Interviewing Affective Educators: Beatrix Price

Have you ever thought about going to a country and staying there just to learn from one particular person?   I thought about doing so as soon as I met Beatrix Price at IATEFL last year. I was already planning how long I was going to stay in Budapest, when I learned that Bea and I would be working together for two weeks. I could not believe it, I was so happy! I immediately wrote Bea and she was happy as well!!!

The two weeks were great and we were able to learn a lot from each other and enjoy each other's company having lots of tea. But I would not let her go without interviewing her first for our blog. 

Here is our interview!

Juan: Let’s get started. When did you discover that you wanted to become a language teacher?

Bea and I met at IATEFL in 2015.

Bea: That is a good question. When I was a child I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher because my mother was a kindergarten teacher. Then later when I went to school I still wanted to be a teacher and my desire had never changed. I was 14 or 15 when I first met English as a language and then I decided to become an English teacher. But as I grew up in a communist country, where it was impossible to learn English, it took me quite a long time to learn it, so only when I was twenty seven I finally started learning English. Before that I was a Russian teacher and a Hungarian literature teacher.

Juan: It is very interesting that you have mentioned that your mother was a kindergarten teacher. How did she influence you? Were there days that you would go with her to school?   

Bea: Unfortunately at that time it wasn’t possible to do this in Hungary. But somehow I picked up the abilities or skills to work with children.  And there was also another very important experience that I lived when I was a child. We lived very near the Croatian border and my parents had friends from Croatia. In fact, these were their best friends, so we visited them and they visited us very often and there was this constant contact between us. Unfortunately they didn’t have any children , so I didn’t get to learn Croatian fluently, but I always heard this other language in the background. My father was sort of the interpreter in the family as he told us where we were going and what we were going to do.  One fascinating thing that I discovered just a couple of years ago is that my mother didn’t speak any Croatian and  her friend didn’t speak any Hungarian and even so they were friends for thirty or forty years.  It was a wonderful experience to have so many holidays together. Now looking back, I recognize this communicative competence that is so important in the lives of language teachers and language learners.  

Juan: Wow, what a beautiful memory! It’s truly amazing how your mom and her friend were able to communicate.

Juan: I saw your presentation this year at IATEFL in Manchester and I was fascinated by the way you promote language learning while you play with children.  How important is affect when learning a language and how do you incorporate in your teaching?

Bea: We all know about  emotional intelligence nowadays because it has been a buzz word for years but if you just look at natural cultures and how mothers, grandmothers take care of their children, then we can learn a lot. You have to feel the children and children have to be at ease with you when you are teaching them, if they are afraid of the atmosphere or the situation, then learning doesn’t take place, but if they love what surrounds them, then learning will happen in a much more effective way.

Juan: How did you become an English teacher of young learners? 

Bea: About fifteen years ago and before that I had never thought I would end up becoming a teacher of young learners.  Life brought me this experience as my children are bilingual  (English/Hungarian) and I had to teach them together with other children who were in the same classes. So I had to discover a method, something that my children who already spoke English would be happy in the class, just as well the other children who came to learn English. So then I started searching for games that are global and multicultural, so I collected a lot of different activities that are played all over the world and that are enjoyed in different cultures, regardless of language, and then I added the language element to it.

Everybody was happy in my class all the time and then I saw how much the other children learned, those who came to learn English. They had a massive vocabulary through the rhymes, songs, poems,  and everything that we enjoyed doing together. Everybody knew it wasn’t about language learning, it was about having a great time together. I think it is so important for children to enjoy what they are doing because many times we adults impose our own will on them and then they end up not having much choice.

Juan: Could you tell us a little bit about your ten-house model?

Bea: When I did my masters’s degree I wrote my thesis on movement accompanied by language learning, and the ten houses were the skeleton for my thesis.  I also included Vigotsky’s and Krashen’s theories in my thesis.  The houses really go through the natural development of the child, when we imagine that the baby is born and the child is in the cradle, the first thoughts that the baby has are his own hands and fingers, and the baby looks up and starts playing with his own fingers. A little bit later when the children are a little bit older, mothers take the children and gets them in their laps and start playing with their palms, their fingers with ticklish games and all that those that belong to the children’s body. In previous cultures  there were no plastic toys and Disney films and other things to entertain the children, so mothers and their children would build very beautiful rapport and that’s how children started to learn language through this emotional bond.

