.

And for everyday-use English listening practice, try Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab. There are exercises with each lesson, and the recordings are typically short and easy to handle. The site also separates the listening practice lessons among easy, medium, and difficult categories.

There are rich learning resources on each of these sites. I encourage you to use them as you practice TOEIC or Business English listening.

Good luck with your listening practice.

Coach True

Free TOEIC Practice Online

Here is a link to a free TOEIC practice test: 4 Tests Free TOEIC Practice Test

In general, folks, you’ll need to take at least 8 practice TOEIC tests before you’ll be ready for the real exam.

Make sure you go over your results each time. Find out why you missed the questions you got wrong, and look at the ones you got right too.

It is impossible to do well on the TOEIC without practice.

Workplace English Training E-Magazine Blog

I found this blog a few months ago. It has some useful tips of business English in use.

For TOEIC preparation, you might try becoming a subscriber to the magazine and podcast. Cost is US$60 for a six month subscription.

I don’t know the owners, and don’t get a commission. The blog is free, as are other resources on the site, and you might find the magazine and podcast helpful.

USA Business School Rankings

Many of you taking the TOEIC plan to study in an MBA program in the United States one day. If you want to know how different business schools are ranked in the United States, there are two key sources:

US News and World Report 2008 Business School Rankings

Business Week Business School Rankings and Profiles

Note that the Business Week site has a very comprehensive area for MBAs. Very useful, and good TOEIC reading practice.

Good luck with your business English studies,

Coach True

The New TOEIC: Is it More Difficult?

The simple answer is “No, it is not more difficult.”

ETS has done internal studies proving that average TOEIC scores did not go down with the introduction of the new format test (earlier this year in Taiwan, last year in other places).

So, if you hear a rumor or read something on a BBS saying that the new test is soooo much harder than the old test, you might want to think again before you believe it. Rumors about standardized tests are almost always wildly inaccurate (wrong).

If you want to know the differences between the new and old TOEIC formats, go here. ETS gives a detailed explanation of the format changes.

Good studying!

Coach True

TOEIC Reading: The Need for Speed

Most students make the mistake on the TOEIC Reading Comprehension section (Section 7) of reading every word in the paragraphs of the passages they read.

This is a big mistake. The TOEIC does not really test reading skill; the TOEIC reading comprehension section tests question answering skills or, more specifically, the ability to find information in a passage in order to answer a question.

Here is what you should do when you read a passage on the TOEIC Reading Comprehension section;

1. Read the heading to find out what type of passage you are dealing with and to know how many questions are asked.

2. Take a look at how long the passage is. If it is a single passage and very long, make sure there are at least 4-5 questions. If there are only 2-3 questions, and the passage is long with few subtitles, skip it and come back later.

3. If the passage has a good number of questions for its length, handle it right away. Most passages are like this.

4. Now, take 30 seconds, read the passage and answer four questions:

-What is the topic of the passage?

-What is the purpose of the passage (who is is written for and why was it written)?

-What is the general content of each paragraph (NOT detailed content, just general content)?

-What is the general structure of the passage (i.e. what does it begin with, what sort of content is in the middle, how does it end)?

5. Go to the questions. For questions about main idea, topic, or purpose, you don’t need to read anything, because you already know the answer. For questions about details in the passage or vocabulary, go back and find the information in the passage. You will know where to find it because you understand the basic structure and content of the passage.

6. Never spend more than 40-50 seconds reading a passage (you will have to skim or skip the detailed parts, which you can do once you know the basic idea of a paragraph), and never spend more than 45 seconds answering one question.

7. If you see a sub-title for a paragraph, don’t even bother reading the paragraph. You already know what it is about. If there is no sub-title for the paragraph, read the first or second sentence, then move on to the next paragraph.

I’ll post some examples of how to analyze TOEIC passages when I have some more time. For now, my students are waiting.

Good luck!

Coach True

Learning Business English: Fixing a Schedule

I have been doing something lately that I think will be very helpful to my students if they can emulate (copy) it.

I have been getting up at 6am. After that, I follow a strict schedule (Note: I don’t have to start working until 10am, so I have time to fit more activities into my morning schedule):

6am to 7am: Exercise, make a healthy breakfast.

