TRANSCRIPTION
You’re listening to the ESLPod.com‘s guide to the TOEFL test. Number 29.
Welcome to the ESL podcast’s guide to the TOEFL test. I am your host ? Jeff Mc ? coming to you from the center for educational development in beautiful Los Angeles California. Our website is eslpod.com/toefl.
On this TOEFL podcast we’re going to give you some good tips and advice on taking the TOEFL test. We asked one of our friends who is a teacher here in Los Angeles, an excellent TOEFL teacher, and a very experienced tutor for TOEFL students. His name is Warren Ediger. And we asked him to give us some of his advice that he gives his students when they are preparing for the TOEFL test. We take a lesson to Warren, you can also visit Warren’s website at successfulenglish.com. We wanna thank him for sharing his advice with us today. And now, here’s one:
If you are familiar with the TOEFL, you already know that the listening and speaking sections of the test require you listen to classroom lectures. After you listen to them you have to use information from them to answer questions, you have to be able to remember facts, identify main ideas and supporting details and summarize what you hear on the lectures. Unfortunately, many students are not familiar with academic English and until recently it has been difficult to find examples to listen to. But now that has changed. Now there is a wonderful new place where you can find many hours of good academic English, it’s called iTunes U.
During the last few years, millions of people have become familiar with iPods and music from the iTunes’ Store. The name iTunes U’s a combination of the name iTunes and the letter U from the word University. iTunes U’s a special area inside of the iTunes’ Store. When you go to the iTunes’ Store you’ll find the link to iTunes U near the top of the page and the main store menu. When you click on the link and enter iTunes U you’ll find free lectures, interviews and other kinds of content from some of the best colleges and universities in the United States, school such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, Duke and MIT. If you have an iPod or other MP3 player you can download these lectures and carry them with you wherever you go, and if you don’t have an iPod you can easily listen to them or view them on your computer. Let me give you a few suggestions to help you use iTunes U to prepare for the TOEFL. First, be sure you look for lectures that are easy to understand. When you are trying to improve your English it’s important to read or listen to as much easy to understand English as possible. Remember this when you look for lectures on iTunes U, if they are too difficult, listening to them will not help you very much. So be sure you begin with lectures that are easy to understand. One way to help make sure that those are easy to understand is to listen to lectures about subjects you are already familiar with. For example, if you go to the UC Berkeley area on iTunes U and you look at the social science classes you will find many lectures on the whole History. If you are familiar with the Renaissance, find a lecture on the Renaissance and listen to it. What you learned about the Renaissance in your language will help you understand the English lecture. As you’ll look around you’ll notice that some lectures include pictures or video. These also help make lectures easier to understand. When you are listening to a lecture if you have trouble understanding part of it just go back and listen to it again. When you read or listen again to something you don’t understand it will often make sense or be easier to understand the second or third time you read it or listen to it. If you find a lecture that you really enjoy listen to it two or three times. Repeat at listening is always a good strategy to improve understanding and to help you acquire or absorb more English. Before you listen to a lecture take a minute to look around the iTunes U page for that class. Many professors give links to their websites where they have outlines of their lectures and other information that will help you. I would encourage you to begin with UC Berkeley or Stanford University. Both of these schools have large collections of lectures on many different subjects so you will have more choices. Later, if you want to look at other schools, you can find a list of them at the iTunes’ Store. I recently wrote a short article called “Preparing for academic English at iTunes U”. It includes links to the UC Berkeley and Stanford University areas on iTunes U, a link to the iTunes U area at the iTunes store and other helpful information. You can find the article on my website www.successfulenglish.com, that’s www.successfulenglish.com. My website will also tell you how to contact me if you have any questions or comments.
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