So the first things are the finger games, which are not only important because the mother plays with them or children play on their own, but they are also very good for fine motor skills. And this is what educators nowadays neglect totally, because children grow up in front of screens, they only touch buttons or they are just watching something. Their fine and gross motor skills are not developed nowadays and children get clumsy to the point they can’t even climb trees.

The other activities in the ten-house model are those that children enjoy in social interaction such as  bean bag games, circle games,  skipping games, and string games. We can find these in every culture,and they are enjoyed by the children because they share. Social interaction is another very important element, because I think a lot of children lack social competence in our world because they are just interacting with cell phones. Playing together has another educational value in my system.

Finger games, bean bag games, string games, and circle games incorporate singing, which is very important. That's because singing is in a different sphere. And then when I take children through these activities that are always a  little bit more difficult for the children and they want to learn that skill that is very important for them as well. These manual skills are always a little bit higher than their actual competence, just as Krashen says that comprehensible input should just a slightly higher than the child’s language competence. In my model I put the skills competence, so they want to learn the language together as well.

These activities are always accompanied by authentic English nursery rhymes, songs, and verses,  so children can build a very big vocabulary doing these activities and then after a  while, they start being introduced to real poetry. So after a couple of years of teaching children through these rhymes, I introduce very simple authentic poems to and after this stage we learn in the realm of literature and that’s the finest stage in my learning curve, that’s the last house,  when I can already introduce authentic novels to these children obviously through graded readers or simplified versions or I myself make them accessible to them.

I think that children deserve to be introduced to Narnia in English when they are small as well as Robinson Crusoe, which is my other favourite book. These are all layers that are built one on top of the other.  I think that when we introduce literature, they will become readers, that’s another stage and then authentic learning takes place. And they are able to learn in English and look after their own language development.

Juan: Which advice do you give to teachers of young learners?

Bea and Anastasya sharing their storytelling board. 

Bea: Learn lots of songs and  look at mother goose nursery rhymes and choose the ones you will teach according to your taste. It’s most important that you teach according to what you like, just believe in something and teach through that. And children will love it because they can see you are enjoying it and you will love it too. I think we can never stop learning and learning children’s rhymes is not a childish thing. We can learn from each other and even nowadays meet other colleagues around the world and then share our treasure with them. We should not hide what we know, we should make it accessible to everybody.

When teaching children it is very important not to simplify the language, as when you look at natural language acquisition, when a child learns in her own environment, everybody speaks in full sentences with lots of language, and I think that in second language acquisition we should do the same, providing a lot of authentic language to children.  I try to do it in a rhythmic way  because rhythm carries language, specially in songs, chants, verses, and nursery rhymes that have this natural rhythm that lives in the child’s system or body. As a result children are introduced to a lot a language and they will deduct meaning from this rich language for themselves and that’s how language is built up. Not specifically taught to them saying that this is this and that is that, but allowing the child to recognize the words in the songs, in the verses, and in the poems.

Juan: You have given me this amazing rainbow string. Where did this idea come from and which other tricks do you have in your teaching?

Bea teaching Kasya the witch's story in Paris

Bea: First of all, I felt that as an adult I wasn’t able to learn any of the tricks, but fortunately I had a very good friend who knew many of these tricks. And he happened to drop in my English lessons and he didn’t speak any English and he enchanted the learners in a second. I was a little bit jealous and I wanted to learn those tricks too.


As I wanted to enchant the children as well, so I looked for my son's book on string games and I learned one trick which was a huge success.  It took me a long while to learn other tricks and the most interesting thing is that when I introduce it to children they just pick it up in seconds.

I only know three or four stories altogether and I see that storytelling with strings is amazing not only for children but for adults too. These are well known in many cultures such as in Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, in central Europe, Western Europe, well everywhere. So I encourage everybody to learn a couple of string games.

Juan: Being a very affective teacher educator, what do you consider important for teachers of young learners to experience in their preparation courses?

Bea: Well, it comes naturally to me it’s and it is also a very conscious process. I try to build very good rapport with my colleagues, I prefer to call them my colleagues instead of participants.  I like to draw their attention to the importance of being an educator as we we have a very big responsibility for the future generations. I see that teaching young learners has become a very big business around the world and we have the responsibility not to let children be harmed by all this business. As appropriate learning is very important, we have to see who our learners are, language teaching ought to be almost like a therapy for children with lots of singing and lots of good things. 

Juan: Do you have a favourite quote to finish our interview? 

