The stock market game is not a new activity. I learned to play this game in a high school course and remembered that the activity generated excitement. The way the game was played in my class was that each student pretended to invest $10,000, enough to make the game exciting, either in one stock or in a combination of stocks.

First, I explained how to read an English stock page, explaining all the columns in a stock table. I read the abbreviations of famous companies to help the students make their selections. The students chose stocks of companies they knew well. For example, the Japanese students chose Disney and McDonald's stock, the Korean students chose Coca-Cola and Philip Morris, and the Mexican student chose the Mexico Fund stock.

The materials needed for the activity are newspapers which have business sections including stock tables, such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or the Japan Times. Other helpful materials include business magazines, such as Forbes and Business Week. One helpful book for explaining how to read and interpret the stock market data is Barrons Keys to Understanding the Financial News.

From the first week, the excitement of the game grew. I would bring a copy of the Wall Street Journal or the local Atlanta Journal newspaper to class each day and begin class by quoting the stock prices and their rises/falls. Being accountants, the students brought calculators to class and had fun computing their winnings and losses.

It was clear that the students took the game very seriously. The winners became thrilled by two-point leaps in their stock values and losers looked glum. I sometimes had to cheer up the students on the losing end telling them that their choices might be good long-term investments.

The class, itself, took on a life of its own. After two weeks, we stopped using textbooks altogether in favor of using newspaper and magazine articles concerning the students' investments. The students gave presentations and had discussions on the articles. They also debated the wiseness of each other's investments. The atmosphere was relaxed with students feeling few inhibitions to join the spirited discussions. The students teased each other and coaxed one another to buy or sell a particular stock. In other words, real communication took place.

Occasionally, students would read the articles aloud allowing me to check their pronunciation. The reading exercises were also useful in introducing business-related vocabulary. The presentations students gave were useful in checking the students' pronunciation and grammar (or syntactic constructions). I usually allowed the students to finish their presentations before correcting their mistakes in order to minimize stress and maximize student talking time. I made notes on each presentation and informed the student giving the presentation of his/her pronunciation/syntactic/semantic errors after both the presentation and the subsequent free discussion had been completed.

Thanks to the stock market game, the course was a memorable experience for all involved. The class was a joy to teach. The students made great progress in their business reading and speaking abilities. Some of the students expressed their feelings of pride in being able to read, understand, and analyze the business news in English. I can readily recommend the use of the stock market game as either a warm-up activity or as the foundation for a communicative business English course.

References
Nicholas G., Dba Apostolou, D. Larry Crumbley, Keys to Understanding the Financial News. Happaugue, NY: Barrons, 1994.

Reading
In their feedback, students frequently request to learn about musical artists and musical genres. As a warm up activity, students can read about the musical artist. You can download artist profiles off the internet. I usually write a short paragraph about the artist, the style of music, and the meaning of the song. For the blues song "The Sun is Shining," I wrote, This is an old blues song written and performed by Jimmy Reed from Louisiana in the 1960's. One interesting feature of Reed's music is that he uses a second guitarist instead of a bass player. This song is an example of a bluse song that mixes happy and sad emotions. Many people think blues songs are all sad, but the blues presents a wide variety of feelings. One great Chicago bluesman, Willie Dixon, frequently said, 'the blues are the facts of life set to music.' Blues songs often deal with a problem. In this song, the singer's problem is his loneliness. In the song, he tries to convince a woman to go out on a date with him." For more contemporary artists, such as the Spice Girls, you may be able to find fanzines with articles and pictures of the performers.

Writing
One way to spice up a grammar lesson is to use songs with lyrics including the grammatical structures you are teaching in class. For example, when my high school class was studying if clauses with modal verbs, I used Eric Clapton's song "Change the World." This song includes frequent use of if clauses with past modals for expressing imaginary ideas. For example, Clapton sings, "If I could change the world, you would be the sunlight in my universe." After listening to the song, students can be asked to write sentences using the grammatical structures used in the song. For "Change the World," the students were asked, "What would you do if you could change the world?" and "What would you do if you could be king/queen/prime minister/president for a day?" The latter question generated a lot of interesting sentences. For example, one student wrote, "If I could be president of the United States for a day, I would ride in Air Force One and have dinner with the Spice Girls.

I also recommend using soft, relaxing music during writing exercises. One student handed me a note at the end of a writing class. The note simply read, "We like music during thinking time."

