hello toilet teachers what do you think
is most important teaching toy grammar
or teaching TOEIC vocabulary I'm sure
you have an opinion on this this
question has been troubling me for quite
some time so I I've done some research
and the experts have convinced me that
vocabulary is vital this is Ellen Baker
Dubois from business English a lure and
I'm hoping to convince you to that
vocabulary is vital
I discovered that can all the 200
questions on the on the complete exam
76% of those questions required TOEIC
vocabulary to answer the question
correctly and only 24% of those
questions required a knowledge of
grammar in order to answer correct so
that's a hundred and fifty two questions
on vocabulary and only 48 questions that
require grammar skills to answer the
question correctly is that surprising to
you maybe not it did confirm my
suspicions because I knew that the only
real grammar questions pure grammar
questions were in parts five and six of
the reading section so why do so many
online toach training courses focus on
her grammar review when when now we know
that vocabulary is so important I was
lucky to find a coupon to take the
official TOEIC training course offered
by the ETS website I did the full course
all three modules high beginner
intermediate and advanced
I saw that one half of the lessons were
devoted to grammar review including you
know a full review of verb tenses so I
asked myself maybe there were grammar
questions in other parts of the test so
I picked up this book that contains two
updated a practice tests from ETS so
these are official practice tests this
book happens to be in French which is
not a problem for me but it was
basically the only practice test I could
find that were official and up-to-date
so I decided to study all 200 questions
and to determine if I needed a grammar
knowledge to answer the question
correctly or if I needed business
vocabulary sometimes I noticed that I
needed a little of both so I kept score
and meticulously you're probably
wondering what I considered a grammar
question and those had in the four
answer choices those would have word
families or adjectives and adverbs
sometimes there would be a question of
verb tense the same verb tense in the
question and then the answer choices
maybe there was a choice of prepositions
or phrasal verbs so that's what I
considered grammar so there's two parts
to the TOEIC a listing section hearts 1
2 4 and there's a reading section hearts
5 to 7 so in those 100 questions in the
listening section I only found 8
questions that tested grammar and those
were included in part 2 you know where
you have you listen to a question
or a statement and you have to choose
the best response so in the reading
section I only found 39 questions that
tested grammar and those were in parts
five and six in complete sentences and
incomplete texts just as I suspected I
wanted to show you these two examples of
how I decided if it was grammar or
vocabulary question and these two
examples are far from part two questions
and responses so this is these are
listening questions and the first
example why did you come to the office
early today
hey because I had to finish a report B
usually at 8:30 in the morning and see
oh let's see a little mistake there
excuse me and see I'm sorry but I can't
so enter choice a is correct it gives a
reason answering the question why did
you come and it gives the answer because
both the question and the response are
in simple past
so same verb tense in question and
response answer choice B is in present
simple so that's not working out and
answer choice C I'm sorry but I can't we
did not make a request in the question
so for me this was pure grammar easy now
the second example how will I know if
the baseball game is canceled you could
look on the team's website yes I knew
that because you chose a different date
now here I consider this to be half
grammar and half vocabulary for the
grammar how will I know if the base
ballgame is canceled the answer choice a
you could look on the team's website
that's offering a suggestion to to the
question so I really like that B and C
just don't answer the question so the
vocabulary is a little bit rich from
American sports baseball game cancelled
teams website so I gave it half grammar
half forget here so let's let's hear
from two experts to to see if they have
the same opinion that vocabulary is
vital so our first expert will be grant
true he's the author of a of the course
book tactics for Tullock and that is
published by Oxford University Press and
they did an interview with him to ask
him what's the biggest challenge facing
TOEIC test takers when they're preparing
for the test let's listen to all right
well the big one of course is vocabulary
and the main issue why cause problems
for low-level students on the TOEIC is
they just don't know enough words their
listening skills and reading skills all
that stuff is important of course but if
they can't understand key words in the
question if they can't understand the
meaning then they're just not getting
anywhere from that from the get-go so
that's the that's the single biggest
problem for sure
our second expert is James Calloway
he's a an experienced TOEIC teacher and
he's answering a question from a new toy
teacher in English forum comm he writes
her eloquently so let's let's read his
his response his tip so here we are on
the website English forums comm tips for
teaching TOEIC so his first word of
advice is throughout your preparation
for listening focus focus focus on
active
building the students vocabulary
actively pester your students to keep
TOEIC vocabulary and lexus journals
I'd say vocabulary skills specifically
knowing the business context words and
phrases tested on the exam is about 50%
of beating the TOEIC by raising a
candidate's score 200 points or so 25%
is specific test prep skills and the
last 25% is what is generally called
language proficiency or competency
skills grammar so we have scroll down
and here is James Carraway's last word
of advice
Cavallari vocabulary vocabulary stop and
drill he suggests make up word cheats
review translates get the vocabulary
working until the students hate you he
says it will make you feel that you are
betraying your honorable profession of a
language trainer but that's TOEIC
training you know as he says we just
have to get the job done so thank you
James I hope that you're convinced now
that your toach training the course
should be 75% vocabulary and 25% grammar
I've also got two tips here that I think
are important make sure that your
vocabulary games are oral and by
practicing in class when the students
know how to pronounce a new word they
will recognize it when they hear it the
second tip is all of your grammar games
must have a TOEIC theme so the students
will pick up the vocabulary while they
are learning grammar and some of these
themes are commonly tested or general
office vocabulary photocopier email
there's a business travel entertaining
dining and eating out on the TOEIC
website you can find the full list of
all the TOEIC topics that are tested so
don't hesitate to go to my website
business English allure comm where you
can find different grammar games linking
words prepositions phrasal verbs all
with these TOEIC business vocabulary
i'll leave links in the description
below where you can find the English
forum as well as the interview from
Oxford University Press so thanks a lot
and I hope this was useful hit the
subscribe button if you'd like to
receive notices when a new TOEIC
teaching video comes out thanks a lot
ciao