TOEFL or IELTS?

A lot of my students have asked me if they should take the TOEFL or the IELTS test as they are planning on studying abroad.

There are two main English language tests accepted by universities around the world, IELTS(International English Language Testing Service) and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). But the big question that faces students is; which one is better?

Here are some good points I found on this website about both, and their differences. 

If you are applying to university in an English speaking country and English is not your first language, your institution may require you to take a standardised test.

The similarities

Both are English language tests aimed at pre-university students planning to make the step to higher education. Both evaluate how well you can combine your listening, reading, writing and speaking skills.

 

The differences

Although both tests ostensibly focus on the same thing, they do so in different ways, which is why so many students want to know which is better (and even more commonly, which is easier). One of the main differences is the speaking part of the test. For IELTS you are required to take this with an IELTS examiner face to face. For TOEFL the speaking test consists of six questions which you answer into a microphone. These are recorded and sent to an examiner to mark.

The scoring system is also different, with IELTS rating between 0 and 9, with halfway points in between. TOEFL gives a more numerical SAT-type grade, totalling your scores from all the areas. This gives an insight into another key difference. TOEFL is administered by the Educational Testing Service, a non-profit US based organisation, and conducts its test according to US English. IELTS is administered jointly by the British Council, the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations and IDP Education Australia, and conducts its test in UK English. While the differences are not as great as some assume, accents and spelling variations can cause a problem for some students.

So which is better?

The answer really depends on you; what kind of learner you are and where you want to study. The question of which is easier is largely irrelevant as both tests will grade you accurately according to your level of English. TOEFL may tend to favour more abstract learners as many of the questions are multiple choice whereas IELTS may be more suited to concrete learners as it involves memory recall. The face to face speaking section of the IELTS may be daunting to some candidates who would be more comfortable speaking into a microphone.

Finally, it may be necessary to check that your chosen institution accepts the test. Although both are accepted at more than 6,000 institutions and organisations worldwide, so there is a fairly good chance you will be able to use either, it is always necessary to check beforehand.

Here is a Toefl Practice test Online I found which can help you see if you are prepared or not for the test.

Here are some test samples for the IELTS test.  

I hope you found this information useful! 

Have a great weekend.

Sleepwalker-River Of Love feat.Bembe Segue

To Luciano and Camila - One more to go kids!

Making small talk

As a teacher I often need to make small talk with my students as we are either waiting for other students to arrive, or we have some time to kill. According to the Urban Dictionary, small talk is a "Useless and unnecessary conversation attempted to fill the silence in an awkward situation. Commonly backfires into feelings of loneliness and social discomfort". I can´t say that I agree with this definition as I find these talks often quite enjoyable and it gives me an opportunity to get to know my students better. 

My fellow teacher Luciano taught a class this week on small talk and he came across this funny video about the origin of small talk:

Here are some tips I found from this website about how to make small talk (more tips on the website!)

• Comment on a topic common to both of you at the moment: the food, the room, the occasion, the weather (yes, talking about the weather is a cliché, but it works). “How do you know our host?” “What brings you to this event?” However, keep it on the positive side! Unless you can be hilariously funny, the first time you meet a person isn’t a good time to complain.

• Comment on a topic of general interest. A friend scans Google News right before he goes anywhere where he needs to make small talk, so he can say, “Did you hear that Jeff Bezos is buying The Washington Post?” or whatever.

• Ask a question that people can answer as they please. My favorite question is: “What’s keeping you busy these days?” It’s useful because it allows people to choose their focus (work, volunteer, family, hobby, etc.). 

• Ask open questions that cannot be answered with a single word.

I hope you found these tips useful and don´t feel as uncomfortable next time you need to make small talk.

As I will not write again until after Christmas I´d like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Take care now!

Learning English through music

I´ve often been amazed at my students’ who´ve learned English simply by listening to music. Some of these students are musicians, others simply love music and have spent hours listening to their favorite songs and writing down the lyrics. I actually did this myself when I was 15 years old and back then we didn´t have CD players so I had to be rewind the cassette over and over again! The first song I wrote down was "Gangsta Paradise" and as I came to school that day with the lyrics I was immediately asked to make copies for all my classmates as we sat there and sang instead of studying. Good times! After that, I started writing down lyrics to Eminem´s songs, which was a bit more of a challenge, but it definitely helped me improve my listening skills. 

