The bane of many therapists since its conception, this dreaded exam has broken many hearts comparable only to its equally, if not more, challenging big brother we shall nickname NPTE. This exam is a lingering wraith on your back, a heavy shadow on your future, a dragon you need to kill to get through the first phase of your American dream. Yes, I am talking about the TOEFL-ibt, frequently mentioned with colorful adjectives preceding it such as: P. I.ng TOEFL yan! or lintek na TOEFL yan! The popularity, or lack thereof, of this particular exam continues to grow. More often than not, it invokes a strong sense of dread and hatred but at the same time of intimidation and respect. For some, it has grown into a sort of urban legend, fed by the many stories of failures, to which quite a few have balked to take it.
A lot therapists do complain that the requirements for TOEFL is quite steep, most of them up in arms with the speaking cut off score of 26/30. It doesn't matter if your other scores are good, a failing score in speaking is a failing score overall and a headache for the examinee. Now he has to take the exam again or to risk having it rescored which can go either way. The more painful part is that most therapists who fail TOEFL fail the speaking part by a mere point or two. So, if you ask me, would it be better if the speaking requirement of TOEFL be decreased to 24/30? That way everyone is happy. My answer might surprise you. I will say no.
Now before you bitterly spew out the words: Wow pare ang yabang naman! Feeling! Let me explain why I don't think they should lower the requirement. First of all, you want to come here to the US to work. You do understand, though, that for every PT job given to a foreigner, like you and me, it is one less potential job for a US citizen, irregardless if they can fill that position or not. Therefore, that foreigner has to prove that he deserves the job. One way to prove it is having a good command of their native tongue. Being able to communicate well in English is a must in our profession. We will be interacting with many patients, nurses, doctors, social workers, nursing aides, etc. Sometimes, it just isn't enough that you understand English. It is necessary that you KNOW how to communicate in English and communicate well at that.
As a therapist, you will have to go to care plan meetings every now and then. A care plan meeting is a convention of the patient/family of the patient and everyone else involved in the patient's care: therapy, nursing (floor nurse, nursing aides, Medicare nurse, wound care nurse etc), dietary, activities and social workers. At care plan meetings, the team will be discussing the patient's current status, the family's concerns if there are any, the goals, the outcomes, the discharge plans and a lot more. It may take a long time especially if the patient has a lot of medical complexities. However, as a therapist, you would only be able to attend for a short period of time. During that short period of time, you have to discuss the patient's functional progress with the family and with the rest of the medical team. The family might ask you questions and you have to be prepared to answer them. Will my mom be able to walk again? My dad is speaking, why does he still have speech therapy? Would my mom always need a walker? Will Dad be able to climb up steps to get into the house? A lot of different questions can arise during care plans and your main goal there is to get in and out as fast possible while giving clear and satisfactory answers to the family's queries. Why the hurry? Well you have other patients to see and care plans (if the patient is not present) is considered non-billable time which means that therapy is losing money the longer you stay there and not treat patients. Therefore, your responses have to be straight to the point and yet should not lead to confusion. Ergo, you need to speak fluent English and not waste time with your "uhms" at every word. "Uhm... Mrs Smith, uhm... would probably use the, uhm, walker to, uhm, get around the house to uhm, go to the bathroom, but, uhm... she would need somebody to...uhm...assist her". This just doesn't cut it. It will make you sound like you don't know what you're doing. And yes, those who are generous with their "uhms" usually fail the speaking part of TOEFL. Or am I wrong in that assumption?
Also, the subjective parts of TOEFL include the dreaded speaking part and the writing part. The writing part of TOEFL can be trained for, mostly in review centers. The speaking part errr... not so much. They can give you all the advice in the world but at the test center, you're on your own. Now, in review centers they would probably advice you to write in a basic format: a heading (the intro), a body and a tail, which would be a brief summary of the intro and the body. It would really help if you train yourself to think in English rather than think in Filipino first and translate it to English.
The need for you to think in English and transform your thoughts into sensible sentences would eventually benefit you when you are working in the rehab setting in the US. Tandaan: Each workplace have their own productivity expectations for their therapists. What is productivity? Productivity is the amount of time you spend treating a patient over the total time you spend at the facility. My company has 82% productivity expectation per therapist. This means that at least 82% of the time you are treating patients and making money for the facility. You have 18% of your 8 hours (if your patient load allows you) to do everything: write notes, print papers, send emails, write orders in the chart, fetch patients, take patients back etc. That is about an hour and a half each day to do stuff not directly related to billable patient care. Lahat yan, technically, is counted against that hour and a half: washing hands, going to the toilet, asking aides to get patients up or cleaned up, chatting with co-workers etc. It is hard to keep up with productivity expectations especially if you have a ton of notes to write. It certainly wouldn't help you if you would spend (read:waste) time translating your thoughts into English when writing your notes. It is important that you know how to express your observations in a clear and concise manner when writing your notes. You won't be able to do that when you don't have good command of English. Hence, the need NOT to lower TOEFL requirements but rather, us, Pinoy PTs, should step up to the challenge of this test which has delayed many a therapist's American dream. Some even gave up totally dahil hindi mapasapasa ang lintek na TOEFL na yan. So pano nga ba ipasa ang TOEFL?