Bea: We only remember 10% of what we hear, we remember 40% of what we see, and we remember 90% of what we are involved with.

Juan: Anything else you would like to say? 

Bea: I love you Juan and Buddy too!

Juan: Me too!  

Wow, what an amazing interview with Bea!

Would you like me to interview any teacher in special?
Let me know and then I will get in touch with this person and give it a try!

Sending you all a big hug,

Juan


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Interviewing Affective Educators: Sosô Uribe Conti Ranzi

I am very happy to present you an interview with an educator, and an entrepreneur I deeply admire: Sosô Uribe Conti Ranzi, who happens to be my sister, my partner, and the General Director at Juan Uribe Ensino Afetivo, the school we both founded here in São Paulo, Brazil.

But how could I interview her if I know pretty much what she will answer? In order to make the interview more natural and revealing I decided to invite my dear friend Naoko Amano to interview Sosô. 

Naoko is the founder of Yellow Banana Kids English in Kishiwada, Japan. She was a fantastic host when I visited her school in 2013. Naoko is also part of the iTDi family and I am grateful to Barbara Sakamoto for having introduced us to each other. 


It is with great honor that I have connected these two lovely educators and here I present this interview: 

Naoko: Congratulations on the 20th anniversary of your school! I saw the great pictures of your special flea market. Could you please tell me more about your feelings about this anniversary?

Sosô: Oh Naoko! It’s a feeling that is really hard to put into words! It was a great pleasure to see kids speaking English spontaneously and confidently. Families were together and everybody was communicating and having fun in English!

Naoko:Yes! I was able to see that all the families are so happy to be there! That's wonderful, Sosô. What are some of your unforgettable memories of these twenty years?

Sosô: There are so many! It's rewarding to see that people that worked here left their mark and have made this school a better place. It's beautiful to know that students that studied here with us are starting their professional careers and that deep inside I  know that our English classes have contributed to their success! Another lovely memory was when we rented this house we are in right now! Moving to this new house was a big step for us, because we grew 4 times in size!

 Naoko: That's really inspiring, Sosô. I've heard about you a little bit from your brother Juan, whom I always meet in congresses here in Japan. But I'd like to know more about you. How did you start teaching English to children?

Sosô: Wow….that was a looong time ago…. I started my first class on May 10^th 1996… 19 years ago. I was only 17 years old then! I started teaching a 2-year-old boy called Christian and I fell in love with teaching as I saw that I was much more able and creative that I thought I was. As a result, Christian learned much faster that I could imagine.

Naoko: Oh! That is a very interesting story. Can you recall any of the classes you had with him? 

Sosô: I used to spend the whole afternoon with him and we did everything together - we cooked, played outside, we made projects, played with his power rangers, watched movies, and sang songs. He liked hunting treasures and playing with his wild animals figures. I remember that once we made a huge cardboard boat and played there for hours!

Naoko: That must have been fun. But how did you go from teaching this very first student to opening the school with Juan? 

Sosô:  As I started teaching more and more students, Juan and I had a turning-point conversation in which we decided to open our own school. At the age of 17, I was reading Brazilian laws concerning hiring people.

Naoko: You were so young then. How many students are learning English at Juan Uribe Ensino Afetivo now?

Sosô: Currently there are 252 students from two to twelve learning English with us. We have 102 students having classes at their homes while 150 come to our school. 

Naoko: That is a lot! I am sure you have 252 students, parents, and teachers smiling. That’s wonderful!

Sosô: Thank you, Naoko. I love teaching and I also love managing the school!

Naoko:What do you currently do at Juan Uribe Ensino Afetivo?

Sosô: Today I am the General Director, which includes thinking about our growth, envisioning new challenges, checking the quality of our classes, and learning about families' satisfaction. 

Naoko: I saw in many pictures that you always have a puppet with you. How did you start using them to teach English? 

Sosô:  In 1996  Juan and I bought six hand puppets which later became our logo. We always had them with us and they called everybody’s attention. Today we have more than 80 puppets here at school. The educators who work with us learn how to use puppets in our initial course, but they are not supposed to use them every class. We are always watching many puppeteers, taking courses, and getting better and better at it. 

Naoko: Eighty puppets!? That's a lot! I saw your fantastic and heartwarming DVD in which you also use puppets. What made you film it? How did you film it?

