here we are top 10 TOEFL speaking tips
and let me start right away with TOEFL
speaking tip number 1 stop watching so
many YouTube videos so if you're
watching this right now but 10% of your
time should be focused on watching
videos and 90% of your time should be
focused on practicing speaking ok so but
the problem that you might have is that
you're not sure how to practice so what
these tips are gonna do is not only show
you how to perform on test day but also
help you practice in a way that's going
to help you improve your TOEFL speaking
score so you're going to assess your own
speaking strengths and weaknesses you're
going to speak English in a more natural
style you're going to study in the way
that keeps you focused and motivated
you're going to answer TOEFL speaking
questions with more confidence and find
a support system that helps you achieve
your score so my name is josh Macpherson
head instructor of TST prep where our
mission is simple to help you get your
TOEFL score as quickly and easily as
possible and after working with hundreds
of students to try to improve their
TOEFL speaking we've collected these 10
tips to help you improve so let's talk
about them
right now
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so you already know tip number one let's
go to tip number two which is to record
your voice I know you hate the sound of
your own voice I hate the sound of my
own voice I thought my voice was very
deep and masculine and then I heard my
voice and it wasn't so it was very
uncomfortable for me and it's going to
be uncomfortable for you as well but you
have to record your voice when you hear
your recorded voice it usually sounds
higher than you expect this is common
for almost everybody so expect that
accept it and if you want to improve you
need to record your voice but not only
do you have to record your voice but you
also have to use a grading rubric to
analyze your response so probably if
you're studying speaking at home you're
having trouble kind of analyzing your
speaking you know how to practice the
questions but you don't know how to
improve on your weaknesses how to give
yourself a score of course you can work
with a teacher we have plenty at CST
prep but if you're doing it on your own
use a grading rubric there's a link in
the description below to a 26 plus kind
of handout that we give students and in
it is a grading rubric and so in this
rubric you have did you speak for 57 to
60 seconds this is for an integrated
question questions 2 3 or 4 was my
introduction 15 seconds or less did I
have enough time to include a conclusion
that I look at the clock so these are
things that you can check that you can
monitor yourself it's not the same as
how you're graded on the TOEFL but it
will help you see some things that you
need to improve here's question 5 did I
include two transitional words or
phrases those are words like however or
also things like that then I speak at a
smooth and even pace so did you speak
comfortably and smoothly and did you
speak naturally so not like a robot and
did you include all the important
information from the reading and
listening this is for the integrated
questions there's a different one for
the independent but this is the
checklist that you can use to help you
kind of improve your speaking as you go
and see some of the weaknesses and
strengths you have
it's not the same as the TOEFL but it
will help you as you're working on your
own here's the next tip is to find a
study buddy this is probably the best
tip that I can give if you have support
if you have another person taking the
test with you it really helps you can
join our Facebook group we try to
encourage students to meet with each
other and you communicate outside of
class outside of Facebook so they can
help encourage each other to improve
their speaking so check that out
Facebook group another way to do it is
online classes of course but you can ask
friends and families for support ask
people at your school ask teachers find
different people who can give you that
support that you need
but yeah study buddy would be great the
next tip is to move your hands when you
speak so this is something that you
might notice right now that I'm doing I
move my hands when I speak it's just
kind of natural natural I when we speak
American English a lot of Americans use
their hands are pretty expressive and so
you want to try to do the same thing
when you're speaking if you're really
stiff and you're kind of just speaking
from your mouth it's not gonna sound
comfortable or natural our voices are
when we speak are usually articulated
down here in the chest we go it's not in
the face so we use our body a lot when
we speak I tried to do the same of
course it might be a little
uncomfortable for you you're at a TOEFL
test center you know you're kind of
nervous if I try to use your hands
because that really does help your
emotional connection to what you're
saying you want to sound comfortable and
natural when you speak and using your
hands it's a great way to do that next
tip tip number six is to pick the right
time and place to study so this is a
mistake I see a lot of students make
study in the morning at night you're too
tired to focus look I know that you have
family you have responsibilities you
have school you have homework you have
kids there's a lot of things going on in
your life besides this TOEFL stuff so
it's hard to find time to study and a
lot of times it's at night time after