Listening
Students can get active listening practice by doing cloze listening exercises on the songs. When I first started using songs in the classroom, I deleted too many words from the cloze exercise sheets, and I did not give the students enough hints, so some students found the tasks frustrating. I have learned to leave out no more than one word per line. It is also advisory to help the students by writing in the first letter of most deleted words. Another option is to give students a choice of similar sounding words, such as the minimal pairs lice/rice and flee/free. I usually play a song two or three times. I walk around the room to check how much trouble students are having with the activity. If it looks like the class is having trouble doing the exercise, I writte additional letters either on their papers or on the chalkboard. If I know the kanji for the deleted word, I may write it on the board. One more humorous way of giving hints is to mumble the missing words. To assist with the comprehension of the song, I write more difficult vocabulary, including slang and idioms, on the chalkboard and discuss the meanings of the words before the first listening.

My second most requested activity is trivia quiz shows. I sometimes make quiz shows on the topic of music. Older students may enjoy a Beatles quiz show. For younger students, though, you will probably need to ask questions about newer artists, such as the Spice Girls. For example, you can ask what the nicknames are for the Spice Girls (answer: Baby, Posh, Sporty, Scary, and Ginger), which Spice Girl has dated a member of Oasis (answer: Posh), and which Spice Girl recently quit the band (answer: Ginger). It may be good to find what artists your students like and then do some research on them.

Speaking
Before beginning the listening activities, I have students take turns reading aloud a short list of discussion questions about the song. I generally ask how the songs make the students feel, if they like the song (and why), what kind of person they think wrote the song, and general comprehension questions. I have found if very helpful to write the question, "which words are difficult for you to understand?" on the worksheet. For a long time, I simply asked this question aloud and the question was usually met with blank stares. I was surprised to get many questions after I started typing the question on the worksheets. The students may feel they have to answer a written question. Also, the students have more time to think about their response to the question. Because Japanese students generally fear making mistakes, it is good to go over the questions at the beginning of the activity. Japanese students typically require more time than students from other countries to answer questions in class.

For pronunciation practice, words or lines can be repeated after the teacher in choral response. This is a good way to work on rhythm, especially stress patterns. A tambourine can be used to help the students keep a steady rhythm. Some classes will enjoy singing the song along with a tape at the conclusion of the activity. You may present the idea of having an English karaoke contest in class. I have had the best luck with getting students to sing by bringing a guitar to class. Songs with a very repetitive chorus, such as Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," work well for singalongs. Remember that it takes a longer time to learn a song in a foreign language, so proceed slowly.

Song Selection
Slow songs are usually preferable,since fast songs are more difficult for conprehension. Ballads work nicely. You can find lots of slow songs to work with on Jimmy Buffett, James Taylor, Mariah Carey, and Ray Charles albums. Try and select songs you know something about. If your city or state has a song, you may want to teach students that song. For example, I have taught numerous classes my state's song, "Georgia On My Mind" as sung by Ray Charles. Students are frequently eager to learn some newer songs, such as songs from recent movie soundtracks. Songs with visual language, such as Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" and Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings," are also fun to analyze. As noted above, you may be able to find a song that makes use of a grammatical pattern you are teaching. Dr. Tim Murphey's resource book, Music in the Classroom (Oxford), includes a list of songs employing a wide variety of gammatical structures. There are a few good ESL textbooks featuring popular English songs. A fairly new textbook, Hit Parader (MacMillan), includes numerous contemporary songs and readings on the musical artists.

Conclusion
One of the advantages of using songs instead of other forms of discourse is that songs make strong use of rhythm. According to Murphey (Murphey, 1992), rhythm is a memory tool." I have been pleased to hear students singing phrases from songs that have gotten "stuck in their heads." I follow Murphey's advice of teaching songs at the end of a class, thinking that students will remember the songs better--like the last song you hear before leaving your home.

It is clear that Japanese students are motivated to learn English through listening to English songs. It is very refreshing to see some of my sleeping students suddenly come alive when I do a song activity. It is excellent that Japanese students enjoy learning English from songs, but it is useful to warn them athat many English songs (especially Japanese pop songs) include grammatically incorrrect English. One song that come to mind is the recent Japanese pop song "Hate Tell a Lie."

References
Murphey, Tim, Music and Song. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Kumai, Nobuhiro and Stephen Timson, Hit Parade Listening. Tokyo: MacMillan Language House, 1998.

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