Maria -- Tutoring 2 (Lu: day 1 TOEFL preparation)

Man, I am so behind with these! Alright, I finally got my tutoring straightened out: I will be helping my CP Lu prepare for her TOEFL exam. It is next Saturday, so we are meeting every day this week, two hours a day, for her to try to improve her score on the speaking section of the exam. I took the TOEFL many years ago myself and, back then, there wasn't a speaking section. However, it makes sense to have one since universities are relying ever more on graduate students teaching, and students complaining that they cannot understand a word of what their foreign TA is saying is, obviously, a no-no.

The speaking section of the TOEFL has six questions presented in increasing difficulty. Some of them integrate reading and listening with the speaking part. It is actually not an easy test. Today is day 1 and Lu is struggling. We've started with the first two questions. These are the easy ones. The first one asks the testee about something they like (a game, a special person in their life, a favorite holiday, etc.). The second question asks the testee to express their choice in a given every day situation (drive or take public transportation, for instance). The answer is timed and Lu rushes to say something making her loose concentration on what she wants to say. Her speaking trails off. We start again. I remind her that what is scored in this section of the test is how clearly and coherently she speaks rather than what she says (I tell her this to try to help her relax -- not because I am cynical :). She starts again and this time she does much better. Still, she is clearly worried about the score and this, I think, is keeping her from performing as well as she could. Because this is only one section of the TOEFL, I give her as homework to take one of the practice tests in the book in order to find out what her total score would be. This, I hope, will help her see where she is and how realistic her goal is (she wants to score 100). With that we call it for the day.