What is your opinion of the TOEIC test?

When I worked for a private language school in London it was regarded as a bit of a joke. I remember the school used to teach FCE to groups of young Swiss Bankers and  threw in the TOEIC test as an extra. The school didn’t offer any prep but just offered to invigilate it for them as it was an accredited TOEIC exam centre. It was an opportunity for them to gain another English Language certificate while they were with us.

To be honest, after the rigours of FCE prep, the Swiss teenagers laughed at the TOEIC test and indeed mocked it. They found the listening part absurdly easy, especially the initial questions where for example you see a photo of people in business suits sitting around a conference table and have to correctly identify the sentence “They are in a meeting” as opposed to 2 or 3 other patently false sentences.

The TOEIC test was designed to allow employers to predict how well a new employee would be able to cope in an English speaking workplace. It is therefore a predictive test and offers only a likelihood of language competence. The final score in the test (max 990) gets you a few sentences which offer an assessment of your ability to communicate well in the workplace.

It is a reading and listening test. There has long been talk of the much vaunted speaking and writing add-on, but to date I’ve yet to see it, or any great enthusiasm for it.

In Korea where the TOEIC test is still valued and indeed a high score in which is virtually mandatory for any serious job applicant, Korean TOEIC gurus are everywhere. These experts can get you the maximum score in the test if you follow their methods to the letter. It is possible to get the maximum score without being able to speak or write at all.

It’s similar to TOEFL which is required for entrance to US and other universities.

When I worked for my first adult hagwon in Korea, the owner headhunted the local TOEFL guru from another school and he must have thought he’d won the lottery when the guru’s devoted students all followed him to our school. I guess it was great business. The guru was given the hagwon’s biggest room - a really huge affair with better equipment than any other room - and it became literally a school within a school!

It was amazing to watch him at work through the window as we passed along the corridor. He stood at a lectern and his whiteboard looked like that for a mathematics lesson - covered with formulae with only letters such as “v” or “n” or “adj” to offer any clue that this was related to English!

What I could never understand was that unlike TOEIC, TOEFL has sections on writing and speaking, yet as far as I can tell, our school’s manager and the guru never seemed to be much interested in those parts - I still wonder why as those parts surely constituted half the test!

All the while, the native speaker teachers were slaving away on IELTS, which for those who don’t know, really does help students prepare for university life abroad but there was never THE SAME interest in that.

IELTS is preferred by British universities but I think all the unis will accept a good TOEFL score too. I’m very surprised all the big unis from across the globe haven’t banded together and shared their knowlege about the comparative English proficiency of IELTS versus TOEFL students. I’d hazard a guess that the difference in ability would be significant.

I sometimes pass by the entrance to my old hagwon when I go downtown. Sadly now, the native speaker department - its raison d’etre back in the beginning - has been downsized and dumbed down. The staff now are mostly Korean and there are two life-sized smiling posters of the TOEIC and TOEFL gurus in the lobby…

Sad to think that at start up, this franchise hagwon at one point seemed well on the way to persuading Korean students of the need for the communicative approach to teaching/learning English. All our teachers were CELTA qualified as a minimum.

Unfortunately when the profits didn’t flow in as expected, the Korean managers, after being initially impressed with our passion/commitment for best practice, decided to go where the real money was - TOEIC & TOEFL!

I guess from a purely business point of view - can’t blame ‘em…

Part 1: Synchronicity

Imagine this: It’s Monday morning and you are in your English hagwon with your colleagues, both native English teachers (NETs) and Korean English teachers (KETs). You are all in the school’s biggest room together. You wouldn’t normally be there at this time, but you’re all being paid to be there and there’s even a monthly bonus thrown on in top! It’s only once a month and the boss looks upon the extra expense as an investment. After the meeting is over, lunch is on him too!

Your boss is a huge fan of cooperation and teamwork. He believes NETs and KETs have a lot to learn from each other. He knows that these groups often feel threatened by each other, are mostly uncommunicative and even hostile on occasion, but he wants to shoot for a happy staffroom. He wants the teachers to respect each other and he wants to offer the best deal to all stakeholders. He knows the false ideas each group can often have about the other. He also knows that these people are pros and know infinitely more about teaching English than he does, but he wants to be there, so he can learn something himself and so he can protect them all from the whims of ultra conservatives and basically be a better employer.