How to pass TOEFL ibt:
I'm sure you all have received a lot of advice from fellow PTs and from review centers on how to pass the exam. Probably, the few tips that I might share may not even influence your opinion on how to approach the test. But I'll try anyway, who knows I might be able to help someone out here.
I took my TOEFL-ibt test five years ago and passed it on my first try. I hope I don't sound like a douchebag but I got a really high score. I don't mean to brag but I got a score of 117/120. I got 30 for reading, 29 for listening, 28 for speaking and 30 for writing. Now, before you make the assumption na ako'y nagmamayabang, let me explain this first. All of us were given extraordinary gifts by the Lord, some are talented musicians, others mathematicians, others are gifted athletes, others are gifted with charisma, others with beauty etc. I was gifted with the gift of linguistics, I have a knack for language, meaning I always have excelled in English class, literature class, Pilipino class, anything that has anything to do with words, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation and language itself. Although I believe in humility as a virtue, I also strongly believe that failure to acknowledge the Lord's gift by shying away from compliments like saying "Hindi, chamba lang yan" or "Sinuwerte lang" is in a way a form of rejection of His love. But that's just me, I don't want to impose my beliefs on anyone at all.
Anyway, let me give you some unsolicited advice on how to improve your TOEFL scores. First, start reading real reading materials in English. This does not include beauty magazines, Harry Potter books or Shades of Grey. Instead read opinion sections of newspapers, essays by Patricia Evangelista, Fr Joaquin Bernas or Conrado de Quiros, books by Jessica Zafra or National Artist Nick Joaquin. Read something that will enrich you while improving your vocabulary. Your vocabulary will grow without you having to try very hard when you constantly bombard yourself with these kinds of reading materials. Difficult words, when encountered in sentences often, will eventually reveal their meaning to you. You don't have to look up the dictionary all the time, sometimes just by how they are used in sentences you get their meanings. By following this advice, you have hit two birds with one stone: you'll have better reading comprehension while improving your vocabulary to use in your writing.
Second, with listening, there is nothing much really I can do to help you with this part. No one can train you in how to understand what you hear. So probably the best thing to do is to take down important notes while listening to the conversation. Remember: I said take down important notes not everything they said. Some people rush to scribble everything said that they eventually don't understand what the conversation was all about. By doing that, they won't be able to answer the questions for the speaking part of TOEFL.
Finally, the speaking part. Here is the advice no one has told you before: SPEAK YOUR LOUDEST during the speaking part. Speak loud short of screaming. I did that when I took my test. I didn't care that there were other people beside me taking the test. I didn't care that they can hear my answer. I didn't care if I intimidated them or I sounded stupid to them. I didn't care if I am distracting them. All I know is that I just wanted that even if the Internet connection is not perfect or the recording machine is f*ked up, the person on the other end will still HEAR me. So I spoke as loud as I could without shouting. That way my answers were clear. Of course, I had my uhms and of course, I was nervous, but the hell with all of that. I need to pass this exam and I don't care what the other test takers would think of me afterwards. So there you go: this is one good secret for the speaking part.
As I conclude this rather lengthy blog entry, let me remind you that the TOEFL exam, does not and will never define you as a therapist. Just because I passed my test on the first try and you passed yours on your seventh, doesn't mean I am a better therapist than you. Physical therapy is a profession, a culture, a passion, a devotion and a calling. It rises waaay above an objectified and potentially flawed language test called TOEFL. So treat TOEFL like it should always have been, a worthy opponent but a roadblock not worthy enough to stop you from success and your American dream.
Also, the subjective parts of TOEFL include the dreaded speaking part and the writing part. The writing part of TOEFL can be trained for, mostly in review centers. The speaking part errr... not so much. They can give you all the advice in the world but at the test center, you're on your own. Now, in review centers they would probably advice you to write in a basic format: a heading (the intro), a body and a tail, which would be a brief summary of the intro and the body. It would really help if you train yourself to think in English rather than think in Filipino first and translate it to English.
