The Complete Guide to the TOEFL iBT Speaking Section
The TOEFL iBT Speaking section evaluates your ability to communicate effectively in English within an academic context. This 16-minute section includes four tasks that simulate real-life university scenarios. Your responses are recorded and scored by both AI and certified human raters.
Task 1: Independent Speaking
This is the only task where you rely entirely on your own ideas and experiences. You will be presented with a question and must state and support your personal view.
Strategies for Success
- Choose Quickly: Don't waste precious preparation time deciding on your stance. Pick one side and stick with it. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer.
- Structure Your Response: A clear structure is key. State your opinion, provide one or two reasons, and support each reason with a specific detail or personal example.
- Use Transition Words: Employ words like "First of all," "In my experience," "For example," and "Therefore" to guide the listener through your argument.
- Practice Pacing: With only 45 seconds, it's crucial to be concise. Practice speaking at a natural pace, avoiding long pauses.
Example Questions
Paired Choice: Some people prefer to learn about current events by watching television news programs. Others prefer to read about current events in newspapers or online. Which do you prefer and why?
Agree/Disagree: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "It is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts." Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Task 2: Integrated Speaking (Campus Situation)
This task combines reading, listening, and speaking. You will read about a campus-related change, listen to two students discuss it, and then summarize one student's opinion and their reasons.
Strategies for Success
- Focus on the Speaker's Opinion: Your response should primarily be about the student's viewpoint from the conversation, not your own.
- Take Good Notes: From the reading, note the change and the two official reasons. From the listening, focus on the speaker with a strong opinion and note their two supporting reasons.
- Structure Your Response Clearly: Start by stating the proposed change. Then, state the speaker's opinion (e.g., "The woman disagrees with the plan."). Finally, explain the speaker's first and second reasons in detail.
Example Scenario
"The university has announced that it will be discontinuing its free bus service for students at the end of the semester. The administration cited two reasons: first, the cost of maintaining the buses has become too expensive. Second, a recent survey shows that the majority of students own cars or bikes, making the service underutilized."
"The woman in the conversation disagrees with the university's plan. First, she argues that the survey was misleading because it only included students living on campus, ignoring off-campus students who rely on the bus. Second, she claims it would be more expensive to build a new parking garage for the extra cars than to maintain the bus service. She adds that more cars would lead to more traffic and pollution."
Prompt: The woman expresses her opinion on the university's plan. State her opinion and explain the reasons she gives for holding that opinion.
Task 3: Integrated Speaking (Academic Topic)
This task requires you to read about an academic concept, listen to a professor provide an example, and then explain how the example illustrates the concept.
Strategies for Success
- Understand the Connection: Your main goal is to show how the lecture's example clarifies the concept from the reading.
- Take Strategic Notes: From the reading, get the definition. From the lecture, note the specific example and the key details that connect back to that definition.
- Structure Logically: Briefly define the concept from the reading. Then, transition to the lecture ("The professor illustrates this with an example..."). Thoroughly explain the example, explicitly connecting it back to the definition.
Example Scenario
"In psychology, 'cognitive dissonance' is the mental discomfort a person feels when holding contradictory beliefs, or when their beliefs clash with their actions. To reduce this discomfort, people are motivated to change one of the contradictory elements, such as their beliefs or behaviors."
"The professor gives an example of a person who considers themselves an environmentalist but buys a car that isn't fuel-efficient. This creates cognitive dissonance. To resolve it, the person might change their belief, perhaps by convincing themselves that their individual car's emissions don't matter much. Or, they might rationalize the purchase by focusing on another value, like family safety, to reduce the internal conflict and feel better about their choice."
Prompt: Using the example from the lecture, explain the concept of cognitive dissonance.
Task 4: Integrated Speaking (Academic Lecture)
In this final task, you will listen to a short lecture and then provide a spoken summary of its main points and key examples.
Strategies for Success
- Identify the Main Topic and Sub-points: The lecture will have a clear structure. Listen for the main concept and the two distinct examples or aspects used to explain it.
- Note-Taking is Crucial: Since there is no reading, your notes are your only resource. Organize them clearly (e.g., Topic, Example 1, Example 2) to capture the structure.
- Summarize, Don't Just List: Your response should be a coherent summary. Start by stating the lecture's main topic, then describe the first example and how it illustrates the topic, and then do the same for the second example.
Example Scenario
"The professor discusses 'aggressive mimicry,' a form of camouflage used for hunting. She provides two examples. First, the alligator snapping turtle, which looks like a rock on the riverbed. It uses a bright red, worm-like part of its tongue as a lure to attract fish right into its mouth. Second, the crab spider, which can change its color to match the flower it's on. When an insect like a bee comes to collect nectar, the spider ambushes the unsuspecting visitor."
Prompt: Using the points and examples from the lecture, explain how animals use aggressive mimicry.