Hi everybody,

I hit upon WBT a few days ago and I think it is the most exciting teaching method I ever encountered. Is there any experience with WBT outside the USA? I'd love to attend an upskilling workshop, but I'm afraid I can't afford to just hop over to America and take part in a seminar. If you know anything about seminars in Europe (especially Germany)please let me know.

Nevertheless, I think I'll try WBT in my classes. Your videos and manuals are plain English, easy to understand, and if there are any difficulties due to the students' different mentality or cultural background I'll keep you updated.

I might also translate some of your materials into German and send them back to you so you can make them available for German speaking teachers (if you don't object).

Warm regards
Michael Mueller

Good Luck!!!

mistermolinero
We love hearing from folks outside the US. Keep reading and learining...you never know what may happen. Feel free to contact me if you need any help with anything. I think you can get my information off the Board members page. Please...let me know how I can help.
Chris Rekstad:cheer:

Welcome and good luck, Michael! You shouldn't feel like you need to go to the seminar to do it. Like you said, you should go ahead and try it. The seminar I went to was fantastic, but it was only a half day and I got a lot from the online materials too. I know some other teachers who have jumped in with just the online materials and had great success. Make sure you keep in contact with us on the board though so you can get feedback!

Thank you all for encouriging me. It feels good (and really helps)!

Hi there! Im from Borneo.

WBT has open a new level of teaching for me. Im teaching English and Social Studies for Year 4 in my school. Just started these methods last Thursday, it seems to go well so far. But im having a lil' bit difficulty among my weaker students. Malay is our national language while English goes second. So i guess the barrier here is language.

Im teaching two classes btw. One class consists of better ability students meanwhile the other is somehow i might say 14 out of 18 pupils r really weak in knowing letters and reading. These r year 4 pupils im dealing here. I dont knw where r the mistakes from their previous teachers anyway tht they still dont knw how to recognise letters.

I have pupils who r from broken families, poor living state and those who r very much weak to stay focus on what they suppose to learn; even poor handwritings!!

For your info, my country have started a new education system called SPN21. It focus more on pupils-centred teaching & assessments are to be school based (before this every test and exams were standardized according to districts). So this is still new to every teachers in the country.

So overall, my class management is okay. Its just when it comes to pupils' learning that worries me a lot.

Any tips tht u guys cud share or meby raise opinions here?

Hi lordtech,
Your situation really seems difficult. However, I think that Whole Brain Teaching is particularly helpful for those teaching English as a foreign language. You've got a limited set of rules and prompts that need to be taught once and then come up again and again, and the students will understand them in no time, so you can do a big part of your teaching in the foreign language, the students understand you and get their ears tuned on English (the foreign language).
Anyhow, the fact that they can't read or write the letters is a big problem. You'll need to make up for your predecessor's shortcomings. You'll probably have to start from scratch.

thts true my fren. Im not having this difficulties myself, even my othre collegues experience the same thing when teaching my class cuz im their class teacher as well. Hence, when comparing the school's academic result, mine is at the bottom

Tomorrow i will have to introduce and teach these kids the SuperSpeed Reading as a start. It wont take long for them to remember alphabets (Capital & small letters) if im to do this everyday at the start of the lesson i guess. Hope there's a change in one or two weeks time before they cud be upgraded to SuperSpeed 100 activity.

Have you looked at the Kindergarten Power Pix? I know that you don't teach Kindergareten, but with basic laguage learners these might be helpful to download and try. They contain early education concepts (colors.. numbers.. simple activities), with gestures, pictures and I think an activity. It might be worth a look!

I have a couple ideas.

First, Teach-OK works best when you diversify your partnerships. If you haven't already, do the following. Number your kids 1-18 by their overall academic ability (never share this with them, this is just a tool for you). 1 gets paired with 10, 2 gets paired with 11, all they way down to 9 getting paired with 18. This way every partnership has a "leader" and a "follower" (you number these 1 and 2; they know their number but not what it means; make it seem arbitrary), but they are not so different in ability that they can't relate at all.

Secondly, as far as reading I agree with lordtech that SuperSpeed is the way to go. Start with Letters and Phonics for sounds, and then move to 100 for sight words. These will be great, as your year 4 kids are probably well aware that they are behind (even though they may seem like they don't care) and won't respond well to anything that feels like remediation. Instead of that you get to tell them they are learning a new game! Use it as a reward to increase the effect.

Finally, make SURE you are using gestures as much as possible. IMHO this is the part of Whole Brain Teaching that will be most effective for your kids that are learning English as a second language. Adding the gesture gives further context to academic vocabulary and will be a HUGE help. Also you might make some custom Malay-based gestures. A great gesture someone just posted on here for "isosceles triangle" is to point to your two eyes (calling to mind that the beginning sound of "isosceles" in English sounds like "eye" ) and then draw a triangle in the air. You could do the same kind of clever thing, but call to mind the sound of a related Malay word. Hope that made sense.

Good luck and stay in touch!

I had one other thought. This might help you with reading too. Although this is kindergarten and you'd have to change at least some of the technique, this video shows a phonics routine using gestures:

thnx for the great help dude. ive watched this video last nite and yes, it gives me some ideas how to help my kids in class.

Today ive introduced them the Super Speed Letters. I followed the activities from it and also make my own kind of game, say for example, how fast can they recognized the letters doing the reverse order, from z to a. They really beg for it when the game ended. lol~

So by next week, ill be doing Phonics.

I seldom use gestures in class before knowing it is really an important part of teaching! As for today, I can see a lil' rise of development in these kids learning to understand English.

In our education system, it is advisable that all teachers minimise the use of first language in teaching any English subjects. The only help we can get is to use multilingual dictionaries. And the school library only have them in small amount. As for now, these kids only share the books.

im having difficulties downloading the Kindergarten Power Pix. Every time it reached 15Mb, the download stops. U guys experience any of these?

Hello
I am currently using Whole Brain Teaching in Vietnam but I have a seasoned Whole Brain Teaching friend that is teaching in Germany if this is of any help to you. She is fantastic and very helpful and she is very open to visitors if this is a possibility for you. I fyou would like I can send along her contact info. and where exactly she is in Germany. Let me know what I can do to help.

Yes, Heather, that sounds great.
How come you are teaching in Vietnam? Is it American kids you're teaching there?
If you could send me the contact info and where in Germany she teaches, that would be great.
Thanks in advance. Michael

Hello Mister Molinero!
My friend Amanda teaches at an international school in Wiesbaden, Germany. She has been there for 2 years and she is a great Whole Brain Teacher. Her e-mail is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
I was teaching in California for some time and I just got the travel itch so I started in China at the beginning of the year and I ended up here in Vietnam. I am teaching at an international school in Ho Chi Minh City. The students are mostly Vietnamese so it is a LOT of ELL/ESL instruction. It is a great experience though! If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me!