Studying in foreign countries obligates students to be fluent in English. To prove their ability, Universities, which have been in partnership with Indonesian International Student Mobility Awards (IISMA), set the requirements for having minimum IELTS (6,0), TOEFL IBT (78), or Duolingo English Test (100) in the application. To boost the selected students of University Al-Azhar Indonesia (UAI)’s capability in their English proficiency test, the Office of International Affairs invited Dr. Lusi Lian Piantari, S.S., M.Hum. as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Lecturer in English Language and Department to share her knowledge in assisting them in IISMA 2023.
Dr. Lusi started the class by elaborating about IELTS, Duolingo, TOEFL together with their purpose which is for academic and those who have English as their 2nd, 3rd or more language. She also added that in Indonesia TOEFL is commonly used, especially the ITP one. There are several types of TOEFL, computer-based, paper-based, and internet-based. It is also divided into several parts such as listening, structure, reading, and in some cases, there will be speaking and writing. In response to this, it is significant to students to know their strength in which section they are confident in. If they find out their strength, they need to focus on that. They also have to remember to fill all the answers because there will be no minus points if they answer wrongly, said Dr. Lusi. Last but not least, she added that they need to consider the duration so that everything can be answered.
Moreover, during the trials of the test, Dr. Lusi provided the structural section first and the students needed to finish it in 15 minutes. During the discussion, she let the students get an equal chance to answer the test one by one. She emphasized that they have to be able to divide between passive and active sentences which lead them to identify the usage of proper grammar. Afterwards, the ability to recognize the parallelism in each sentence also will benefit them to analyse the grammar errors. These tips will help them to skim efficiently. She, then, explained about the listening section and let the students fill in. The test question was cited from the TOEFL ETS’s official webpage. In this section, Dr. Lusi gave her insight about the key point to do well which is listening to its directions and instructions. Fortunately, at the end of the class, there were some students who answered all of the questions correctly and for those who are still unable to make it, she supervised each of them based on their strengths and weaknesses.
Finally, Dr. Lusi delivered her last advice to the students that the things that set IELTS, Duolingo, and TOEFL apart is our way of habit. All of them have the same intention by making sure everyone is able to know English from all aspects of life. Consequently, it is crucial for them to find the suitable test for themselves or the need for their objectives (TSH).