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Other People Talking

I’m going to tell you some bad news in this lesson. This is one of the most common complaints about the TOEFL, one of the things that students dislike the most. During the speaking section, there will be other people talking at the same time as you. So, let’s talk about why that is.

The testing center where you take the TOEFL looks like this. So, you’re sitting at a computer and you are speaking into a microphone that is in a headset on your head. And next to you, well, there’s somebody else doing the same thing. This picture, by the way is from a video that shows you more about what the testing centers look like and the experience of taking the TOEFL.

That is on the ETS website. So, there will someone next to you speaking at the same time as you. How do you do this?

How do you avoid distraction? How do you avoid the problem? There is no one way. There are a number of things you can do to help though. You can focus on your notes. Looking at what your notes say, helps you keep focused on your words and not the words of the person next to you.

Closing your eyes can help. This can get you focused on your own head and not the outside world. Pressing the headphones to your ears can help block the sound of the other people speaking. You could even put your ears or your fingers in your ears, if that helps too. Now like I said, there’s no great single way to avoid distraction.

It can happen. So the best thing to do, here’s one more. Focusing on your pronunciation. I forgot. This can help focus similar to your notes. Focusing on your words and not somebody else’s.

So if you focus on speaking slowly and clearly, and think about your mouth, and the sounds you’re making that can help. But let’s return to the biggest piece of advice, practice with distraction. During your TOEFL practice, you should have distraction in the background. So you can use a TV or a radio, preferably in English.

If you have a friend who is also studying for the TOEFL, that’s awesome. Study together, practice together and practice your speaking sections at the same time. If you have a classroom with people who are all studying the TOEFL, then tell everyone in the class, hey, we should all speak at the same time just like task day. That’s a rare situation.

Most likely if you are here, you’re studying by yourself. In that case, use English TV or English radio in the back. Don’t only do it during the speaking section though. Because on test day, i’s not just the speaking section where people are talking. So first, let me preface this. Let me introduce this.

The schedule, it starts with reading. Let’s say, you start your reading section at 10 AM, but it’s not exactly 10 AM. You start at maybe 10:04 and then after that, somebody else starts at 10:06 and then a third person starts at 10:08, because they bring people into the room one at a time.

So maybe the final person starts at 10:14, they might start 10 minutes after you or almost 10 minutes. Realistically, it’s usually less, they might start at 10:10. So, there is a range of different times when people are starting the reading section. That means there’s a different range of times that they start the listening section and all the others and what’s more, some people finish the reading section quickly.

So during the listening section, you might get some people who to started early and finish the reading quickly and they finish their break and they move on to the speaking section. So, you are here and somebody else is here. And that means, you might have someone else in the room speaking, doing their speaking section while you are still listening and answering questions.

Similarly, if someone starts late, if they start, five people, six people, ten people after you, then they might use all their reading time. And because they started late and then took a long time, they’re speaking section happens later. And during your writing section, they are still speaking.

So again, you might e writing while someone is talking. So to recap, everyone’s going to talk at the same time. They talk during listening and writing too, a little bit. So, you need to practice with distraction above all else.