you've finished everything and at night
you're tired you don't want to do TOEFL
it's not a very exciting topic
try to make time in the morning or the
afternoon where you can focus on it
because it's gonna be better for you at
night you probably fall asleep studying
to be honest so try to do it in the
morning or afternoon next tip tip number
seven is to start the same way for each
question type every time so again in
that handout we have a table of
different phrases that you can use for
each question type pick one that you're
going to use every time for question one
pick one you're going to use every time
for question two and the same thing for
question three and question four use the
same introduction every time
that way you don't have to worry about
how you're going to start starting is
one of the hardest parts where they say
three two one speak and you have to
speak it's so hard to speak immediately
so have a phrase that you know very well
that you have memorized that you can
just say without thinking about it so
definitely have an introductory phrase a
template for each question type the
questions are very structured so they
should work the template introduction
should work for almost any question one
almost any question two and so on okay
so have that introduction start strong
that brings me to speaking tip number
eight use a timer so on the test you
have 45 seconds for question one 60
seconds for the rest of the questions
and there's a timer on your computer
screen it's going to be impossible to
ignore
now clocks make you nervous make me
nervous makes everybody nervous but you
want to try to start using it as a tool
the clock is your friend look at it at
least twice when you're speaking and
prepare for the test conditions by
having a timer when you speak at home as
well so you can get used to how it feels
when you do like questions three and
four a lot of students tend to read
their notes a lot and not look at the
clock try to do try to look at your
notes look at the clock look at your
notes look at the clock one or two times
not all the time but one or two times
when you're speaking once or twice so
that's tip number eight use a timer try
to get used to the test conditions tip
number nine take advantage of technology
to provide you with feedback
you're speaking so TST prepper working
really hard to have some technology that
automatically checks your speaking we're
looking at some different integrations
but for now one really useful software
is voice typing for example in Google
Docs if you if you go up you press voice
typing you record your voice it'll type
what you're saying just like when you
talk to your iPhone and you talk to Siri
use those those technologies you know
one of them to see if it understands
what you're saying if the robot if the
technology can transcribe what you're
saying that means that your
pronunciation is pretty good and your
speaking and delivery is pretty good if
there are some words some phrases some
sentences that it has trouble
understanding then you might need to
work on them more so use technology Siri
voice typing Google Docs text-to-speech
any of this software that can translate
your voice to speech and use it to help
you you don't want to do it for a long
tall like 60 second passages but maybe
for a sentence or two sentences and see
what happens
see what words comes up and what words
don't they don't understand and use that
as a way to help you kind of improve
also if you need to find the
pronunciation of a certain word you
glish is an excellent site i recommend
it very often i don't have a lot of time
to go into detail here but basically if
you don't know the pronunciation of a
word let's say for example you don't
know how to pronounce battery type in
battery and you glitch and you will see
a bunch of videos with people saying
battery something weird check it out
it's very cool very interesting and
really helpful when you're practicing
pronunciation of certain words and
certain phrases and yeah there's an
example right there I put one there so
battery and then you look for examples
and it shows you a video and it goes
right to the moment that the person says
battery so you can hear it in context
really helpful last tip get professional
support from an experienced teacher yeah
so of course TST prep we have a bunch of
teachers waiting to help you with your
TOEFL
or but also teachers really do help you
kind of guide you guide your studies
most of you are studying alone
especially if you're watching youtube
videos so it's kind of hard to do if
it's not a TOEFL teacher an English
teacher or just you know a friend who
knows a little bit more about the TOEFL
or about English than you is really
helpful similar to find a study buddy
find some support if it's a teacher it's
a friend whatever it is support is just
so so helpful and again yet you can
download the TST prep TOEFL speaking 26
plus templates and strategies to help
you along the way
and that's about it so here are the ten
tips listed out I hope you found them
helpful let me know in the comments
below which tip do you find most helpful
or do you think there's one that we
missed let us know in the comments below
thank you guys so much for sticking
around to the end
I appreciate it there's so many other
things you could be doing besides
studying for the TOEFL so you're working
hard thank you guys for sticking around
and yeah I'll see you guys in the next
video
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you