I remember when I lived in California and heard the great Brazilian musician Jorge Ben for the first time. Of course I fell in love with his music but I couldn´t understand a word he was saying, since I didn´t speak any Portuguese at the time. I remember how happy I was when I listened to the same songs after living here for some time, and I could finally understand their meaning. Not only did I like the songs more, but I also gave more value to the artist because I found his lyrics so beautiful and deep. Now I can actually sing along and understand the meaning behind the songs better.

There is a website that I´ve used several times with my students and has turned many of my classes into a game or a competition. This website is useful for listening exercise and can be used to practice spelling.

Try it out! I promise you´ll have fun. Just choose your favorite band and see what song options they offer. 

Now choose your level (they have three) - Beginner - Intermediate - Expert.

I would only recommend the expert level if you know the song by heart because you have to fill in all the words! It´s very difficult actually! My hands were aching after I played the song "Love The Way You Lie" - I had to type super-fast for the song not to stop. 

So put that CD on and start singing along!

Have fun!

The ''Joke''ular Tense?

Sitting in a cold air-conditioned office waiting for some inspiration to strike, when in walks a certain colleague armed with a joke.  Then poof an epiphany!  It wasn`t the joke – it wasn`t that funny, but the idea of telling a joke or recounting an anecdote and one`s ability to pull it off in another language is a good barometer of fluency.  Now that`s not suggesting that my colleague is not fluent, because he is – he`s just not that funny.  For my part, it might be some time before I reach that level in my Portuguese - to pull it off effectively, the art of telling a good joke.

 

When we tell a joke or recount a story we often use the Historic Past or Jocular Tense – I know, one more tense all of you need to learn.  We see evidence of it everywhere, yet some in literary circles deride it suggesting the tense is a crutch and, that we should avoid using it – I disagree.

 

Digging a little, I found out more about the historical present, which then led me to one of the fundamental uses of the tense – in telling jokes or stories.  Moreover, who doesn`t love to tell a story.

Here`s one I found

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
"Why?" asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"Well, I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."  Get it? No?  The panda walks in, orders, eats, and draws a gun, then shoots and leaves… Now? I mean, It would have sounded weird had it gone, "a panda walked into a bar and ordered a sandwich, shot some people and left.”

Interestingly that's not how all languages work. In scanning through a few joke websites, I found that conventions vary.  Take this joke in Portuguese, which sets the scene in the imperfect (a tense used for continuous or repeated actions in the past), before switching to the jocular present:

Um homem estava com a família visitando o zoológico, quando chega um funcionário todo afobado e diz:
— Senhor, senhor!
O homem responde:
— O que foi? Qual é o problema?
— Uma desgraça! Sua sogra caiu no poço dos jacarés.
O homem, na maior calma, diz para o funcionário:
— Não quero nem saber! Vocês é que tratem de salvar os jacarés.

This is all to say that there is a certain math behind the science of delivering a joke, something to most native speakers comes naturally, and for those who are not, something that becomes a lifelong study.  I know for me it will take at least a few more years before I get to that level of fluency in Portuguese, but I am encouraged that I am getting closer.  Perhaps a similar goal should be adopted by students of a second language to map your own fluency for 2014 and beyond.

Common mistakes Brazilian English learners make...

We´ve been posting these short videos on our Facebook page about some common mistakes made by students starting the English learning process.
I´ve been teaching English now for 5 years Recife so I already have my list ready of these common errors, and here it goes.

Can you spot the mistake? (check after!)

1. I have 33 years old.
2. I went to the beach with your father (student telling me what he/she did)
3. I go to Gravata last weekend.
4. You are hungry.
5. I have small friends.

Did you spot the mistake?

Of course it´s hard for beginners not to make these mistakes, who doesn't make mistakes learning a new language!

The first one is a direct translation from Portuguese (eu tenho 33 anos) so it´s natural for our students to say "I have x years".  The correct way is to say "I am 33" or "I am 33 years old".

Another one is when my students say that they spent time with someone from my family. They´ll say that they went to the beach with "YOUR" father - obviously here they want to say "HER" father or "HIS" father, but the problem here is that in Portuguese you have "seu" and "sua", and this can both mean "your" or "his/her". The other day my student wanted to tell me that she went to her mom´s room but instead said she had gone to "my" room - good thing I cleaned before she looked in there!

Number 3 is a common mistake for beginners. Of course the student wants to say "went", using the past. Don´t really know why this mistakes happens so often since even in Portuguese you wouldn´t use the present to talk about the past. I guess nervousness just really kicks in sometimes and our mind goes blank. It used to happen to me all the time when I was first learning Portuguese.

