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Integrated Speaking:
F.A.Q.
The following is a list of tips and exercises I’ve used to help students improve on different aspects of the
integrated speaking section. I’ve divided it up into a series of frequently asked questions (F.A.Qs). Hopefully,
this list will address most of your problems and concerns.

When I mess up should I go back and repeat what I said?

What do you mean when you say DON’T self-judge?

I don’t want to speak because I didn’t hear everything. Is that okay?

I don’t like the sound of my own voice. Is it okay if I DON’T record myself speaking?

Why is there a self-assessment at the end of every separate task?

What verb tense should I use in my speaking responses?

What is automaticity?

When I mess up should I go back and repeat what I

said?

We all make mistakes. It’s inevitable that you’ll make some mistakes on your TOEFL exam. Some
TOEFL teachers say you should never go back and repeat what you said, even if it was wrong, and I tend to
agree. When you stop to repeat yourself, you’re no longer thinking about what you’re going to say next.
Instead, you’re focusing on your mistake. When you focus on your mistake, you lose your train of thought and
the rest of your speaking response will suffer. Not only do you lose your train of thought, but you also lose
valuable time. For the speaking section of the TOEFL:

Think like an actor.

When an actor messes up his lines, he doesn’t stop and repeat himself. Instead, he moves on and hopes
the audience doesn’t notice. You’d be surprised by how many mistakes go unnoticed in live performances.
Think of your TOEFL exam like a performance. Don’t dwell on what you didn’t do in the past but on what you
will do in the future.
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What do you mean when you say DON’T self-judge?

Something I tell my TOEFL students all the time
is, “Stop self-judging.” While you’re speaking, you
probably have a liTle voice in your head thinking about
what you’re saying. Not only is this liTle voice in your
head thinking about your words, but it’s also judging
your words, and those judgments are probably negative.
Americans do this all the time, we’re constantly
questioning our words and looking in-depth at the
words of others. In most cases, we overthink things.

Don’t judge your words, just

speak them.
I like to drink alcohol sometimes and when I do I
tend to talk more. When you consume alcohol you stop
judging yourself so much because, in your mind, the
most important thing is to communicate. That’s all that maTers. When you’re sober you don’t just think about
communicating, you also think about the message, the listeners, how your message may be received and how
similar messages in the past were received by past listeners. When I drink, my thoughts are very one-
dimensional: communicate and be heard. Now, I’m not saying you should drink before the TOEFL! I’m just
using it as an example of how you should approach the speaking section. Think of this section as a place where
your goal is to communicate. Of course you’re speaking will be judged, but that’s not your job. Let the graders
judge you, you don’t need to judge yourself.

Brene Brown is a writer and researcher on shame and vulnerability. Her TED Talks have been viewed
by millions around the world. A reoccurring theme in Ms. Brown’s work is how shame, feeling ashamed of
ourselves and our actions, has a toxic effect on our potential. Shame kills creativity. I’ve learned a lot from her
work and its given me the strength to let myself be vulnerable. Instead of feeling ashamed by my mistakes, I
now embrace them as learning opportunities. Here are a few of her more popular quotes:

“Shame keeps us small, resentful and afraid.”

“Certainty often breeds absolutes, intolerance and judgement.”

“Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement
and growth; it’s a shield.”

“I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black
and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those
important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: love, belonging, trust, joy and creativity.”
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If we strive for certainty and perfection we are doomed to feel shame and that will lead to self-judgment.
Don’t try to be perfect, just try to communicate in English and you’ll do fine. Remember, if you’ve gone
through this book you’ve studied a lot. You know more than the average TOEFL taker. Use that knowledge to
your advantage and walk into the test with confidence.

I don’t want to speak. I didn’t hear everything. Is that

okay?
I’m going to use the term reconceptualize here again. I want you to reconceptualize your goals. In
traditional schooling, when we get an assignment or we have to take a test we want to get an A. We want to be
perfect. However, the TOEFL is different. Nobody really thinks they’re going to get a perfect TOEFL score. The
highest score you can get on the TOEFL is:

120

Most students who take the TOEFL want to get:

80
Some students want less, some students want more, but the average desired grade is an 80. Now, let’s do
some math:

80 / 120 = 0.67 or 67%

In a typical American high school or university 67% is equal to the grade:

D
I want you to let that sink in for a minute.

Your goal, on the TOEFL, is to get a D. That’s much lower than an A. In fact, that’s a failing grade in most
classes. I’m not bringing this up because I want you to set your goals higher or to tell you you’re not good
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enough, but to INSPIRE you. Get yourself in the GROWTH mindset where the most important thing is that
you try.
I know you didn’t understand everything. I know you’re not sure of your answer, but you’re never going
to get beTer if you don’t try.
Language is imperfect, so don’t expect to be perfect on a fluency test. I make mistakes all the time. Do
you know how many times I’ve rewriTen this book? Each page of this book has gone through at least five
rewrites and I’ve had three different people proofread it. Don’t let your obsession with perfection get in the
way of your growth. Focus on learning, not on being perfect.

I don’t like the sound of my own voice. Is it okay if I don’t

record myself speaking?