Sosô: That was a dream-come-true project! In 2008 Juan filmed me telling "The Gingerbread Man" and we put it on YouTube. Many families watched it and told me that I had talent telling stories and that I should record a DVD. I let this dream rest for almost 4 years until I met the Cama family in October 2012. Together we decided to pursue this dream and we came up with different storytelling techniques to teach English to children through fairy tales. After 18 months, the DVD was finally released and now kids from all over Brazil can learn English with us!

The DVD was filmed in a cinema studio with professional microphones and movie cameras. I had my “actress” day starting the first story at 7 am and finishing with the tenth one at 9 pm. By then I was exhausted, but really happy!

Naoko: It sounds that must have been both exciting and hard work! What were some of the most difficult aspects while shooting the videos?

Sosô: I guess it was during the shooting of “The Three Little Pigs” when I had to make the second pig look down to the camera (I was behind a wall - and I couldn’t see where the camera was). Editing Hansel and Gretel was also a challenge as we had to make the narration match the scenes. :)

 Naoko: I love your warm voice and your friendly way of telling stories. I immediately felt drawn to your story. Is there anything in special you pay attention to when telling stories with puppets? 

Sosô: Oh Yes! Besides the story itself, I pay attention to the voices, movement of the puppet’s mouth and body, and  possible jokes or charades I will tell. While storytelling in the classroom, I make sure to take into account the comments of the students too! It’s really fun! You should definitely try it too!

Naoko: Wow, it seems to be very difficult and I certainly need some training myself, but I’m interested in it. On the DVD, your puppets are really alive and we felt as if we were in the story!!

Naoko: What are you doing in the picture you look like a ninja?

 Sosô: Just posing for the picture! We had to use this outfit, so our hands and heads wouldn’t appear in the video. 

Naoko:  I was also very excited to see you using kamishibai in your storytelling. It is a beautiful Japanese technique we rarely see here in Japan.  How do you like telling kamishibai stories?

Sosô: Kamishibai stories are really different and everybody loves them, as they do not exist here in Brazil. I always have a great time telling them!

Naoko: I am glad to hear that people love our tradition. Here in Japan, we usually tend to look for new techniques from overseas, but we definitely should reconsider our work in the light of our own Japanese tradition.

Naoko: Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me.  You have inspired me a lot.  I was able to feel your passion for teaching as well as your gentle and beautiful heart. I’d also like to thank Juan Uribe for giving me this wonderful chance. 

Sosô: Same here. It was really nice “talking” to you and telling you a little bit about the school, myself and the DVD! :) Come visit me here in São Paulo!

Naoko: You too here in Kishiwada! 

Wow! What a great interview! 

Thank you so much Naoko and Sosô.
I sincerely hope that your families can meet each other some time in the future. 


Would you like me to interview any educator you admire? 
Tell me and I will give my best as always! 


Sending everybody a kamishibai hug from São Paulo, 

Juan

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Puppeteering again at Hanazono Kindergarten!

Hanazono Kindergarten in Gifu, Japan

Some moments in life have really touched me with sheer joy.  One of these precious memories certainly was telling stories and puppeteering at the two Hanazono Kindergartens in Gifu last year. These performances were truly a challenge for me as my audience was composed of more than three hundred Japanese young language learners aged from three to five. All at the same time! 

Butterflies in my stomach. 

Guess what? I loved it! 

Buddy and I felt super loved before, during, and after both of our presentations. We were welcomed with lots of warmth and excitement by every single person we met at school. Children shouted hellos, teachers served us tea, and our pictures were in the hall. Buddy and I were kindly introduced to the kids, children enjoyed the kamishibai stories, and everybody laughed a lot with our puppeteering. After the show children sang and danced a marvellous thank you song, I got the most amazing medal, and had some delicious cake. We truly felt as kindergarten pop stars!  

As I planned to come back to Japan, I hoped to be able to return to Hanazono to have a similar experience again. As you have probably guessed, fame is highly addictive. 

But would I have the same feelings? 

Could I run the risk of losing that great memory that I had experienced there? 

It was even better! 

Taking the classic photo before my second show at Hanazono Kindergarten in Gifu, Japan in 2014.

I felt much more confident as I knew the children, the school, and had been successful in the past. Many children  remembered Buddy and I guess me too. The difference was that this year I had the whole fifty minutes with Buddy instead of alternating telling kamishibai stories with some puppeteering sketches as I did last year. This represented a real challenge as I could run out of time or maybe lose the momentum with the kids. 

