tree,baby crying). Ss describe pictures with as many words as they can.3. The teacher gives students construction paper and color markers. Sheinforms students that they are going to hear the song What a Wonderful World three (3) times. The first time they will only listen. The second and thirdtime, they will draw what they hear described in the song. 4. Once theyre through with their drawings, the teacher will instructstudents to all stand up and walk around the room, describing their drawings totheir classmates. Students will then choose their favorite drawing and explainwhy.ActingOut CommandsI've found this activity to be fun & useful withbeginners: Call on students to follow simple commands such as "Read thefirst 2 sentences on page 34", "Zip up your jacket", or"Take off your left shoe." Vary the game by having students drawnames or commands. At first they were liery of doing these "dumb"things, but they later loved it because they could tell each other to do outrageousthings such as crawling on the floor, eat Suzie's chips, etc.Aroundthe circleThis is an excellent ESL activity for children in all ages.The pupils will practice listening, speaking and imagination. You can modify itto a topic of your choice; fruits, food, clothes, colours etc.Here's an example with fruit.1. Sit in a circle.2. The teacher starts by saying: "I like apples" and makes agesture to show "apples" with the hands.3. The person next to him/her has to repeat and then add a new fruit."I like apples" (makes the gesture) and bananas" and adds a newgesture for "bananas".4. Continue around the circle. One at a time; repeating, and adding onfruits and gestures. Test your skills! Try to remember what everyone said and go all around thecircle.Regards,Ms Paula Maritz,SwedenTop100 English Conversation PatternsWhen students are studying conversation skills bythemselves, I have them practice their conversation patterns with a set of 7 CD's that I have developed which progressively reviewsthetop 100 English conversation patterns. After each question there is time forthe student to answer.Each CD is over 60 minutes long. It is a great way to give studentsan opportunity totest their skills. see http://www.cl.ais.net/labonteDon La BonteTOEFLListeningTeaching a TOEFL preparation course, there is the need formore than just 'intensive' listening, i.e. listening specific to the test, butalso 'extensive', or general listening comprehension activities. I used the'audio book' (book on tape) of the novel 'Disclosure,' which comprises 4 tapes.This was easily obtainable at the public library. I divided eight sides intotwo sections each and came up with 16 sets of listening comprehension questionsto go with the tapes. If this sounds like a lot of work, it was! But there hasto be a way to confirm comprehension, and I personally find that most studentshate summary writing and even when they do it, it takes them hours on end.Besides, the TOEFL test doesn't test the writing skill. I assigned thequestions as homework and we took them up in class. This can be a nice segueinto reading the novel or seeing the movie. Or collecting the bubble gum cards,for that matter. At any rate, my awesomely detailed 16-part TOEFL-stylemultiple choice question set for 'Disclosure'