最棒的聖誕節禮物! 恭喜雅思班內生拿到Band 8!

聖誕節快樂！最棒的聖誕節禮物🎁

#恭喜雅思班內生拿到Band 8

閱讀跟聽力穩穩的拿8.5是拉高平均的關鍵！

最開心的是我的閱讀法有學生徹底的學起來！以你為榮！

我的閱讀法不是教學生投機取巧，而是教閱讀的本事、邏輯的思維。

只要你願意花時間練起來，這個本事到了你之後出國讀書都還受用無窮。

#培養閱讀的實力

托福寫作從18分到29分的練習分享

托福寫作從18分到29分的練習分享
(托福寫作滿分30)

有輸入才會有輸出！原來有更好的中文說法：厚積才能薄發！
我又學到了這麼棒的中文句子！謝謝清忠的分享！

圖是清忠在Gabby 凱妃老師粉專的留言，大家不只要把好的方法筆記下來，更要確實的去做到。

這樣下一個進步的人就是你了！

回覆托福考生的問題－如何練托福口說?

Hi Chu-iu,

Congratulations on your awesome improvement! You did all the hard work - you should be really proud of yourself! Thank you so much for telling me about what you’ve done.

Improving speaking through self-study is possible, but you’ll need to be super sensitive to everything you say in your practice sessions. Here are a few simple but important steps:

1) You must speak English out loud every single day. Ideally, that will include TOEFL practice under timed conditions. The more you speak, even if it is unfocused speech, the better your fluency will be. There are two main ways to improve fluency:

First, you can simply say what you are thinking out loud. You can say things like what you are doing, what you want to do, what is happening, what you think will happen, etc. Simply doing this for one week will improve your fluency an incredible amount.

Second, you can practice what I call the “Fluency 大招” technique - basically, you randomly choose one word from a book or website (the source doesn’t matter) and—without preparation—you say whatever you can that is related to the word. You could explain something, you could tell a true (or invented) story, you could teach a principle, etc. The important thing is that you stay on topic, don’t stop speaking, and don’t speak Chinese. This is one of the best ways to practice for Q1,2&5 because it develops your ability to think quickly and say something related to the question. Then, your speech won’t become too choppy (卡卡的) in Q1,2, or 5. When you do this practice, your focus is 100% on fluency, not on grammar, so don’t correct your grammar. Just keep speaking.


2) It is possible that you have issues with your pronunciation. If the ETS raters cannot understand what you’re saying because of unclear pronunciation, then increasing your fluency (or improving your content) will not improve your score. The ONLY way to improve your score in this case is to improve your pronunciation. If money is not an issue, then a speech therapist or a pronunciation teacher (either native speaker or non-native speaker with native-speaker pronunciation) is best. Their coaching can probably get you better results than you can get on your own.

If you must study on your own, though, I have a couple of suggestions. First, I recommend the YouTube channel “Rachel’s English.” If possible, try to figure out what specific pronunciation issues you have first and then watch the relevant videos and practice with her. Working on pronunciation directly in this way can be very tiring and boring for some students, so it’s important to take it slowly - no more than about 5-10 minutes per practice session. It can also take months to improve in certain areas of pronunciation. However, if it’s important, persist. You will be forever grateful if you keep with it.

Second, you can practice “mirroring” (or “shadowing” or “echoing” as the technique is called). Find a YouTuber or TV personality who has the accent you want and who has a similar voice to your natural voice. As you are male, do not choose a female. (Of course, females should copy females). Then play and pause: play a sentence or part of a sentence, and then repeat it, trying to copy the person’s intonation, rhythm, and pronunciation. Play around with it - vary the length of time that you play. When you get good at it, play continuously and try to keep up with the speaker, speaking about half a second after the person. It’s hard in the beginning, but after a few days (or weeks), you’ll start to get better at it. Eventually, that speaker’s tone, rhythm, and accent will become a part of your natural speech.

3) Record your answers. This technique is TOEFL (or IELTS) specific. You do a question and record your answer. Now, you have several options:

First, you can fix your content issues. Listen very carefully to what you said in your answer, and think about it extremely critically, as if you were an ETS rater. Use the Speaking Rubrics to guide you. Is what you said really accurate? Are you really answering all parts of the question? Have you missed important points from the listening or reading? After you have analyzed your answer, do it again. Try to avoid writing scripts because you’re trying to improve your SPOKEN English, not your WRITTEN English. Keep doing the same question, recording it, and analyzing it until you’re satisfied with the content and the timing.