This year children were to teach Buddy how to sing the songs they know in English. I also chose three sketches that I knew children would love. These were Buddy farting and pooping in his potty, teasing him with a huge inflatable hammer, and having Buddy flying over the kids with a balloon. With these three powerful acts I was ready! 

Children greeted us joyfully, laughed loudly at our jokes, and participated giving lots of commands. Everything went well and Buddy and I have now double Hanazono memories!                                                                                                                                                                                                    I gained lots of practice and confidence in my puppeteering skills with large groups and I feel now very empowered to get even better at it. ( Puppeteering can also be highly addictive, beware!)                                                                                                                           

I plan to invest in my professional development as a puppeteer to be able to come up with a much more elaborate experience for children all over the world. Buddy is also very excited about all this! 

Last year we got a medal from the children and this year it was the same. 

Can you notice any difference? 

Here you can watch a clip that I have prepared for you with some of the best moments of these two performances. Enjoy it!

I would like to thank Mark Kulek who has made these magic moments possible not once, but twice. Mark is the founder and director of Gifu Kids which is a lovely school for kids in Gifu as the name says it all. Mark has also had the privilege of teaching these lovely children at both Hanazono Kindergartens for the last eight years. 

Mark is now a friend who I admire both personally and professionally. 

What are your best memories with young language learners? 

Have you ever had similar challenges to mine that you simply loved? 

Send you a big puppet hug,

Uribe Sensei

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50 affective ways to use cuisenaire rods with children

"Never go to a class without rods."

Saying at Juan Uribe Ensino Afetivo

Emile-Georges Cuisenaire was a Belgian primary teacher, who invented the small wooden blocks that come in different sizes and colours, which are known today as cuisenaire rods. Emile-Georges called them réglettes and used them to help students learn Math in a  concrete way. Egyptian educator Caleb Gattegno named them cuisenaire rods and expanded their use to language learning through his famous Silent Way method.     

Cuisenaire rods are great resources for warm ups, storytelling, grammar, classroom management, and many more! They allow students and teachers to bring their originality and creativity making language very alive and concrete.  Students usually smile as soon as they see them coming out! 

Here below I share 50 different uses for cuisenaire rods with young learners and learners young at heart: 

Classroom management

1. Matching students or preparing a jigsaw: distribute rods and students that have the same color get together. You can them have new groups with one students of every color and these students share what they talked in the first group. 

2. Talking chips: you can also have a colour code in which each question on the board is assigned a color. Example: brown = how are you? , white = where do you live?, blue = what's your favorite sport?. We can also have students come up with the questions they will ask their classmates, as it's better that they do not know the answers to create authentic interest.  Once they ask the question they have to give their peer the rod they have just asked. Rotate students every 3 minutes to make sure they do not ask all their rods to the same person. 

3. Assigning characters: you can assign different characters of a story to different colours. Then each characters will give his ir her version of the story. You can also play scenarios in which characters talk to each other in pairs or small groups. 

Numbers, colours, and letters

4. Playing with numbers: students can either collect rods or make the actual numbers according to the numbers you dictate. You can even put simple math problems  or questions on the board for them to solve and write you the answer with the rods. Example: How many players are there in a soccer team? How many times did Brazil win the world cup? 

5. Creating a secret number code with rods: Using the scale you can pair one to the white rod and ten to the brown rod. Students can then answer questions using the rods as a "secret code". They can write their telephone numbers using this code. 

6. Playing with colours: students get rods according to questions or commands that they go giving each other. Example: What colors are there in the American flag? What colors are there in a kiwi? Make an apple! Make a lollipop! 

7. Guessing colours: students put their hands inside a bag and try to guess the colours of the rods according to their sizes. You can have the rods out for students who are younger and play just with four sizes with the very young learners. 

8. Playing domino with colors: here we play domino in a creative way. For you to add a piece you have to say something that has both colors. For example, black and yellow, you can say a banana, green and red a watermelon. Some combinations are harder: what is black and blue? 

9. Remembering things that start with a letter: students can work together to make with the rods things that start with a certain letter. You can time them during three minutes and then go over all their creations by having them write the words on the board. 

10. Spelling words: here you go spelling the letters of a word in the correct order and students go making the word with the rods. Their objective is to try to finish the word with the rods before you say the last letter. Example: S C H O - School! 

11. Solving the word challenge: you spell the letters of a word in a different order and once students have done all the letters they have to come out with the word. Example: R B D I - Bird! 

