Anybody here? I'm in Xuzhou but our program has schools throughout Jiangsu Province. I've only been using the technique for a few weeks but it has worked wonders for me!!

I teach in Taiwan and WBT has worked wonders for me as well.

How long have you used it? Have you had any problems with the "freshness" wearing off?

I've only been using it for a little more than a month now. I have thought about the problem of the freshness wearing off. Now, most of my students get really excited about cheers and groans. I was thinking about keeping the number of cheers and groans down so the freshness wouldn't wear off so fast.
My real problem is with teach-OK. Students here aren't used to doing pairwork. They do almost none in school. I don't know what other WBT people think, but I decided to start off with pairing a strong student with a weak student (as it says in the manual), but then I keep changing pairs. I would like everyone to have a chance working with everyone. That's what school should be about-working with different students. And, sometimes I am surprised that the pairs that I think will work well together, don't. And the pairs that I don't think will work well together sometimes surprise me.

RE: Pairwork
I have two very different classes. I let my S2s sit however they want. They're at that rebellious age so, if I wanted to assign Serena and Vivian to work together, I'd have to tell them, [Putting on Stern Face] "Now whatever you do Serena, DO NOT sit with Vivian!"
For my S1s, I put my two strongest students together so they have someone to compete with AND so that, a weaker student can't "slide" by letting them do all the work.

The others I do by a combination of ability and personality. I put my lowest level boy with the cutest, mid-high level girl. I know another boy has a crush on Roxy, so, of course, I put them together. In Xuzhou, it's customary for a married couple to give a fish to the person that introduced them. I plan on getting lots of fish!! Not really...

And like you, I always switch them around. I've added two things that have helped, well I've changed several things, actually. I've replaced "Raise hands before leaving seat" and "Make smart choices" with "Speak English" and "Take Notes". Those two weren't problems for me, I didn't get "BAD" behavior, just NO behavior!

I also added: Class-Talk. It's just like Teach-OK, except that during Teach-OK, I'm trying to teach a concept that is not usually language related so I let them use Chinese if they either don't know how to say it in English or their classmate doesn't understand. CLT anathema, I know! But in Class-Talk, they MUST use English.

To encourage (read "make") the students listen to each other (How many times have you answered the same question 3 times in the space of five minutes?), whenever a student has a question, I do a Class-Yes and say "Malisha has a question." The class then does like a "Hands and Eyes" but their focus is on Malisha. Class goes, "Yes, Malisha?" I then do a mini-lecture to answer the question followed by a quick Class-Teach, then resume the task at hand.

How old are your kids? What are you doing differently? What's your motivator? Which scoreboard are you using?

I know what you mean about Serena and Vivian. I also know what you mean about no behavior.
The truth of the matter is that I have been more successful in getting some of my older more rebellious students to do writing assignments that don't require partner work. I just feel that their egos are so fragile and they are so afraid of looking stupid. Even just talking with a partner can make them look uncool. I remember how afraid I was of not being accepted by my peers at that age.

I usually spend some time at the beginning of the class using teach-OK and just having the students give each other pep talks. "Tell your partner that we are going to learn about animals today." "Now tell your partner how much you love animals and how cute you think they are."　"Tell your partner you wish we could go to the zoo instead of coming to English class with bad Teacher Adam."
The more outlandish I make it sound the less the students worry about being uncool.

Partnering students up can be a real problem. Like I said I want to switch them around, but sometimes it's like pulling teeth. I have more experience teaching the younger grades. I usually just hand out little cards with matching letters and tell them to go find their partners as fast as they can.

For the younger kids, my scoreboard is a smiley and a frowny. For the older kids, I make it 'Good Teacher Adam' vs. 'The Dents (short for students).' So, if they are bad, I give 'Good Teacher Adam' a point. And they hate him like Harry Potter hated Professor Snape.

For writing, I do the pre-writing exercises as partners but their writing is done solo, just like the exam.
As I start to analyze why this works, I think a big part of it is that I allow the higher level students to explain instructions in Chinese so they understand the task. Since I've been doing this, my students are on task at least 90% of the time, maybe more.
I'm trying something new today. I'm having them take their last writing exercise and do a multiple choice grammar quiz using their sentences. They don't seem to be able to see their mistakes when writing but when faced with the same grammar point on a multiple choice exam they'll almost always get it right.
OH! and vocabulary football was a big smash with S1s, trying that out on S2s today.

Football is always good with almost any class. So fast moving.
Many of my students don't have good writing habits. They don't re-read or edit.

In several of your posts you mention S1s and S2s. Is that an age/grade group or a English proficiency identifier?

Thanks for the ideas on "speak English" and "take notes". I think they will be very helpful with our middle and high school students.

In China we have Junior and Senior Middle School. Jr. Middle School is like the old Junior High, or Middle School. Senior Middle School is like High School. Senior 1 & 2 are Grade 10 and 11 - High School Sophomores and Juniors in the U.S.