No, it’s not okay. If you don’t record yourself you won’t improve your speaking so don’t bother
wasting your time studying for the TOEFL. That may sound harsh, but I’m serious. You must record yourself.
The way you hear yourself is not the way other people hear you. You have to know how other people hear
you. The only way to know how other people hear you is by recording yourself.
Everyone hates the sound of their recorded voice… everyone. There’s actually a scientific explanation
for this. According to Dr. William Cullinan, dean of the College of Health Sciences and the director of the
Integrative Neuroscience research Center:

When you ‘hear’ my voice, the sound/pressure waves leaving my mouth enter
your ear, and the process of events happens in series. When you ‘hear’ your own
voice, however, not only do the sound/pressure waves leaving your own mouth
(call this the external stimulus) reach your ear and activate this series of events,
but a second thing happens. The physical act of producing speech, which involves
contraction of the muscles of the larynx (and others), creates a vibration that is
translated through the neck to the skull where the entire auditory transduction
apparatus is. This delivers a second (internal) stimulus to the apparatus. The
combination of the two stimuli is what you perceive as the sound of your own
voice. But you are the only person who hears it this way because you are the only
one who can produce both stimuli. Everyone else receives only the external
stimulus.

Let me translate. When other people hear you, all they hear is your voice, when you hear you, you hear
your voice AND the vibrations that travel through your muscle and bone before it reaches your ear. Because
you have this kind of natural filter, you hear you own voice differently than when you hear others.

So don’t worry if you hate the sound of your own voice, EVERYONE DOES!
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Why is there a self-assessment at the end of every task?

Indulge me for a minute, and read the following passage.

Many people believe that Hillary Clinton will most likely be the Democratic
nominee for president in 2016. However, a veteran senator from Vermont, Bernie
Sanders, has entered the race and is catching up with her in the polls. According
to a recent survey, 60% of voters say that they don’t trust Hillary Clinton. In fact,
in a separate poll conducted by CNN news of potential voters, 48% said they
would consider voting for Bernie Sanders, which was higher that than the 44%
polled who said they supported Hillary Clinton.

Question: What’s Bernie Sanders current job?

If you could answer that question without looking back at the passage, I’d be impressed. However,
most learners would have to go back to review the material to find that in the second sentence it mentions that
he’s a senator. After reading, answering a question and discussing the answer, it’s much more likely that you’ll
remember Bernie Sanders’ job. If I hadn’t asked you any questions about it, you would have confused
understanding with knowing. Understanding a message is not the same as knowing about it. The self-
assessments at the end are a guide to help you assess your strengths, weaknesses and what you truly know.
We learn things in a deeper way when we review them. That’s why it’s critical for you to review what
you learned. You won’t know your weaknesses until you analyze them. Repetition will help improve your
score more than continuous practice. Focus on answering a couple questions perfectly. Identify your weak
points and focus on improving them.

What verb tense should I use in my speaking responses?

For the independent speaking section, you should try to keep everything in either the present or past
tense. Of course, sometimes you’ll have to use different tenses, but when you speak simply, you’re more likely
to sound like a native speaker. Some test-takers believe that they’ll sound smarter if they use complicated
grammar and vocabulary, but these test-takers usually sound more awkward than natural.

Now, for the integrated section it’s a liTle bit trickier because you have to report what you heard. You
probably talked about reported speech in your English grammar class and I’m sure it was frustrating. For
example, if someone says something in the present, you have to change that sentence to the past or if they said
something using the past tense, then you have to change it to the past perfect. That’s just an example of the
myriad rules associated with reported speech. But one thing your grammar teacher doesn’t tell you is that
when we speak, we don’t follow the rules. Like most native speakers in any language, we usually pick the
easiest way to communicate our message, not the correct way. Turn to the next page for an example…
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So, if I had a conversation with my friend Amy a few days ago and she told me:

“I went to the movies last week.”

I would probably tell my friend Chris, who I’m talking to right now:

“Amy said she went to the movies last week.”

NOT

“Amy said she had gone to the movies the week before.”

On the test, the speaking section is all about sounding natural, and if you want to sound natural, don’t
strive for grammatical perfection.

What is automaticity?

If you go to the TOEFL website or read the speaking grading rubrics provided in the end of the
independent and integrated speaking sections of this book, you may have noticed the word automaticity.
Automaticity basically means automatic.
In one of the independent speaking example questions I talked about the yips. The yips is when a
professional athlete starts to consciously think about the complicated motions involved in an action. Let’s say,
for example, a golfer begins to think about how he swings the club. Now, because the golfer is conscious of
each step in the process of an effective swing, he can no longer perform as well.

You’ll begin to master a task once you stop thinking consciously about the
question. You must enter a state of flow.

How did the athlete become a professional? How did the ballet dancer start to flow with the music?
They practiced, a lot. If your fluency isn’t good enough for the speaking task what you need to do is practice.
You have the scripts. You know what it takes to get a good score on each task. Practice. Master each question
until it becomes automatic. Once you master a few questions, you’ll find that you can apply your knowledge to
future questions and become a confident TOEFL-taker.

Speak from the heart, it knows more than your memory.