Is teaching the TOEIC course valid at a uni/college?

[Spitfire]

My university is making preparations to offer the TOEIC to all sudents attending, even making it a mandatory part of the course to get the degree.

What I'd be interested in hearing about from people would be about how practical it would be in this format?

I would have thought it would be a good idea for those up to it, but making all do it would be an unmitigated disaster imo as most are borderline to start with and it would have a huge fail rate really.

They have asked for my input but I don't think they will want to hear it as it's probably not what they want to hear, so they are asking rhetorical questions really.

I know a little about the TOEIC and how many hours etc plus the grade of students required that might make it a realistic proposition and all, but can anyone give their comments of it, or on the realism of offering it.

All sounds wonderful really but I reckon it has trouble written all over it as most of the 18-20 year olds I see still need remedial work to learn the things they should have learned at high school, but didn't.

Thanks for any opinions/replies.

[Vital Spark]

It's interesting you should ask this question Spitfire, as I've just finished a term with fourth year English minor students who wanted me to include TOEIC preparation into the reading and writing course.

I couldn't (didn't want to) devote the whole 8 weeks for this test, so I just spent one lesson giving them the low-down on the test, and one lesson doing a practice test under exam conditions.

You could certainly have a stand-alone course teaching the techniques for getting a good score in TOEIC, which would be hugely beneficial to those taking the test. However, I do question the idea of making it a compulsory course which would include those students who had no intention of using English in their career. The best solution would be to make it an elective course (with credits towards their degree) and their grade could be calculated based on their in-class TOEIC tests.

There are a lot of books produced by well-known publishers which have practice TOEIC tests and hints and tips which could be used as course books for the students. The test itself involves listening, grammar and reading comprehension (no writing).

To get any job in Thailand that may involve English usually requires a TOEIC score, so the students are usually keen to learn this subject, if (and it's a big if) they want to use English.

To conclude (and I always tell my students that they should do this...) if the level of English of the students is quite low, it shouldn't be a compulsory course. They'll only get disheartened and lose what little confidence they may have in English.

VS