7am to 8am: Study. I usually study Chinese readings, to improve my reading skills and expand my vocabulary. I take notes on words and phrases I’d like to use in my spoken Chinese (Mandarin), and ask my wife about them later in the day. My wife is a native Chinese speaker and is my language coach.

8am to 10am: Write new lesson materials or work on books I will publish.

I follow this schedule from Monday through Friday, except that on Wednesday I let myself sleep in until 8am to catch up on sleep.

If you are a student of business English, you have to create a schedule and stay with it if you want to see improvement. For those who work in an office from 9am to 6pm, maybe you need to do what I do–get up at 6am, do some exercise, and then study for an hour each morning. You can also study on the bus or train on your way to work, but don’t study while you are driving a car or riding a motorcycle!

Good luck with your studies,

Coach True

Business English: What’s Important, What’s Not

I think there is a great deal of confusion among students of business English over what is most important to study if you want to “improve your English.”

First, instead of thinking “I want to have better English,” think this: “I want to communicate more clearly and more effectively in English.”

If your goal is a high TOEIC score, that’s fine, but if you only take the Listening and Reading parts of the TOEIC (which is what the current TOEIC is made up of–Speaking and Writing will be introduced later this year), you aren’t going to do a lot for your writing and speaking skills.

If you want to improve your English speaking and writing skills, here’s what’s important:

1. A good understanding of English grammar. The most important parts of English grammar, the parts that have the biggest impact on clear communication, are:

-Verb Tense

-Singular/Plural

-Clear Pronouns

-Correct Use of Articles, especially “the”

-Word Form

I will write more on why each of these is so important in other posts.

2. You must be able to choose words and use them correctly. You cannot just translate from your native language into English. For example, many Chinese speakers write things like “traffic tools” (transportation methods), “He lives a colorful life” (He lives an interesting life), “I want the chance to perform myself” (I want the chance to show my value), and “relax myself” (relax, take a break) because they don’t understand that you can’t just translate a phrase from Chinese directly into English. You MUST learn to write and say things in a more simple way, and stop translating directly from your native language if you want to be clear.

These are the two big areas to focus on. Are you surprised that I didn’t list “A big vocabulary” and “perfect pronunciation” as very important things in speaking or writing clear English? That’s because they are NOT very important.

Pronunciation: As long as your pronunciation is somewhat close to how things are actually pronounced in English, you are fine. In other languages, like French, Mandarin, and Japanese, pronunciation is very important. Everyone who speaks English has some kind of accent, so don’t worry too much about yours. Just mimic the sounds of English speakers whose pronunciation you like, and don’t worry too much about having an accent.

A Big Vocabulary: This is only helpful in reading and listening, and to some extent in speaking and writing, but it is not nearly as important as using correct grammar and choosing the right words. If your grammar is clear, you can focus on vocabulary, but not until you understand how to choose and write or speak words in a way that makes sense to native English speakers.

Feel free to e-mail me with any specific questions.

Happy studying!

Coach True

TOEIC Listening Practice for Beginners

If you are having trouble with the TOEIC Listening section, particularly the talks in part IV, you might want to try VOA Special English. This excellent website if full of resources for learners of English. The best thing about the site is that you can listen to news reports at a “gentle” speed. What that means is, the news reports are read at a speed that is about 40% slower than a normal news report.

Here’s how you should use the site:

1. Find a news report you want to listen to. For the TOEIC, I’d listen to something from Economics or Business news.

2. Print the transcript of the report out.

3. Listen to the report without any notes. Write down an outline of the key ideas in the report as well as you can.

4. Read the transcript. Use your dictionary to look up the meanings of any words or phrases you don’t know. Write them down in your vocabulary notebook so that you can review them again later.

5. Listen and read at the same time.

6. Listen only. You should achieve about 90-95% comprehension.

Once these reports are easy for you, move on to the regular VOA website for news at a faster speed.

Extra Tip: Check out the archive section for reports from the past 7-8 years. There is also a language section with all sorts of interesting content about the English language.

Happy Listening!

Coach True