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CUISINAIRE
RODS (Chris Bowie)
10 January 2005
Where
do they come from?
Invented in 1952 by Georges
Cuisenaire in Belgium the rods were made more widely known after Caleb
Gattegno of 'Silent Way' fame met Cuisenaire in 1953.
The rods take a central role in
'Silent Way' teaching but are making themselves known in mainstream TEFL as
well.
Why
use them?
- They can engage the
students' attention better than a whiteboard or even TV screen.
- They divert the focus away
from language and to the activity in hand, resulting in more natural
output from the students.
- They appeal to different
learning styles - kinaesthetic, visual. Most classes are auditory
focussed.
- They activate the
imagination of the learners more than pictures.
- The teacher can carry them
around from class to class.
- They are a very flexible
resource - they only require a flat surface (and sometimes not even
that!).
Some
Teaching Ideas:
These are only some of the ideas
I could think of. Try to find more yourself!
1. Practice numbers and colours
- 1,395,256 expressed in rods
2. Telling Stories - use the
rods to set the scene and depict the action
3. Guess the story from the rods
4. Sentence structure -
different colours for different classes of words (e.g. yellow is always a
verb)
5. Sentence building - I smoke -
I don't smoke - Does she smoke? - Why doesn't she smoke? ...(An upright rod
can show a negative or word stress)
6. Visualise complex structures
such as third conditionals
7. Comparative sentences - guess
which rod a student has in mind.
8. Timelines - You (and the
students!) can show all the tenses. Describe your past and/or future life.
9. Islamabad game - use the rods
to show any town or city in intricate detail!
10. Correction - use a different
colour rod to represent different kinds of errors. (e.g. red is a word order
mistake)
11. Giving instructions-
learners give/follow instructions to reproduce a structure
12. Practise prepositions -
office/flat layout - Street map - Road accident/military engagement
13. Practice
requests/instructions - use five rods of different colours to get six rods of
same colour. Use different register to ask for rods in different situations.
14. Bargaining - use rods as in
a stock market
15. House game - students add to
the scene using rods
16. Phonology - stress,
contractions, intrusions, elision ...
17. Musical tenses game - rods,
each colour showing different tense are passed around a circle - when music
stops, students say their sentence using the right tense.
18. Musical mingle - Ss have
some reds and are told to get certain others. They mingle, music stops and
they must ask another S. "Can I have ...?" Teacher can set tone
(formal, informal, slow, etc.)
19. Builders - Groups can make a
"building". They then describe to another team, who can't see.
Follow up, 2nd team writes a letter/or telephones to ask for confirmation of
instructions.
20. Perfect home - Ss build and
describe their perfect home. Other Ss can ask questions.
As you can see there are lots of
things you can do with these rods. For even more ideas, check out the
attachment from Paula, where she shows they can even be used for teaching
IELTS! If this has whetted your appetite and you want to get some rods, then
try Amazon.com
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