The information on this page is written for TOEFL students but it can easily be applied to IELTS or any other professional development purpose.

If you're an IELTS candidate, or other professional, and you're interested in building your English fluency and filling in gaps in your proficiency, contact me so we can discuss making a lesson plan for you.

What are Pre-TOEFL lessons?

In a survey, TOEFL and IELTS teachers were asked:

"What is the biggest problem your students face in their exam preparation?"

As an experienced language teacher, I can predict some of the challenges that English language learners may have based on their native language and their early experiences of learning English.

TOEFL is an English proficiency exam but it's also a test of timing, organization and strategy.

It's impossible to get a high score in TOEFL (total 100+, speaking 26+, writing 24+) unless you have very strong foundational skills in grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Many students make the mistake of trying to practice exam preparation strategies before they have developed these strong language skills.

The top answer was:

"Trying to do exam preparation when their English isn't at the right level."

Did your early English lessons focus on fluency over accuracy (the Communicative Method)?

Did your English instruction favour reading and writing over listening and speaking?

Did you learn English as a foreign language (one that wasn't used around you every day)?

Does your native language use a different writing system from English (like in Arabic or Russian)?

Does your native language have a very different grammatical construction from English?

Is your native language syllable-timed rather than stress-timed?

Every student has different challenges and it's my role to work out what they are then provide feedback, strategies, and exercises to resolve them.

And that's why I created a whole course of pre-exam lessons.

It's normal for adult learners to have gaps in their knowledge but it's important to identify and close those gaps before working on exam strategies. Why? Because it saves time, money and lots of frustration.

For example:

A fossilized error is an error in speaking and/or writing that a language learner repeats over and over again.

It becomes part of the learner's ingrained speech pattern and they continue to make the error. Language teachers and linguists have been talking about fossilized errors and the methods of correcting them for decades.

I've written about my strategies for correcting fossilized errors and the methods I use in my lessons.

What about Fossilized Errors?

Fossilized errors:

Should not be ignored because they don't go away by themselves.

Require a focused, methodical strategy for correction.

Should be tackled early on in any phase of language instruction.

CAN be corrected with the right approach.

Who are pre-TOEFL Lessons for?

Have low overall scores, for example if your scores are below 18 in each section, or if your level of English is B1 or below.

Prefer to work at a slower pace with more emphasis on language use and comprehension.

Struggle with grammar and make a lot of errors.

Would like to increase your vocabulary so you don't have to pause to find the right word.

You know you have gaps in your knowledge and you want to work on them in a supported and methodical way.

You should consider pre-TOEFL lessons if you:

What's covered in Pre-TOEFL Lessons?

The focus in these pre-TOEFL lessons is on increasing your fluency in the kind of modern standard English that you need for the TOEFL exam. It's the English that millions of native speakers use every day. We practice creating, using, and understanding normal English expressions.

We use TOEFL materials along with other academic English resources, and we prepare for TOEFL. We just don't do any exam style practice with strict timing. Because that's for afterwards when you've built strong language foundations.

If you've done pre-TOEFL classes, you'll probably find that the exam style practice - when you get to it - goes much faster. So by taking pre-TOEFL lessons, you'll be saving time and money.

There are many overlaps between the different skills in language learning, and that's something we take advantage of in this series of lessons.

We start with reading and writing because these are the language skills where you have more control.

We analyze reading texts and we practice writing, all the while focusing on using accurate grammar and vocabulary.

We look at different ways of expanding your vocabulary (this is my specialist area and it's what I did my Master's research on) and I have lots of innovative grammar explanations and exercises for you to try.

Then we move onto skills where you have less control - listening, and then speaking.

We practice these with the other skills you've built so far, combining them with each other, using the TOEFL rubrics as a guide.

We practice over and over again until you're confident in all these areas.

Is there Homework?

Of course! I'll set homework for every lesson and I'll give you lots of feedback for everything you do.

If you want do more studying by yourself between lessons, I can advise you about that too.

I'll track your progress so you'll always know where you are and how much you've achieved.

Lesson Package Availability and Cost

If you see my exact words repeated on any other websites, they have been copied. Please be very careful about any claims these other websites might make.

Anyone can claim they are a TOEFL tutor as there isn't any industry regulation. Please check out any potential tutor very carefully, and find out about their qualifications and experience before you sign up for lessons.