Imagination 

12. Kicking soccer penalties: now that the world cup is coming, you can make a goal and have a long rod as the goalkeeper and the student uses the white rod as a ball and one long rod as the kicker. You can also play bowling with rods. 

13. Remembering items in a list: here you can have the traditional chain "I went to the beach and I took a ....." and then the number of items goes growing and students have to remember all of them. Match the colours and length of the rods to the objects. 

14. Playing with pictures: here rods can be used to play with magazine pictures by creating new items that change the pictures. We can have a bowl of water for a dog, put somebody behind bars, make it rain on somebody, or give caps to children. This is great fun! 

15. Showing the refrigerator: students draw refrigerators using an A4 sheet and they use the rods to put what they have inside theirs. Then they can ask others if they have things. Great for practicing some and any with countable and uncountable. 

16. Exchanging treasures: ask them to get three rods to symbolize three precious things they like. You can model by giving examples such as the sun, cold lemonade, a videogame, my bicycle, etc. Then they go around showing what they have and can ask others to exchange things. In the end they report what they have. 

17. Playing domino with things: one rod is set on the table with a meaning, let's say dog for example. You have to use another rod to match a word to dog. House, bone, cat, collar, are some possibilities. Then the next person has to match a word that matches the second one and so on. Remember you have both sides of dog to play! 

18. Creating a city: here students create a perfect city with everything they would like to have. You can go giving them the language they need as long the need arises. You can make questions to guide them into making certain parts by asking questions such as "Where are children going to learn? " if there isn't a school. 

Storytelling

                                                                                                       

The sea, the beach, and trees

20. Recreating a scenario: similar to storytelling you can tell students to reenact scenes or the whole plots such as Alladin, Titanic, Mario Bros, or anything they really enjoyed watching. This is a great opportunity to have them rewrite the story. Here they can also be given a text or a piece of listening to recreate what they have understood. 

21. Creating an animation: nowadays with a telephone it is easy to make an animation by taking lots of pictures and putting these into programs such as flipagram. These animations are great to be shared with other groups and also with their parents. These animation can have characters or can show how to make something. 

Stress, poems, songs, and rhymes

22. Separating words in syllables:  a great exercise in pronunciation is dividing the words in syllables. First you model and show students how words can be divided in syllables and how the rods can be used to represent these. Then students can be given the words in cards and they make the rod combination or the rod combination is given and they have to find the written card with the word. 

23. Showing word stress: rods can be used to show which syllable is stronger in the word. You can have the rods standing and the stronger syllable is taller than the other ones. 

24. Showing sentence stress: similar to the last activity but here we have horizontal rods representing the words. Short rods can be used for pronouns and auxiliaries and longer ones for longer words. The stress can be marked by having two rods of the same color one on top of the other. Play with different meanings with different stress. A good sentence is "I didn't say you ate the cake that was in the refrigerator". 

Incy, wincy spider ...

25. Helping with a rhyme: you can tell a quick story with the characters in the song to help students identify them. Then while singing the song you can move the characters. Can you imagine "Five little monkeys"? What about "Incy wincy spider"?

26. Memorizing a poem: you can present some 5 or 6 key words that are in a poem by assigning each one of them to a rod and playing with them.  Students can them write a short poem with those words. Then you can work the poem's first line by inserting other rods for the other words and students repeat it. Then you do the second line and students repeat the first and then second line as you go pointing to the rods. Go like this until the end of the poem. 

27. Putting words in order while listening: similar to the poem activity, you can match words to rods. Students can create songs with those words. Then you play a song and students put the rods in the order the words appear in the song. Try "What a wonderful world" and have red for roses, blue for the sky, orange for children, and so on. 

Feelings: 

28. Describing feelings: students get a rod or some rods to say how they feel on that day. Students can also make analogies such as "I have a lot of energy from the sun"  when getting the yellow rod or "I am thirsty" when getting the blue rod. 

29. Ranking: students can put a specific topic according to how they like each item. They can put colors in order or days of the week (sunday would be the white one). 

30. Feeling words in a text: students are given a rod of each color and on an A4 sheet with a text they place the rods on top of words that follow a code you can create with them. Example: Red = new word, Blue = word I like , Black = hard word to write, Yellow = easy to remember, and so on. Students then compare their words. 

Vocabulary

31. Reviewing topics: somebody names a topic and each person creates an item with the rods. Items can be created by simply matching the colors to the word or by using many rods to make it the actual item. Students can then either say what they built or guess what others have made. The teacher can also give cards an each student makes what he/she has received. This is good for clothes, fruits, weather, sports, animals, etc. 

