Become Sherlock Holmes

Do you know who Sherlock Holmes was? He was a character in a series of novels written over 100 years ago in England. The novels were detective stories; they were mysteries. Sherlock Holmes would find clues to help him solve crimes (murders, thefts, missing people).

Many of the clues he found were easy to see, but only Mr. Holmes thought of them as clues—everyone else ignored these clues because they looked unimportant. Mr. Holmes used his mind to “put the clues together” to find the killer or thief. Other people in the story try to stop Sherlock Holmes; they try to trick him so he can’t solve the mystery, but every time he does!

The TOEIC Test is also a mystery. It is full of clues to help you pick correct answers. In addition, it is full of tricks trying to make you pick wrong answers.

But you probably know this already. So, why do you need to “become” Sherlock Holmes?

Because you don’t like the TOEIC! You don’t want to take it. You probably hate having to take the test, but it is important for your job and future.

Also, you probably think studying for the TOEIC is boring. The listening topics are not interesting. The reading texts and sentences do not give important information for your life. In fact, they are preventing you from relaxing and having fun.

Therefore, you need to put some fun into the TOEIC!

Begin to think of the TOEIC as a mystery novel—a puzzle to be solved—and not a test. You will find it a little easier to get keep listening to Short Talks, and a little easier to search for words and information in Texts. Each English word or phrase is a clue, a puzzle piece, and these pieces fit together with other pieces to create an idea or action, a purpose or situation. Find the right pieces, and you will find the correct Answer!

Imagine you are Sherlock Holmes. You have been given a TOEIC test. You have been told that inside the test are 200 correct answers. Your job is to find the clues. The TOEIC test is the crime you need to solve.

Now go and solve some crimes!

Workout with English every day!

Every month, my students ask me for the best way to effectively improve their listening skills. They have used English language textbooks, they have bought every TOEIC test preparation book there is, and still they struggle to see improvement in their ability to hear English and understand it.

What I tell them, is that building your Listening skills is like going to the gym. To really get strong, build your endurance, and tone your body, you need to go to the gym every day.

But is that enough? What about all those people who go to the gym day in and day out and their body remains the same? They still have a big stomach or flabby arms. Why?

First, if you go to the gym and work out for three hours, then go home and enjoy a big chocolate cake and beer, your three hours at the gym are wasted. In addition, your stomach will not be happy with you (chocolate cake AND beer? Yuck!).

The same is true with learning a new language. If you study English for three hours, then go out with your friends and speak your native language, that’s just like eating a cake after the gym. Much of the English you worked on will not stick in your brain. Every time you use your native language, you are pulling yourself away from English, preventing your brain from struggling to use English and build your English skills.

Thus, to avoid a big tummy and flabby arms, you need to keep using English throughout the day as much as you can. The more you can ‘surround’ yourself with English—speaking it, listening to it, reading it—them better you will remember stuff you studied earlier that day. Get your friends to help you by trying to only speak English when you are hanging out. Listen to English podcasts while on the bus or train going to work or school.

Okay, let’s say you go to the gym every day and eat healthy (i.e., don’t use your native language much), but you find that you are still not getting the body you want. You have really big arms but your legs and thin and weak; every time you stretch your arms out, you fall over because they have way too much muscle!

You can avoid this by working on a variety of different parts of your body each day. Work on your arms a little, then your legs, and then your torso and back. This way you build your body’s overall strength, and everything is in proportion.

Thus, do a variety of reading, listening, grammar, and pronunciation practice each day. Don’t focus on any one activity for more than one hour. This will help you slowly and consistently work on all the different parts of English to help you Master English and Master the TOEIC.

And finally, a good way to finish a workout at the gym is go for a short run, just to get your muscles to move around a bit so that they don’t tense up too much after you finish your workout.

So, after you finish your formal studying of English, go out into the real world and try to use some of the English you studied that day. Go to a store and ask the sales clerk to help you pick out a good book or CD or bottle of wine. Listen to or read a good novel, or watch a favorite TV show. Find a news article that uses some of the vocabulary words you focused on earlier that day. This will help your brain ‘unwind’ a little and relax, and can also help reinforce the English you studied.

Now put on your running shoes and hit the gym!

Listen to NPR Every Day

 Want to improve you English Listening, Pronunciation & Vocabulary all at once?

Listen to National Public Radio! 

One of the very best ways to improve multiple English skills at one time is to go National Public Radio! Students tell me that this activity is a great way to build their English Listening skills over time, and also a good way to learn new vocabulary words by seeing and hearing them used in a “real world” context.

It usually takes about 1 month of listening every day for you to see improvement in your listening skills, and about 2-3 months to see improvement in pronunciation and vocabulary skills.

1. Go to www.npr.org.
2. Click on Programs.
3. Click on Morning Edition or All Things Considered.
4. Click on Rundown.
5. Find a news report about Business, Politics, or Economy.
6. Listen to the news report, taking notes on Main Ideas, Major Details and Numbers.
7. Click on Transcript and study the transcript for new words.
8. Listen to and read the news report at the same time for pronunciation practice.
9. Listen to the news report one more time to reinforce what you have learned.
10. Find 5 more news reports on the same topic and listen to one each day for the next 5 days.

I recommend you only do 1 or 2 news reports each day. Most students find it takes from 30-minutes to 1 hour for each report, depending on their English skill level.

“Actively listen to TOEIC-like English every day”

It may sound obvious, but actively listening to English every day for at least 15 minutes is one of the most powerful ways to improve you listening skills. “Actively listening” means you are not watching TV or a movie (a very passive activity)—it means you are listening to English radio or online audio files, focusing on hearing details and thinking about the important, main ideas the speaker is trying to tell.

READ BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS ON HOW TO LISTEN:

 1. Go to www.npr.org.

2. Click on Programs.

3. Click on Morning Edition or All Things Considered. National Public Radio (NPR, www.npr.org) has two news programs you want to listen to: Morning Edition & All Things Considered:



4. Click on Rundown.



5. Find a news report about Business, Politics, or Economy. You will see a list of different news reports. Next to each Headline, you will see what Topic the news is about, and the how long the news report runs.



You will want to look for news reports for Topics such as Business, Politics, or Economy. These reports often use words you will find in the TOEIC.

6. Listen to the news report, taking notes on Main Ideas, Major Details and Numbers.Once you have picked a news report, click on the Audio Button and listen to the news report. Listen to news report once and take notes on what you think are the Main Ideas and Major Details. Also take notes of any numbers that are being used. Numbers are often tested in the Short Talks section of the TOEIC.



Even though you can’t take notes on the TOEIC, note taking helps you develop memory skills.

7. Click on Transcript and study the transcript for new words.Now click on Transcript and read the report. Check to see if you misunderstood anything or missed a major idea or detail. You can also look for Vocabulary Words you don’t know. You will want to also look for any Phrasal Verbs which you didn’t understand.



8. Listen to and read the news report at the same time for pronunciation practice.Next, with the Transcript on your computer screen, listen to and read the news report again, following the speaker as they talk. This will help you with Pronunciation of English words, too.

9. Listen to the news report one more time to reinforce what you have learned.Finally, now that you understand the report better, close the Transcript and listen to the news report one more time. This will help reinforce the new English you learned.

10. Find 5 more news reports on the same topic and listen to one each day for the next 5 days.For the next 5 days, listen to different news reports about the same topic (you can do a news search at the NPR website on any page at their website).

Happy Listening!

Comparing scores between TOEFL, IELTS & TOEIC

If you or your students are looking to compare how TOEFL scores stacks up to the IELTS or the TOEIC, visit the Vancouver English Centre's Equivalency Table.