Next, you can fix grammar issues, if you have any. This is massive task, though, so only attempt it if you think that grammar is definitely the source of your low score. Remember: you have been speaking with your current grammar for years, so changing these grammatical habits will take considerable time. Still, it’s worth it if it’s really important to you on a personal level or if your grammar is causing misunderstanding (misunderstanding = low score). Record your answer and write out every single word, every single grammatical mistake, and every single “umm” that you say. Don’t leave anything out! Now, read what you have written. This can be a shock because most people don’t realize how many mistakes they make. Next, focus on one grammatical mistake to correct. Re-record the same question, and focus completely on fixing that one grammatical mistake. Listen and check. Repeat this until you aren’t making that grammatical mistake in that question, and also do it with other questions until you don’t make this mistake anymore. This can take weeks of focused effort, but I have had students correct grammatical errors in this way before, so it is definitely possible for you, too.


4) Understand how to answer TOEFL questions correctly. Basically, make sure you give the raters what they want. Fulfill the requirements of the rubrics and answer every part of the questions. Even if you’ve heard “experts” say that you must say, “….,” think for yourself. Is that really answering the question? Is that what the rubric wants? Remember that there is no such thing as a 萬能理由/萬用模板. Templates must be used with considerable thought and adaptation. If you unthinkingly use a template, it will almost certainly lower your score, but if you adapt a template to suit the question, and the template sentences are grammatically correct and appropriate, then it will help you answer questions with more certainty. Finally, templates must be internalized (內化), otherwise they’re almost useless and obvious to the rater.


I hope that these tips will be helpful to you. After you’ve used them for a while, let me know how it’s going.

If you diligently practice these tips, your TOEFL score will improve. If you don’t sense any improvement after seriously working on them for over a month, it could be that you’re missing something.

Enjoy

SAT/ACT Bridge Courses:天母校邏輯閱讀班和中級文法班 Logical Reading and Intermediate Grammar courses (TianMu School)

天母校的邏輯閱讀班和中級文法班(SAT/ACT Bridge Courses)，春班課表出來了。

https://lindsaysat.blogspot.com/2018/11/2019-satact-bridge.html

邏輯閱讀班是銜接SAT/ACT的閱讀，中級文法班則是銜接SAT/ACT的文法。適合不需要考TOEFL/IELTS的國際學生(G7-9)，G10可以開始準備SAT或選上文法班。(Suitable for native English speakers)

需要考TOEFL/IELTS的國際學生(G7-9)，先考進班測驗，確認程度適不適合。如果已經是G10的學生，會考另外一份考卷，看程度適合先準備SAT還是先準備托福。

預約進班考試(找Amanda) : 02-2831-3275


Course schedules for Logical Reading and Intermediate Grammar are now available for the 2019 Spring Semester.

https://lindsaysat.blogspot.com/2018/11/2019-satact-bridge.html

Both courses have been designed as bridge courses for the SAT and ACT. Logical Reading will give students the reading skills and thinking tools to prepare them for the more rigorous SAT and ACT Reading sections, and Intermediate Grammar will train students (not by simply teaching grammar theory, but by applying theories to a multitude of questions within passages: learning by doing) to notice and correct grammar and structural patterns, laying the foundation for both the SAT Writing (grammar) and the ACT English (grammar) sections. As a bonus, the grammar is learned in such a way as to heighten students’ awareness of their own grammatical shortcomings in their writing.

These classes are specifically designed with native or near-native speakers in mind: those who study at certain international schools and are not required to take the TOEFL or IELTS. The best time to take these courses is G7-9. Doing so will enable students to adapt more quickly to the more rigorous SAT classes in G10.

Students who require the TOEFL or IELTS and are in G7-9, will be required to pass a reading or grammar test to assess their suitability for these courses. Students who are already in G10 will be given a different test to assess suitability for SAT or TOEFL courses. Results on these entrance tests will determine the most appropriate course(s) for the students.

Please contact Amanda or me (Brett) for inquiries or to set up an appointment for an entrance test on 02-2831-3274.