If international students want to study in a university setting in the United States, they will most likely need to take the TOEFL as a way of showing their proficiency in English. This blog post explains two simple activities to prepare students for the listening portion of the test.
Activity One: Predicting Campus Situations
There are two types of listening passages: academic lectures and campus situations. Passages about campus situations are exactly what they sound like: two people (usually two students, a professor and a student, or a student and a staff member) talking about some aspect of university life.
The first activity is to have students brainstorm possible campus situations that might appear in the listening section of the test. They can think back to their experience as university students (if they have already studied in their home country) or make predictions based on what they’ve seen in the media or heard from others. Some examples are as follows:
- studying for a final exam
- problems finding resources in the campus library
- asking a professor for help writing a paper
By doing so, students will be better prepared to anticipate possible situations that could appear on the listening portion of the test. This also prepares them for the second activity: brainstorming relevant vocabulary.
Activity Two: Brainstorming Relevant Vocabulary
The second activity is much broader but equally as important. There is a plethora of vocabulary that students may not be familiar with that is commonly used in university life, and that vocabulary could very well appear on the listening portion of the TOEFL.
Some of the categories that I provide are the following:
- academic departments on a college campus
- non-academic departments on a college campus
- words or phrases used to talk about money
- ways of measuring time
- people working on a college campus
- types of evaluations used in college classes
- problems that can happen in a college class
I provide a few examples in a few categories to help students get started. After that, they can work in pairs or small groups in class. If it’s an individual class, I give it as homework. We can then go through what they came up with, and I can add anything that is missing and provide clarification as needed.
Much like the previous activity, brainstorming words that could appear on the test related to campus situations will prepare students and help them feel a bit more relaxed when test time arrives.
Conclusion
The listening section of TOEFL isn’t easy. It requires a broad knowledge of vocabulary for both academic and campus passages, the ability to understand native speakers speaking quickly and using idioms in context, and being able to take notes and answer questions demonstrating listening comprehension on a variety of topics. These activities are only one part of the puzzle in preparing students not only for the TOEFL but also for success in a university setting far beyond their test date.
