When it comes to Advance Standing Program, we can all agree that the first barrier international dentists have to overcome is English - specifically, TOEFL. Being someone who could barely conduct a conversation in English 8,9 years ago, I would love to share with you some steps I took to score 104 points from 70 initially. If you are below 70, you can still benefit from these suggestions as I believe this is the right way to improve each of four skills – Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.
A bit about my English journey, my mom put me into English class when I was 3 years old until 6 years old. I am forever grateful for that because I never see English as a total stranger although I was struggling with it for a long time afterward. We do study English in school, but all we learn is grammar and vocabulary – which is almost useless for communication if you can’t pronounce them in a right way. When I was in 11th grade, wanting to study abroad, I went to one of the most popular English center in Saigon hoping to score 60 in TOEFL and I could not help but feel drowning. I did not know where to start as my skills were so bad except maybe reading. I quit after 2 months and then jumped from places to places – no class lasting more than a few months. I just never felt like I was getting anywhere better. “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Most of the English classes only gave me one fish a day – I knew more vocabulary, I knew more complicated grammar structure but I did not get the “tool” to improve my English significantly. Until I met a teacher!
- READING -
He was the only one at that time who opened an English class that focused on one skill only – listening. He was the one giving me the foundation that helped me build my future on. He explained that listening is the most important skill one has to master in order to master other skills, like a baby first recognizes people’s voices before imitating what it hears and starts to speak. His method was simple. He gave us different cassettes – 1 “VOA”, 1 “Around town”, and 1 “CNN”. I went there 3 times a week, so each day we would work on a tape. “Around town” is daily conversation, “VOA” is more academic, slow and easier to guess, “CNN” is more modern but harder to understand. My homework is to play the tape and write down whatever I could hear. The part I could not guess the words, I would leave it blank. We also had to guess if it’s a comma or a full stop after each pause. When we came to class, the teacher would play the tape and wrote along on a board the whole piece before asking us which words or phrase we could not catch. He then would play the words again until we remembered how it was pronounced.
I could not believe how many familiar words I pronounced wrongly before and that’s why I did not recognize them. The whole process sounds so boring and super slow right? However, after a few months, I could hear clearly every single word and even after his tragic death, I could still practice that way on my own with any material as long as I have the listening part with full script. I tried to pass on this method with some of my friends but not everyone believed on how effective it could be or not everyone was patient enough to get through “the initial pain” of being so slow. It is interesting how you have to go real slow in order to move fast.
- SPEAKING -
Once I corrected my pronunciation through listening, my speaking skill got better also. Those words that people could not understand when I used before now are easier to understand. When you pronounce a word correctly, people will understand despite the accent. Tried to speak slowly, clearly and with correct pronunciation. The first time I took TOEFL, it was only a mock test as I knew I was not ready to take the real one. I scored 13/30 for speaking. It was a shocking moment to know how “good” I was. I expected less then 20 but 13 was an ugly truth that I had to accept. Determined to improve my speaking, I jumped from class to class again without obvious result. After I finished my dental school in 2011, I registered for a full-time 2-month-long class that helped people who were about to study abroad. It was expensive but one of the best choices I’ve made. The class helped me get over my anxiety/insecurity when communicating in English.
Speaking English all day long in 2 months definitely helped but mainly with daily conversation. Speaking in TOEFL is a different story. You can look up the format of TOEFL Speaking online, but generally they have 6 parts and you have to quickly answer the questions in 45s – 1 min with only 30s-45s to prepare. I could communicate but within that time frame, my brain often went frozen. Fast back 2 years later, I was still struggling but it’s time to think of applying for advanced standing program so I decided to invest in a TOEFL class. I love that class because once again, they gave me a “fish hook”.
The part I am scared of the most is Question 1 & 2. I was good with listening so for Question 3,4,5,6 I could easily draft a note and answer based on that. For Ques 1 & 2 when I had a simple question and just answered it freestyle, I often had no idea what to say. The key is you have to practice thinking in English in order to respond that fast. I would do my normal daily activities and always think of random questions. For example, I would drive around and ask myself “Which color do you like and why?” when seeing red light. It doesn’t matter if I actually love yellow or Red. If I can find an answer easier with Green, I will go with that (Green is the color of nature so green makes me feel peaceful. Green is also my mom’s favorite so it reminds me of her blah blah blah). No one is here to judge you based on what you think, they only want to know if you can answer the question or not in 45s.
There are also lots of mock TOEFL questions on the internet that you can use to practice. On youtube, if you type TOEFL Speaking, there will be mock questions with timer so you can practice in the same concept of 30s/45s/1min timeframe. Practice makes perfect. Don’t think that you can improve your English quickly just by going to class and doing homework as teacher says. Everyone has different ways of absorbing knowledge, teacher will teach you in a general way that can fit majority people, but you need to understand what is your weakness and find a way to improve it.
- to be continued -