TOEFL Listening Comprehension

 

What is TOEFL? 

TOEFL is one of the tests which evaluates or measures English language proficiency of non-native speakers, in terms of how English is read, written, heard, and spoken in real-world social and academic setting. TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language (Test of English as a foreign language), made by ETS (Educational Testing Service), an institution in the United States. The TOEFL test is more oriented towards American English, in contrast to the type of IELTS test which is oriented towards British English. 

Listening is tested in the first section on TOEFL test. This section consists of fifty questions with 35 minutes estimated time. The test-takers will listen to recorded materials and respond to multiple-choice questions about the material. The recording is played one time only and the material on the recording is not written on the test book. 

The speakers on the tape use American English with American pronunciation. They frequently use common American expressions. In all three parts of Listening Comprehension section, the speakers talk at a speed that the designers of the test consider usual in American English. However, test-takers whose listening comprehension skills are not very good may think that the rate of speech on the tape is a little too fast for comfort. Multiple-choice responses written on the test book can be used to figure out what the next listening selection will be about.

There are three parts of the test in this section:

a.      Short Dialogues

Short dialogues are two-line dialogues between two speakers, each followed by a multiple-choice question. Test-takers will listen to each short dialogue and question on the recording and then choose the best answer to each question from the four choices in the book.

b.      Long Dialogues

Long dialogues are 60-90 second conversations on casual topic each followed by several multiple-choice questions. Test-takers will listen to each long dialogues and each of the questions that accompany it on the recording and then choose the best answer to each question from the four choices in the test book.

c.      Talks or Monolog Text

Talks are 60-90 second talks about school life or on academic subjects each followed by several multiple-choice questions. Test-takers will listen to each lecture and each of the questions that accompany it on the recording and then choose the best answer to each question from the four choices in the test book.

The following list is general strategies for TOEFL listening comprehension section:

 

Example of Short Dialogues

Listen to the audio below then match it with the existing transcript. If indeed the audio you are listening to is the same as the transcript below, that means you already understand short dialogues.

 AUDIO

Woman            : I’m glad I called and told you about the meeting

Man                 : If you had not called me, I would not have known

Narrator          : WHAT DOES THE MAN MEAN?

a.      The woman did not need to call him

b.     The woman called to let him know about the meeting

c.      He’s not glad that the woman called

d.     He’s already knew about the meeting when the woman called

Try to answer this question!

AUDIO

a.      The man often drives too quickly

b.     The police do not stop the man too much

c.      The man drove rather slowly

d.     The police should not stop the man so often

Exercise

Watch this video and try to answer the questions!

 

Write Narrative Text

 

LESSON OVERVIEW 

Lesson name: Write Narrative Text     

Skill focus: Writing 

Teacher name: Novalia Laily Ramandha 

Organisation/school name: SMA N 1 Tawangsari 

Target students: Senior High School 

Materials used in class: Paper, Stationery

Time: 70 menit 

LESSON OBJECTIVES 

This learning can help students to improve their writing skills. Students are expected to understand how to write narrative text correctly. 

 

LESSON PLAN 

1. The teacher is present in the class and gives a good impression to the students at the   beginning of the lesson, then explains the learning and learning achievements (10 minutes)
2. The teacher gives an explanation to the students about the task to be done, namely making a narrative text, how to make a narrative text and the deadline for submitting assignments (15 minutes)
3. The teacher explains how to check the correctness of the grammatical sentences they use (10 minutes)
4. The teacher gives time to students to do assignments and supervise them (35 minutes - end)

 

 

 NARRATIVE TEXT

 

 

Narrative text is one of 13 types of English text and part of Narration text such as recount text, anecdote text, spoof text, and news items. This text serves to tell the story of the past and for entertainment.

According to the online Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI), narrative is "narrative in nature; or explanatory (explaining and so on)”. The definition of narrative according to Abbott (2010: 1) is a story or in general it means telling a story. Narrative text is a story essay that tells non-fiction or fictional stories based on time sequence or is chronological in nature. The chronological nature of narrative text makes it necessary to have an orderly division of time, from beginning to end. 

 

The purpose of narrative text is usually used as a medium of entertainment for readers. Narrative texts are said to be able to provide knowledge about good fiction or non-fiction stories to their readers. Apart from being used as a medium of entertainment, narrative text can also provide readers with experiences of beauty, new knowledge, and important information.

