ANew Twist on Listening ExercisesListening is one of the toughest skills to improve, simplybecause the students can't work at their own pace. They might read at a slowerpace, or work out the meaning of a sentence on paper before moving on, which issimply impossible and impractical in a conversation.I always try to add an element of listening in each lesson, and not justwith an activity prepared beforehand. Any activity can be adjusted toincorporate listening, which also helps put a new twist on the usual exercises.Try one of the following:1. A word search in which you dictate some or all of the words first, thencheck the spelling as a class. The students then complete the word search (inclass, or as homework).2. Follow the instructions of a worksheet, but do several of the exercises,sentences, etc. aloud as a class. You can have the students work alone, or inpairs. And with smaller classes, you can always ask additional questions not onthe worksheet to get everyone participating.3. Extend an activity with a listening and speaking exercise. For example,after completing a worksheet on the future tense, give three or four new,original sentences about your plans for the weekend. Students listen, and thenwork in pairs to ask an appropriate follow-up question. You can then have thestudents do the same: tell, ask, and answer in pairs or groups.Chris Cotterwww.headsupenglish.com"playingby ear"This works for beginner-beginners, but can be spiraled up inso many ways. I brought a thumb piano to my last class (you could use a guitar,keyboard, etc.), and assigned one letter of the alphabet to each piano key (Itaped the letters to the instrument). When I said the letter, my student wouldplay the corresponding key. Then I would say a few letters in a row, and shewould play each of those. The letters I had her play spelled out her name, sothey were relevant to her. We also did this with numbers (13,30; 14, 40;). It'sa great listening exercise and my student really enjoyed it!amberDenverAWonderful WorldI first learned about this activity while taking the CELTAcourse in NYC. Since then, I've added elements to it and have had a tremendoussuccess with this activity in High Beginning ESL classes. It truly has creates"a wonderful world" in the classroom.Enjoy!Juliwww.teacher-juli.blogspot.comActivity: Listening, drawing and mingling activity based on the lyrics inWhat a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.Objective: Students will draw the vocabulary they hear in the song anddiscuss drawings with classmates. Materials: -Picture cards of vocabulary from song (baby crying, blue sky, green trees, redroses, earth, shaking hands, etc.) -song: What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong-CD or MP3 player-markers and construction paper1. The teacher tells students that they will be listening to a song calledWonderful World (The title is shortened to make activity easier). In pairs,Ss discuss what they think the song is about. Possible questions to facilitatediscussion include: What makes a wonderful world? What are people doing? Whatthings do you see? What colors do you see? This is followed by a groupdiscussion.2. The teacher reviews key vocabulary words from song with picture cards(e.g.: world, hands shaking, blue sky with clouds, rainbow, red roses,