Yep, football worked great for my S2s, too. - Grade 11. The girls won and the boys had to stand and shout, "Girls Rule, Boys Drool!" Showed 'em a picture of Homer Simpson drooling to explain that one.

In Taiwan we get a red envelope with lucky money (real money actually) in it if we are a couple's 'red bird' (person who made the introduction). I like that much better than gettting a fish.
I tried your idea about letting them explain some concepts in Chinese. I learned Chinese quite well and I used English translation quite a bit, so having a little Chinese might be helpful. Also, my students are usually grouped together by age group rather than level and I have students with quite different abilities in one class. So, I tried some activities in which the higher level students explained my instructions to the lower level students in Chinese.
Today I am planning to try an 'Activate' activity and have the lower level students translate what the higher level students said into Chinese and have the higher level students check their understanding. With so many different levels, it's hard to plan a class. Maybe this way I can encourage the lower level students not to zone out during 'Activate' activities.

What's an "activate activity?"

I was referring to Jeremy Harmer's Engage, Study and Activate theory about teaching English. You could try to google Jeremy Harmer to learn more.

Jim,
I know you had asked me about what rewards I am using. For most of my classes I use basic ones-a little more/less homework (the homework is assigned by the school, not by me, and it can be very excessive. That is good for me however, because it just makes it a real reward to give them a little less homework) or breaktime. Maybe they can play a game if they are good. Battleship is a favorite.
Now, I have one class that is really challenging. They are junior high kids and many of them have had every drop of motivation educated out. I really think that they have had too much school and after school academics, but I have to teach them. I tried to threaten them with more homework, but it didn't really work. A lot of them just didn't do it or got a low grade and laughed about it with their friends. Our grades really don't mean anything because I work in a after school program. So last time I taught this class I used listen to kindergarten English songs for 3 minutes-5 minutes if they don't sing along as a punishment and speak with Adam in Chinese (they were encouraged to laugh at my poor Chinese) for 5 minutes as a reward. They are all interested in the foreign teacher's life and travels as many of them know nothing outside of school and computer games.
I also tried using 'I will tell you about Jack and Adam's love story' if you get enough smileys. Jack is my co-teacher. We aren't in love, but we both married Taiwanese ladies and we met them the same day!
At first I thought I wouldn't need Industrial Strengh WBT. Some of my students have very low motivation, but they aren't really tough types. However, I have noticed that in this one class, the students really are competing to get prestige by ignoring or being rude to the teacher. So I started looking through Industrial Strengh WBT. I have been thinking about how to make it effective but simplify it to suit their low English abilities.

If you're a pretty good actor, actually just passable, really actually I'm a pretty bad actor and it works for me, whenever you get a bad reaction from a rebellious student, THANK THEM! it really pisses them off! They get really confused when they realize that by scoring points for the teacher they're the teacher's pet which is what they DO NOT WANT TO BE! Using peer pressure may be manipulative, but all behavior modification techniques are really. Combining that with removing the silent support of the class has tamed my most rebellious student and he's now one of the hardest working kids in the class. I think that, even though I've only been using this a relatively short amount of time, the rewards are becoming intrinsic as they realize that they are learning more. I still have one tough nut to crack but his behavior has changed from negative to neutral and I can see him enjoying class occasionally despite himself. Of course, I can't let him notice me noticing him!

The key is to find something that motivates them for the scoreboard. They REALLY love Friday afternoon movies and, so far, neither my program nor the school has complained. I pick the movies and they really are learning experiences and these poor kids are so overworked I think 8 classes of top-notch performance deserves two classes of educational entertainment.

I also have some after-school classes and they are an entirely different ball of wax, since I can "fire" a student if I want so all those kids are fairly well motivated or they're gone. I teach in a computer lab so I sometimes give them a few minutes of Frontierville (in English, it's a learning experience, too!) for their reward.

Oh, BTW, I Googled Harmer and I found his web site but couldn't find the theory, do you have a URL you can send me?

I can't give them anything as big as Friday movies. I only teach each class for 4 hours a week and a movie would take up about half of that time. And, we don't have a video player anyway.
You could try this site for more information on Harmer and ESA.
www.pearsonlongman.com/teaching-tips/engage-study-motivate.html

BTW Have you ever heard of TPRS? I have discussed the theory with a friend, but very briefly. It seems to have some relation to WBT.

Just an update: This stuff continues to work!!! My "problem" class is now a model class. Even Dwyane was 100% engaged and on task yesterday. They're totally focused on their tasks, the energy level is high, they're laughing, having fun AND speaking English! I had 10 students ask questions yesterday, which may be the grand total from the first 4 years of teaching here! Yesterday almost brought tears to my eyes!

We just received 7 exchange students from Australia, it'll be interesting to see how that dynamic affects the class and whether or not the Australian students will respond in a similar fashion. My class is not a typical ESL class because we're teaching skills required for foreign universities so I think the Aussies will get something out of the class. Can't wait to see what happens. Perhaps the most important aspect of this change is that I can't wait to get to class!