Features of Narrative Text

1. Narrative text uses sentence forms (tenses) that show events or incidents in the past > Past Tense.
2. Adverbs of time which generally appear at the beginning of sentences in narrative text include, such as long time ago, once, one, once upon a time.
3. There are excerpts of dialogue or conversation between characters.
4. The use of adjectives in narrative text to provide a more detailed picture in the form of a noun phrase.
   

Narrative Text Structure

 

There are 4 narrative text structures, namely orientation, complication, resolution, and reorientation which are optional.

1.  Orientation 

    Orientation is the initial part or the first structure of narrative text. In this structure, the story maker or writer will introduce the characters, time, and place where the events in the story take place. In addition, the orientation also usually begins with an opening sentence such as, Long time a go …, Once upon a time …, or One day …, followed by a description of the characters and places in the story.

2.  Complication

    The second structure of this narrative text will explain or describe the problem or conflict in a story. This problem or conflict usually contains the main character and can also represent various problems that occur in real life. In addition, the characters also experience various events that lead to the story's climax or climax. As a result, the main characters will experience complicated problems.

3.  Resolution 

    Resolution or resolution is the third structure or the last part of the narrative text. Resolution itself can be understood as a resolution of a conflict or problem. At the resolution, the characters in the story begin to find solutions to solve various problems from complications.

4.  Re-orientation 

     The last part of the narrative text is optional, it may or may not exist. Reorientation or often also called coda is part of a narrative text story that conveys moral values, suggestions, or lessons in the closing part for the reader that comes from the story.

    Narrative text displays the main character who can face various complicated problems. This makes narrative texts can have more than one complication or more than one complication and resolution.

 

How to Make Narrative Text

 

1.  Imagining it in the brain

2.  Pouring the imagination into the writing structure so that chronological errors do not occur

3.  Use prompts (words conveyed to the actor when he forgets the dialogue), to create a natural effect, so that the story doesn't become too stiff

4.  Focus on spending most of your writing time working through it to completion, don't edit in the middle of writing

5.  When you're done writing, re-read the story and make sure the structure is related to each other, so that it becomes a complete story

6.  Editing to ensure the use of correct spelling and language rules so that readers feel comfortable reading it

7.  Pay attention to storylines to ensure that each character has a unified whole with problems that are not confusing and problem solving that can be understood properly

8.  Ask someone honest to read your story and get suggestions from them to improve your story writing

 

To check sentence structure in narrative text, you can use Grammarly or Google Docs

 

 

 

Good Luck ^ ^

 

 

 

 

Make and Practice Conversation

 

LESSON OVERVIEW 

Lesson name: Speaking

Skill focus: Make and practice conversation 

Teacher name: Novalia Laily Ramandha 

Organisation/school name: SMA N 1 Tawangsari 

Target students: Senior High School 

Materials used in class: Paper, Stopwatch, Boardmarker, Whiteboard  

Time: 60 menit 

LESSON OBJECTIVES 

 

This learning can help students to improve their speaking skills, improve vocabulary mastery and train students to understand how to construct sentences in English.

LESSON PLAN 

    

1. Ask students to find partners to group in speaking learning.
2. Explain in advance about learning to speak and some tips for understanding conversation.
3. Play the YouTube video that contains the conversation, then ask students who have been grouped to understand the purpose of the conversation.
4. After students can understand the meaning of the conversation, it can be applied to the other person when they are having a conversation.
5. Then, students are asked to position themselves facing the other person.
6. In practicing speaking skills, it can be done in various ways, one of which is by having spontaneous conversations with the other person without using text. so the conversation that occurs flows according to the ability of students to process words.This can be done at the beginning of learning speaking in order to find out how far the students' mastery of everyday vocabulary is. then the teacher can evaluate or ask if students experience difficulties when expressing a word in English. on another occasion, a teacher can also determine a theme directly, then students can have a conversation without preparing a script first so that the conversation occurs spontaneously.

       

English Speaking Exercises

There are several techniques for increasing speaking skills that you can try, one of them is doing conversation practice spontaneously. English conversation practice is the most powerful method to understand the language. Conversation helps you get the speaking practice you need as well as improve your listening skills along the way.

Here is the website to check your speaking skill ability anytime and anywhere 

https://cake.day/home 

And this is some videos to add your interest about practicing speaking 

https://youtu.be/c6RXqPDJdis

https://youtu.be/PLmPnh_W7wk

    Good luck ^^