Jeffrey Maxwell

Tokyo International University

About

My name is Jeffrey Maxwell, and I am a Global Teaching Fellow and Lecturer at Tokyo International University in Japan. Since 2005 I have worked at programs in China, Korea, the United States, and Japan. I earned my M.A. TESOL from Portland State University. My research interests include English language teaching, alternative assessment, task based language teaching, and intercultural communication.

Sessions

Testing and Evaluation TOEIC listening/speaking prep: collaboration and real-world application more

Sun, Jul 10, 11:45-12:10 Asia/Tokyo

Instructional practices for standardized tests like the TOEIC often rely on a teacher-centered “teach-model-practice-explain” pattern that is at odds with the Communicative Approach. Test prep materials similarly emphasize lower-order basic comprehension and recall. In this practice-oriented presentation, attendees will acquire four TOEIC listening/speaking section prep activities that focus on integrating into the “practice” stage the opportunity for students to collaborate, solve problems, and apply their learning to real-world contexts. First, the presenters will briefly cover the presentation’s motivation, context, and teaching gap (2 minutes). The presenters will then share step-by-step how-to's for the activities, which include a business consulting project for TOEIC speaking and reasoning gap for TOEIC listening (10 minutes). Participants will demo one activity (8 minutes) and finally collaborate in small groups applying the activities to their own teaching contexts (5 minutes). Attendees will walk away with effective, meaningful, motivating TOEIC prep activities that they can immediately begin using in their classes.

JEREMY CAHILL Jeffrey Maxwell