What does a TOEFL Course Provide?

We offer comprehensive TOEFL (Test of English as a foreign language) courses for non-native students wishing to gain a good understanding of North American English, with a view to studying at USA and Canada based colleges and universities where instruction is given in the English language.

In addition to the benefits gained for study reasons, there are a wide variety of scholarship programmes, government and licensing/certification agencies that use this exam to evaluate proficiency in the English language.

The TOEFL Course Programme

There are set start dates throughout the year and the course includes 20 lessons per week in the mornings of TOEFL preparation (or 22 lessons in the US centres) with the option to take an additional 8 lessons in the afternoons of General English for a more intensive programme.

The TOEFL Exam

TOEFL examinations are held regularly throughout the year and St Giles can help students to book their exams. Our San Francisco school is also test centre for the exam; if there are available examination dates during your stay you can take the exam at this school.

The TOEFL four-hour exam covers the following sections:

TOEFL Listening

This part of the exam requires the student to answer a number of questions relating to six passages based on academic subjects including four academic lectures and two student conversations. There is no requirement or expectation on the part of the student for previous specialist knowledge regarding the subject matter. Students taking this exam are free to take notes during the readings and refer to these when answering the questions given to them. Each reading and conversation is heard/given only once and is designed to determine the student’s capability of understanding and determining the following from the subject matter:

  • Main ideas
  • Important details
  • Relationships between ideas
  • Implications
  • Speaker attitude
  • Speaker purpose
  • Organisation of information

TOEFL Reading

This section consists of a variety of academically based questions on between four and six passages of text, each of which contains approximately 700 words in total. These passages require the student to understand rhetorical functions like cause and effect and to compare, contrast and argue on the subject matter. Prior knowledge of the test subject matter is not required or expected. The questions in this part of the exam focus on the following areas:

  • Main ideas
  • Details
  • Essential information
  • Inferences
  • Sentence insertion
  • Vocabulary
  • Rhetorical purpose
  • Overall ideas

TOEFL Speaking

This part of the exam consists of six tasks – four integrated and two independent:

Independent tasks – These require students to answer questions based on familiar subject matter. In this part of the exam, students are evaluated on their ability to convey their ideas both clearly and coherently and on their ability to speak spontaneously regarding the subject matter presented.

Integrated tasks - Two of the integrated tasks require students to read a short passage, listen to a campus life based conversation or an academic course lecture and answer a question by combining appropriate information from the text and the verbal information. The remaining integrated tasks evaluate the student’s ability to effectively convey and properly synthesize information given during the reading and listening part of the test.

Students are permitted to take notes during this part of the exam and refer to them when answering questions.

TOEFL Writing

This part of the exam assesses the student’s ability to write in an academic setting and consists of the two following tasks:

Integrated – This task requires the student to read a passage on an academic topic and then listen to a discussion on the subject which is given by the speaker. Following this, the student is required to write a summary on the important points in the listening passage and to properly explain how these relate to the key points of the reading passage.

Independent – This task requires the student to write an essay stating their personal opinion or choice and properly document and explain their reasons for this.