TOEFL Speaking: Does Your Voice or Your Content Matter More? Big Differences Between the Old and New Formats from 2026?!

Hi everyone,

I'm David, co-founder of SK2 TOEFL and head of its intensive course (TOEFL iBT 119/120).

As a teacher who has graded nearly 10,000 students and tens of thousands of speaking recordings over the past 15 years,

I can tell you with confidence:

On the old TOEFL (through 2026/1) 👉 your voice matters more than your content!

First, let's be clear about what “voice” means.

It isn't the “accent” most students think of first, and it isn't “speaking smoothly” either. The voice-related scoring criteria actually include:

👌🏽 Whether your “pronunciation” is correct, especially vowels

👌🏽 Whether your intonation varies and sounds confident

👌🏽 Whether your pauses are natural and your pace is right

As you can imagine, your first few sentences already give the rater an “impression score”!

If you get stuck a lot, keep saying uh..., speak in a flat tone and mumble──

the rater will only reluctantly listen on, not wanting to hear you out, and won't easily give a high score.

I've heard many students whose “answers have real content”

but whose scores are stuck around 20.

So the key is making the listener comfortable and willing to keep listening!

However, in the speaking scoring of the new TOEFL (starting 2026/1),

David has found that... for some question types, content matters more than voice!

🥹

And the ways “voice” used to affect your score are also different in the new format.

To find out why and hear the full analysis,

join David's master open class on 11/29!

Date: 11/29 (Sat)

Time: 1930 - 2100

Location: Zoom online meeting

Sign up here:

https://forms.gle/G1TTFCWkR5Fy38Zm9