The need for you to think in English and transform your thoughts into sensible sentences would eventually benefit you when you are working in the rehab setting in the US. Tandaan: Each workplace have their own productivity expectations for their therapists. What is productivity? Productivity is the amount of time you spend treating a patient over the total time you spend at the facility. My company has 82% productivity expectation per therapist. This means that at least 82% of the time you are treating patients and making money for the facility. You have 18% of your 8 hours (if your patient load allows you) to do everything: write notes, print papers, send emails, write orders in the chart, fetch patients, take patients back etc. That is about an hour and a half each day to do stuff not directly related to billable patient care. Lahat yan, technically, is counted against that hour and a half: washing hands, going to the toilet, asking aides to get patients up or cleaned up, chatting with co-workers etc. It is hard to keep up with productivity expectations especially if you have a ton of notes to write. It certainly wouldn't help you if you would spend (read:waste) time translating your thoughts into English when writing your notes. It is important that you know how to express your observations in a clear and concise manner when writing your notes. You won't be able to do that when you don't have good command of English. Hence, the need NOT to lower TOEFL requirements but rather, us, Pinoy PTs, should step up to the challenge of this test which has delayed many a therapist's American dream. Some even gave up totally dahil hindi mapasapasa ang lintek na TOEFL na yan. So pano nga ba ipasa ang TOEFL?
How to pass TOEFL ibt:
I'm sure you all have received a lot of advice from fellow PTs and from review centers on how to pass the exam. Probably, the few tips that I might share may not even influence your opinion on how to approach the test. But I'll try anyway, who knows I might be able to help someone out here.
I took my TOEFL-ibt test five years ago and passed it on my first try. I hope I don't sound like a douchebag but I got a really high score. I don't mean to brag but I got a score of 117/120. I got 30 for reading, 29 for listening, 28 for speaking and 30 for writing. Now, before you make the assumption na ako'y nagmamayabang, let me explain this first. All of us were given extraordinary gifts by the Lord, some are talented musicians, others mathematicians, others are gifted athletes, others are gifted with charisma, others with beauty etc. I was gifted with the gift of linguistics, I have a knack for language, meaning I always have excelled in English class, literature class, Pilipino class, anything that has anything to do with words, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation and language itself. Although I believe in humility as a virtue, I also strongly believe that failure to acknowledge the Lord's gift by shying away from compliments like saying "Hindi, chamba lang yan" or "Sinuwerte lang" is in a way a form of rejection of His love. But that's just me, I don't want to impose my beliefs on anyone at all.
Anyway, let me give you some unsolicited advice on how to improve your TOEFL scores. First, start reading real reading materials in English. This does not include beauty magazines, Harry Potter books or Shades of Grey. Instead read opinion sections of newspapers, essays by Patricia Evangelista, Fr Joaquin Bernas or Conrado de Quiros, books by Jessica Zafra or National Artist Nick Joaquin. Read something that will enrich you while improving your vocabulary. Your vocabulary will grow without you having to try very hard when you constantly bombard yourself with these kinds of reading materials. Difficult words, when encountered in sentences often, will eventually reveal their meaning to you. You don't have to look up the dictionary all the time, sometimes just by how they are used in sentences you get their meanings. By following this advice, you have hit two birds with one stone: you'll have better reading comprehension while improving your vocabulary to use in your writing.
Second, with listening, there is nothing much really I can do to help you with this part. No one can train you in how to understand what you hear. So probably the best thing to do is to take down important notes while listening to the conversation. Remember: I said take down important notes not everything they said. Some people rush to scribble everything said that they eventually don't understand what the conversation was all about. By doing that, they won't be able to answer the questions for the speaking part of TOEFL.
Finally, the speaking part. Here is the advice no one has told you before: SPEAK YOUR LOUDEST during the speaking part. Speak loud short of screaming. I did that when I took my test. I didn't care that there were other people beside me taking the test. I didn't care that they can hear my answer. I didn't care if I intimidated them or I sounded stupid to them. I didn't care if I am distracting them. All I know is that I just wanted that even if the Internet connection is not perfect or the recording machine is f*ked up, the person on the other end will still HEAR me. So I spoke as loud as I could without shouting. That way my answers were clear. Of course, I had my uhms and of course, I was nervous, but the hell with all of that. I need to pass this exam and I don't care what the other test takers would think of me afterwards. So there you go: this is one good secret for the speaking part.
As I conclude this rather lengthy blog entry, let me remind you that the TOEFL exam, does not and will never define you as a therapist. Just because I passed my test on the first try and you passed yours on your seventh, doesn't mean I am a better therapist than you. Physical therapy is a profession, a culture, a passion, a devotion and a calling. It rises waaay above an objectified and potentially flawed language test called TOEFL. So treat TOEFL like it should always have been, a worthy opponent but a roadblock not worthy enough to stop you from success and your American dream.
