Hello and welcome to a real conversation between two native English speakers.
I'm Liz Waid and this is Adam Navis as always.
Hi Adam.
Hello Liz.
I feel like I always, well I never know how you're going to say hello Liz.
I try to shake it up.
It's always a grab bag.
Anyway, and we are here to talk about a program that many of you, our listeners, probably want to listen to or have listened to,
And it is called Taking the TOEFL.
Now, I keep saying it the wrong way.
So please, I apologize.
You said it correctly.
I know, but I keep saying in my head, I want to say TEFL instead of TOEFL.
But the correct pronunciation is- Liz, I don't think we have time to unpack what's going on in your head.
No, you perhaps do not.
Anyway, let's move on from inside my head.
We are talking about taking the TOEFL.
And if you have not listened to that program yet, you should maybe pause this video or podcast or whatever.
Go on over to our website or youtube or our podcast for spotlight english and listen to this program.
You can follow along with the script on our website, wwwspotlightenglishcom.
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And if you would like this script to download for yourself as a PDF.
We do have a subscription for our scripts.
So there's a little tongue twister for you.
If you want to try a little extra English practice, subscription for our scripts.
And that is our scripts by email subscription that you can find on our Web site.
Just click on that.
It is $5 a month.
And every Monday you get a script and audio link sent directly to your email, so you have no excuses not to practice English every single week.
And let's get into this program about practice English.
Adam, one of the things that I learned about the TOEFL program See, I said it correctly is that it was invented in like the 1960s.
I don't know when I would have expected it to be invented.
But in the 60s there were, as there are now, many students from other countries, countries around the world who wanted to come study at US universities.
And so, of course, in the U.S., universities, everyone speaks English.
But if you can't speak English fluently enough, it would be really difficult to study there.
So they created this test that all universities or other places really we'll get into that but can use to assess your English level, to make sure that you would be successful if you went to a university.
Right, because if you and I went to a university where they didn't speak English And then we started learning very technical terms and very advanced,
Each field of study, of course, has its own vocabulary of words.
And if you're struggling to understand basic English, you're definitely going to understand, whatever language we're in.
I will say in high school, I studied German in high school.
And after high school, I was able to go on an exchange program where I went... to school in Germany.
And then I, of course, had a student who was here in the US who was able to go to school.
But it is really difficult to understand school in a language that is not your native language.
And I was pretty good at speaking German.
And I struggled a lot.
Right.
And I think we have, for anyone who's watching this video for the TOEFL.
You already know the difficulty.
I guess we're telling you something you already know.
Learning a language is a challenge.
But I think that, since so many people, I think there's actually a way that TOEFL and Spotlight can work well together.
Because there's a lot of things about Spotlight that really help.
There are four areas of learning of language.
We'll say testing yeah skills, four different skills.
Reading yeah well, you can read along with our scripts.
Listening you're clearly listening to us.
Speaking is always the hardest one for us to.
To have people contribute well, i always encourage people to like speak along with the um, with the voices in the program.
I don't know if you were hoping to talk about each one in depth, but if you read along with the voice in a classic program and then an advanced program, you can really follow the cadence and sound and inflection of each voice going through and that is a way for you to practice speaking.
Right.
And the fourth one is writing, which you can write in the comments below.
Say, are you going to take the TOEFL?
Are you studying for the TOEFL?
Did you pass the TOEFL?
Yeah.
What was your secret to passing the TOEFL?
Yeah.
I will say though, that if you want writing practice, we have an email that is contact at spotlightenglishcom, and many people write in about how a program has affected their life, Or maybe we said something in a program that somebody didn't agree with.
Or they just want to share a part of their life and their experience.
So that is another way to write.
We get lots of emails.
So sometimes I'm not able to respond to every single one.
But I do try.
Yeah.
And I think it's...
Yeah, we do genuinely want to hear what your goals are and how you're using Spotlight to help prepare yourself.
And I know I already talked about the scripts by email, but I think it's a good point to bring it up again.
And I'm not trying to hammer on this, but there's an idiom for you.
Yeah.
Hammer on this, like you know a nail, you're hammering it in and like, maybe you get it in like, keep hammering.
Anyway, I don't mean to hammer on this, but scripts by email is a great subscription, that it's about a different subject every week.
So you are expanding your knowledge and your vocabulary, talking about everything different, right?
And you also get the PDF script.
So you get something to print out.
You can mark it up.
You can read it out loud yourself.
You can listen to the voices in the program and then see if you can copy their vocal inflections and things like that.
It really does cover everything. most of the things that you need to do.
Maybe you know Monday you listen to the program and you write out your questions, and then maybe you listen to it again on Wednesday and then write out answers to your questions or write out what you think the program was about or what the most important thing in the program was about.
And really that practice is what gets you to improve in a language.
We all know it's so difficult where everybody's busy and there's a pandemic in the world.
I don't know if you've noticed this, Adam.
We're still in a pandemic.
I think you're totally right.
And being intentional about all those steps throughout a week, just doing a little bit.
You know, the Spotlight programs are about 14 minutes.
And if you can practice your English in 14 minutes, I mean, that's pretty good.
Anyway.
So I, like I said, I don't mean to hammer that too hard, but I do think it's a great opportunity to just give yourself no excuses, to say I'm going to do this right now.
Right.
And I do.
There are a couple examples from the program or in the program of students who have taken the TOEFL.
See, I knew I was going to say it.
Students who have taken the TOEFL and have been successful or needed to try it again, or different outcomes.
And one is Kim Min Woo, and she is a student and scholarship winner from Korea.
And he told people, I'm just going to read from the script here because it's a good quote.
He told people taking the TOEFL that it is important to practice hearing, reading and speaking English.
Now, we've already talked about that in this program.
We know that part.
But he says, try to hear and see English often.
Speak as much as possible.
The best way to improve speaking is to practice.
Speaking to one's friends and English teachers would definitely help.
Always keep in mind that practice makes perfect.
And yeah, I think that is great advice.
Sometimes I want to do something, but it's really scary.
And I'm like, I don't have time for that.
And making excuses and excuses.
But if you really do want to be good at something, You have to make that time to practice.
You have to like buckle down.
There's another idiom.
You are full of the idioms today.
I know.
I'm full of them today.
You have to buckle down.
You just do it.
You know, you just do it.
Right.
And hopefully here at Spotlight we are giving you some materials so that you can say oh, That sounds really interesting.
Last week we talked about I don't know no more women in science, or a story about the little match girl, or whatever.
And so this week we get to talk about something completely new.
We get to talk about being a good boss or, I don't know, anything.
An interesting person.
What?
Go ahead.
An interesting person.
Yeah, exactly.
So there's so many different things that appeal to a different audience, a wide audience.
And I just think, there you go.
I hope that is helping people do those things.
And I would love to hear if you have, yeah, comments about if you've taken the TOEFL.
But also, what do you think helps?
What is the best way to just really buckle down and practice?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And do like, here's my question.
Do you want to hear me only speak in idioms from now on?
Just kidding.
No, but we would love to hear from you.
And like I said, check out our programs from the past.
Check out our programs in the future by clicking subscribe and clicking the little bell, so that you never miss a notification when we put out a program.
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And always visit our website so you can see what our newest content is.
That's www.spotlightenglish.com.
You can check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, wherever you get your podcasts, and YouTube.
So you have no excuses.
You're cracking the whip.
So I know, right?
I know.
But you have no excuses in English in not practicing, and so i would really encourage you keep practicing, keep learning, and we hope that we can help you with that.
Until next time listen watch, practice and learn spotlight out.