Number 4 is a question turned affirmative. In Portuguese the affirmative and interrogative sentences are the same; "Você está com fome". (affirmative) and "Você está com fome"? (interrogative). This happens also with the verb "Can" as sometimes my teenagers would say "I can go to the bathroom" instead of "Can I go to the bathroom"?.

"I have small friends" always brings a smile to my face because I picture my student´s friends being really tiny, like elves even. The student, in this case, wants to say that he or she doesn´t have many friends. The correct way would be to say "I have few friends" or "I have a few friends".

I hope this blog was useful to you!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Keeping it Simple

OK so I may not be someone’s first choice at following this header, as most people who know me would attest.  In fact, they might say that I am the quintessential big word user out there.  Of course I would vehemently disagree with such outlandish categorization – I mean truly, how absurd!  Seriously though, ‘’Keeping it simple’’ seems like an easy enough concept, but why would anyone adopt it, when making language hard is so easy – and more fun. Right?

How many times have we heard an obscure and occasional long word and couldn`t wait to flex our mental fortitude in conversation and like a seasoned DJ drop it at the right time.  Most of us, right?  Be honest.  That’s what I thought.  Using the chosen word in conversation and getting away with a possible error is sometimes excusable and in most cases not even noticed, but writing it, and getting away with an error is a whole different situation.  The trap exists among native speakers (I`ve probably sprung a few in this blog), but there are some learners who seem to fall into this trap too, albeit for different reasons. 

Its interesting reflecting on the reasons why we tend to use big words occasionally – to seem more intelligent comes to mind. However, for someone learning English as a second language the lure to use large words seems too large to pass up.  Perhaps it’s the innate sense that when you speak a different language you change your personality however slight – and hence when you use a big word you are no longer Jair, you`re actually Joey.  But then again, if you were Joey and you had to write the word in a sentence you would likely spell the big word wrong or completely misguide the reader – and this character (Friends) is a native. 

Writing for a non-native has to start with the above premise, ``Keep it simple``.  Getting your thoughts across in a way that limits misunderstanding is key in not only the business world, but also the world in general.  Remember clarity in writing usually follows clarity of thought.  Along with the avoidance of using big words, avoid using several words to explain simple actions.  Try to adopt the rule that if you can cut it out, cut it.  Less is more and quality is better than quantity and as a bonus, it limits how much reading there is for the reader – nice since, no one likes long emails.  Pretty sure blogs posts are different though.

What does marriage have to do with teaching?

After considering whether or not to publish this perhaps exceedingly emotional post, I've decided to trust my co-workers' opinions and just do it. Maybe it's my wedding approaching. Or maybe it was the Monday effect. Or both. Anyway, here it goes:

I’ll start today’s post talking about my wedding. I know it might seem a little bit out of space, but it will make sense. Hopefully!

As part of the religious ceremony for the big day, there have been a series of pre-wedding steps. As I didn’t attend the first communion course that many Brazilians go through in Elementary school, I had to take a one-to-one intensive for adults with the deacon of the church we’ve chosen to get married at.

I didn’t imagine I would come out with such positive and deep impressions about this course, to be very honest. The Friday night encounters did not appeal to me as a perfect way to kick off the weekend, but it turned out to be really interesting.

The deacon managed to find very rather meaningful words throughout the course. During the last encounter, he came out with this one: “nobody gets married to be happy. You get married to make the other one happy, and vice-versa, of course”. So, in other words, you do get married to be happy, but in a sense it seems that your happiness is on the hands of your partner, and that by keeping her/him happy, you should find your own happiness. Beautifully put, in my opinion.

It didn’t take much for me to start drawing parallels with my career as a teacher. For each and every lesson, at least for me, there is only one reason: make students happy. Not saying that I’ll be telling jokes for two hours straight, but us teachers make students happy by entertaining them, by bringing interesting topics or using students’ lives as themes, by engaging them in the lesson, by getting them to participate and communicate in class, and of course, by teaching them something. And why not, by inspiring them! That’s a pretty happy feeling at the end of a lesson, isn’t it? Interact, talk, be active and participative, feel inspired and learn something new.

It’s a soothing and pleasing feeling this one that you work to make other people happy. I certainly think it’s a inspiring perspective from which to look at teaching.

And looking ahead to my wedding, I figure that I’ll be making it official that I want to keep doing whatever I can to make the most important person in my life happy. It just hadn’t occurred to me until now that, in a distinct yet comparable way, I have been married with my profession for a while now.

It might sound excessively romantic and naïve, or maybe that’s how people feel right before getting married, I don’t know. Still, it is quite an inspiring and special feeling to look at myself right now as someone who wants to find happiness through making other people happy.