Here's the schedule for October: Weeknight classes are from 7-10 p.m.  Weekend classes are from 3-6 p.m. Classes are limited to five students. Orientation for new students will be from noon-3:30 p.m. on Monday, September 23 (秋分の日).  Attendance at orientation is required for all new students ..read more

Here's the schedule for next month. Weeknight classes are from 7-10 p.m.  Weekend classes are from 3-6 p.m. Classes are limited to five students. Orientation for new students will be from 3-6:30 on Saturday, August 31.  Attendance at orientation is required for all new students ..read more

ETS likes some topics better than others, and one of them is the "vanished civilization." These topics can appear on the reading, listening, and writing sections. When they appear on the integrated writing task, the reading passage will provide three hypotheses for why the civilization disappeared, and the lecture will show why each hypothesis is unlikely. So I was interested to find this video on YouTube this morning and thought I'd share it with you. Enjoy ..read more

Here's the schedule for August TOEFL Speaking Classes: Weeknight classes are from 7-10 p.m.  Weekend classes are from 3-6 p.m. Classes are limited to five students in order to achieve social distancing. Orientation for new students will be 7-10:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 25.  Attendance at orientation is required for all new students ..read more

 Here's the schedule for July: Weeknight classes are from 7-10 p.m.  Weekend classes are from 3-6 p.m. Classes are limited to five students in order to achieve social distancing. Orientation for new students will be 7-10:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 27.  Attendance at orientation is required for all new students ..read more

 So I just did the first academic discussion task from ETS. Here's a picture of my essay: You can see that I wrote 130 words in a little over five minutes. Here is a picture of the score: And I got 5.0. So what does my experience suggest? ETS is obviously using e-rater or some other AI for scoring. It took about 10 seconds to score the essay. I did mention both students (Kelly and Claire) in my answer. Not sure if this is necessary for a top score. On re-reading my essay, I realize that it's not grammatically perfect. The 3rd sentence should contain "there are." The final sent ..read more

 This time I took the basic content of the previous task 10 essay and re-wrote it, adding grammar and spelling mistakes. Five minutes, 132 words. I count at least nine grammar mistakes and eight misspellings. Score: 4.0 ..read more

  This is my one paragraph essay for question 5. It took about four minutes to write, then another minute to edit it down to under 120 words (to be precise, 119). It was scored 5.0. So essay 4 was 107 words and got 4.0. And essay 5 was 119 and got 5.0. I'll write the next one in 110 and see what happens. This also suggests that ETS isn't necessarily looking for multiple paragraph essays ..read more

 Here's my task nine essay. It took five minutes, is 120 words long, and has no grammar mistakes.  Score: 4.0. I guess when ETS says, "An effective response will contain at least 100 words," their definition of "effective" is 4.0 ..read more

 Here's the schedule for June TOEFL speaking classes: Weeknight classes are from 7-10 p.m.  Weekend classes are from 3-6 p.m. Classes are limited to five students in order to achieve social distancing. Orientation for new students will be 7-10:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 1.  Attendance at orientation is required for all new students ..read more