In this meeting the KETs present which grammatical structures will be taught this month and which listening texts and reading passages will be used. NETs agree to stay on message and deliver speaking and writing tasks to activate/recycle the same grammar and vocabulary in speech and writing, if possible staying within the same themes/topics.

NETs share with KETs fun ways they know to present language and encourage them to develop pairwork, incorporate games, fun activities and useful error correction techniques. There’s even a schedule for a little peer observation! KETs explain about Korean student mentality, do’s and don’ts and why some activities are dogs that won’t hunt.

The two groups then discuss which lessons can be repeated to minimize the workload and the session finishes off with everyone sharing humorous little communiqués they’ve come up with such as “Top 10 foreigner misconceptions about KETs” or “10 ways to avoid boring your students to death!”

Not to feel left out, the Boss even weighs in with a tongue in cheek “10 ways I tend to irritate my teachers” or even “I am the boss round here, not the students or parents!” All light hearted stuff!

There’s a Q&A session where everyone can ask questions about common difficulties. The boss encourages everyone to share their knowledge and to never be too shy to ask questions of anyone, quoting the ancient Japanese maxim: All of us is stronger than one of us and the slightly less arcane: There are no silly questions, just silly answers. (exeunt. flourish)

Contrast this with a picture of another world. Tired and grumpy teachers arrive at their hagwon later that same day to prepare for the day’s lessons. KETs are earnestly beavering away checking answers at the back of their books and pondering how to be more dynamic in the way they present new language instead of the usual chalk and talk style. NETs nark about how much more vacation they could be getting elsewhere and what an affront it is that Koreans should have anything to do with the teaching of English.

NETs and KETs greet each other with a polite “Hi” but that’s really the extent of the dialogue as far as teaching English is concerned. Once the lessons start, it’s everyone for themselves. Everyone’s the undisputed world champion in their own separate discipline – the Grammar guru, the Listening Lecturer, the Reading Queen or the Speaking Master. The student, rather than being Jack of all trades, is master of, well….none.

The boss dialogues with each group separately and dictates new protocol/passes on negative feedback to each, often reflecting students’ or parents’ criticisms, mostly self-defeating and irrational. Both groups have no idea why the other tends to get bent out of shape about certain issues but the KETs are irritated that NETs get to do all the fun stuff while they have to do all the hard work, while NETs are amused at the enormous numbers of butterflies being broken on wheels.

At the end of the day, all make their way home reflecting on minor successes and failures. All are frustrated by the puzzling lack of progress in many of the students but are dimly aware of the fact there’s got to be more than this. We all could get a whole lot more out of this if we put our heads together…

Up and down Korea, in hundreds of English hagwons, the teaching of English vocabulary is perhaps one of the clearest examples of silliness in a business where even in this modern age, in this modern country, the basic principles of effective language teaching have never really been imported. The harsh fact is that Korea has not kept up with developments in language teaching and with few exceptions, follows methods written off by educators in the west decades ago. In these private language institutes, the daily “voca” tests have very little long term or practical value. Read more »

I have found that when a lesson doesn’t work, it is often because one or more of the fundamentals have gone out the window! In my humble opinion, omission of the fundamentals include things like the following: Do you agree? Read more »

Sick of having your well planned lessons interrupted by late arrivals? Students seem wordless and unmotivated? Bring back the warmer! Read more »

Having written about kids hagwons in Korea, next up are adult only schools. I’m afraid I can’t recommend them. The biggest problem is the split shifts you have to work - as your students are only really available for study at the top and bottom end of the day, and that can often mean 630am starts! For more on split shifts, see my post entitled Day of the Dead… Read more »

It would be good to get a discussion going on this blog about split shifts. In my view they are the pits of the earth…. Read more »

One of the funniest EFL blogs out there is Sandy McManus. A really gifted comic with a sharp insight into the murky world of this business. Who knows how long this blog will be available to read now that he’s packed it in, but if you want a laugh, go back through his archives and enjoy. Can’t stop going on there and reading these little gems. Here’s an example of his writing on TEFL Summer schools:

http://tefltrade.blog-city.com/summer_schools__a_masochist_writes.htm

Here’s a little phrase sheet I made to give to your students Read more »

You don’t need a teaching qualification to be an English Teacher to work in Korea. Not even in the universities! Read more »