Hi, Mr. Biffle, I am an English teacher from Taiwan, my students range from kindergarteners to high schoolers (the English learning market here is huge). I have been a teacher for almost 11 years now and I really thought I was the best at what I do (that's what everyone keeps telling me anyway). One night a year ago, I was watching some video clips of teaching that people posted on YouTube, I laughed my butt off thinking just how they could be rated 4.5 to 5 stars with little student engagement and a large amount of talking on the teachers' part. Then I found one of your teaching demos and I froze to my very seat. I dug out all of your videos and spent the whole night watching them over and over again. I even somehow found the WBT website and spent another two evenings reading all of the articles on it. I was stunned at all the techniques, methods, approaches, games conducted and most but not least of all, your confidence in teaching. I felt like the luckiest man on the planet earth to have found WBT, it really felt like winning the biggest jackpot in the history of lottery. I felt so small and thought I knew nothing about teaching after 11 years of doing it (shame on me). Within the past 8 months, I ditched all the teaching strategies I used to know and implemented nothing but WBT in all of my classes and I have successfully trained up my kids to be power students. I did a teaching demo in front of all the teachers in the school with one of my kindergarten classes using WBT last Friday and when I finished, the round of applause went a minute long. Right after it, I was called into the owner's office and was offered a shareholder's contract (how unbelievable is that coming from the stingiest person I ever know?), only if I would agree to train the teachers in all the branch schools in the company to teach. I kindly refused, told her about WBT, you and quoted “it’s a movement, not a business.” I want to get the words out and share WBT with anyone that care about teaching. Just wanted you to know that I am your biggest fan and I truly appreciate the work you do along with other power teachers who helped found WBT. Your spirits are highly admirable.

Andy: thanks enormously for your note! We'd love to get updates about your experiences using WBT with your students. And stay tuned! In the next month or so, we will be going live with web seminars that will explain our methods to teachers who are too far away to travel to our conferences. I think that might include Taiwan!

Hi Mr. Biffle:
This is Andy from Taiwan, I have a video clip of the teaching demo I did last Friday, I wonder if I can send it to you to have a look, nothing you haven't seen before as I used WBT techniques, just hoping to get some advice from you, my question is where to post it on or where to send it to?

Andy

just posted the video clips of my WBT on YouTube, here is the link www.youtube.com/user/99andychen?feature=mhw4

cheers Mr. Biffle

Dear Mr. Biffle:
I started my day by yelling out to my wife "Chris Biffle thinks my demo was great." I couldn't help but feeling over-excited the whole day, what a compliment coming from the WBT man himself. Thank you for what you said and all of your suggestions. I did try to teach the 5 new rules to my kids but they couldn't get it in time for the demo so I told them to stick to the old ones. I will try to fix everything else, though if I were gonna film my class again within a week.

I have a lot of respect for you, Mr. Biffle. Like I said, the English learning market is huge here in Taiwan but schools and parents demand white teachers and there is very little room for someone like me. I have to stay on top of the game at all times to survive in this field. Take my school for instance, all the English teachers are white and their jobs are fairly secure whether they have what it takes or not. I am the only Asian looking English teacher in the bunch and there isn't a day I am not worried about losing my job (Honestly). With the skills that I learned from you, I have not only the ability to survive but shine in this business. There are really no words I know that could precisely describe my gratitude towards you and you are right for saying that I owe you big time.

Both my wife and I think you look a lot like the Founder of our country, General Chiang Kai-shek

Andy chen

Dear Professor:

Thanks for the link to the new materials on the WBT website. What do I do without you....

Just found out in the meeting today that the schools has lined up 6 more demos for me in the next month... They want my skills to be seen and I take it as a form of compliment ,but honestly speaking, I don't like it, I feel uncomfortable doing teaching demos in front of other teachers and WBT isn't natural for me yet. I practice a lot at home in my own home classroom and in front of every mirror in the house so it looks like I know what I am doing but I am actually scared to death when there are people watching. I stuttered heaps of times in the WBT demo I showed you (noticed?)

Anyways, my question is, how do you guys do it, how do you cope with the demands out there for WBT, giving out conferences after conferences, I truely think you have invented a system so addictive and horrifying (in a good way) that people just can't get enough when they find it out.

Kid you not, before the demo came for me last week, I had nightmares about "class-yes" where my kids just wouldn't "yessity yes" me, they kept laughing and getting all distracted on me.

By the way, the sight words work extremely well for my elementary school students, I feel that they have tripled their vocabulary after knowing just the Super Speed 100, It's that amazing...



Thanks Mr.Biffle



Andy Chen

Dear Mr. Biffle:

Here is link to the new teaching videos I promised you, watch closely as your name pops up at the end of the "super speed sight words" , one of the parents filmed the video for me, I specifically asked him not to zoom in or out, but he did it anyway... tellmewhat you think, the kids crawled all over the place again when I asked them to "really beg me" oops.... thanks

www.youtube.com/user/99andychen?feature=mhw5

Andy,
This is great. I love the videos and your enthusiasm with Whole Brain Teaching. Keep up the great work and the videos. We would love to see more of them.

Andy,
Thank you from me too! I have been a teacher for 23 yrs and have been using PT the past 3 here in Thailand. All of the sudden I too am getting tons of request to teach other teachers. Mr. B, I am wondering if maybe we could set up a WBT conference in SE Asia. School begins her this week and Thailand has started a whole new WBT "project within the Thai schools. teaching out of the box is really new and difficult for Thai teachers, but most of them are eager to learn. (They fired anyone who wasn't!)
Andy I have showed your videos to a few administrators and they are stoked! Thanks so much for posting them and helping me to show how effective WBT is for ESL!I know it

BTW you did great! don't worry about being nervous. Just be yourself, let your own 'flair" come through! I know it's weird teaching in front of parents and other teachers, I did a lot of that in China. I have had some teachers think I was a total wacko! Just focus on the kids and have fun! Most of all HAVE FUN!
Your doing great, keep up the good work Power teacher!
Mighty OH Yeah!
Ms Lise

Andy,
I just found your videos today and watched a few. Nice job!
I am a teacher in Taipei and have just started using some WBT techniques.
Adam