32. Naming parts: you can use rods to explain all the different parts involved in a topic. Later young learners have to build one making sure they include all the details. You can use rods for parts of the body, of a car, of a house, etc. 

33. Describing your bedroom/ house: you can model by describing your own house with all the rooms and pieces of furniture. Then you can show your routine by having a rod as you moving in the house. Then they can build their houses and show their routines in pairs or small groups. This is certainly a favorite of mine! 

34. Naming family members: making the family tree helps students understand the relationship among the different family members. You can go building the family tree gradually in many classes, adding three or four members per class. Have them build their own family trees and ask questions about the people in their families. Remember to include the pets! 

What is sticky doing here? 

35. Making stick figures: here we can make questions and students answer by making stick figures. Another possibility is for students to make the stick figures and others have to guess. Example: What do you love to do during weekends? What are you doing after class?

36. Creating needed props: give students a situation and ask them what they need. For instance, we can tell them they are serving dinner for their friends. What do they need? They will need a table, chairs, plates, glasses, food, etc. You can work here with substitution drills such as: I need  3 black rods  to make a table. 

37. Showing a scale: rods can be used to show a scale of something progressing or growing. It can be done easily with days of the week, months, and frequency adverbs. Another possibility is animal in size. We would have animals growing from ant to elephant. One can be even more creative by asking about the progression of a person moving. White = walking, red = riding a bike, green = riding a horse, black = taking a bus, blue = taking a spaceship. 

38. Telling the time: we can have students working on both digital and armed clocks to show different times. I also like to ask students about their favorite time of the day, what time they do certain things, and each students answers by showing their clocks. 

39. Presenting prepositions: you can model putting rods in different places in the room by using different prepositions. Then they can give each other commands where to put rods. 

Scaffolding for speaking

40. Talking about a routine/procedure: you can start by modelling 5 actions, one to every rod, you do every morning and showing their relation by using time markers such as first, then, right after, before, and finally. Once students know the meaning of every rod really well, you can shuffle them and laugh together at the crazy stories with situations as brushing your teeth before you get up! 

Where do you sit? 

41. Talking about your classmates:  I ask students to make the seating arrangement in their classroom at school and show me where they sit. Then I ask them to tell me everything they know about different classmates. This activity is great to practice does questions and to use third person S. 

42. Giving directions: after students make the perfect city you can have students give directions going from one place to another. Or you can give them directions and they have to move their character rod to get there. 

43. Creating mini dialogues: you can give students three or four sentences and they have to put these in order and make a dialogue. For example: not today, fine, bye, and sorry. They can use other rods for the other sentences. 

44. Modelling a small speech: you can model a small speech using one word per rod and students use the same structure to deliver their mini speech. This is great for those small particles that students usually forget. Make it maximum 4 lines. 

45. Stick puzzles: you can use rods to make the traditional logical puzzles in which you have to move some to get to an objective. You can find many of these at matchstick puzzles.

Grammar

46. Making a sentence: the teacher gives two or three words assigning each one of them to a rod and students have to put these in the right order and supply the missing pieces in order to make a sentence. Example: car have red. Students put the three pieces in order and supplies two more to form "I have a red car". 

47. Manipulating  auxiliaries for negatives and questions: you can use the rods to make affirmative sentences that are changed to become negatives and questions. Then you can give every two or three students a set of rods and they create the negative and question for the affirmatives you give them. Inserting auxiliaries and inverting these becomes very concrete with the rods.  

48. Making contractions: you can use the rods to make simple sentences without contractions and then you show how particles get contracted by putting the rods together. You can then dictate sentences and students manipulate these to get the contractions. 

49. Comparing their constructions: students can be back to back and they build something by following directions given by the teacher. When they are done they compare their constructions according to adjectives they come up with. Students can then give each other one instructions at a time. Example: S1: make a table S2: put a candle on top of it S3: there is a cat under the table and so on. 

50. Quantifying and describing: We can get a bunch of rods from a bag and describe what we have using many of them, most of them, none of them, and so on. 

Wow! So many ideas!

Wish you great moments with your students living language with cuisenaire rods! 

What about you? 

Do you use rods with your young learners? 

Do you use them in any different way in your classes? 

Send you a big hug, 

Juan

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Thank you? 

Check also 50 affective ways to use flashcards with young learners!