I am a Religious Sister who is currently teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in Mâncio Lima, Acre, Brazil. I am a fan of the GenkiEnglish program and through their discussion forum became aware of your site and the Power Teaching system. I am quite impressed and am trying to implement some of WBTs suggestions and activities.
I began implementing the Scoreboard Game and using the Class-Yes! (in Portuguese) at the beginning of this new grading period (which began at the end of April). The first few days have been wonderful! Some classes are still quite challenging, but at least I have a classroom management system that I can work with now and some great ideas to increase student involvement.
I have adapted some of the activities in the Power Student Olympics for an EFL class and will be trying to start “training” my students soon.
Our situation is quite different from that of the U.S. so if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it. As I mentioned I am an EFL teacher. In short – I teach 4 different grade levels (6th - 9th grade), in 2 schools – 7 classes in one school and 3 classes in another school. I have two hours a week in each classroom. In some classes the periods are back to back, in others they are on two different days of the week. Here it is not the students who go from classroom to classroom, but the teachers.
When I told one of my Pedagogical Coordinators that I wanted to start Power Student Olympics in my classes she got quite excited and wanted me share the idea with the other English teachers in that school. So… I am making a rough translation of the Power Student Olympics instructions. Even with internet translators it is a tedious process.
The kids here love soccer so I got excited when I saw the Mind Soccer game on your website. That will be a little bit harder to do with my students, but I think during the 2nd semester I will be able to do it with them also.
Thank you in advance for your all your help. I have always been weak in classroom discipline but I think with your system things will get better.

May our good Lord bless you abundantly!
Sister M. Josefa

Sister ... no! You can't really be sending us an email from the Amazon?! I remember being fascinated by the Amazon, "mightiest of all rivers," in the 4th grade. Have you ever seen an anaconda or a tapir? Also, please send us a short description of what you can see from the steps of your school ... and a photo of your kids would be great!

As to the Whole Brain Olympics, I strongly recommend it ... nothing motivates kids more than setting and breaking personal or team records. We've also had considerable success with Mind Soccer ... do keep us updated!

I live in the Amazon Region, not on the Amazon River. Mâncio Lima is the farthest west you can go and still be in Brazil.
I am attaching a photo of some of last years students doing group work. I haven't taken any photos of this years students yet.
I have a question: how do you keep track of personal and team records. From what I know of my students study habits I can't yet trust them to keep their own records. Any suggestions?

If you have problems trusting kids to be their own record keepers, then select a small handful of your most trustworthy kids and have them record scores for everyone else. Or, when you suspect cheating, ask the student to duplicate the record for you privately that they claim they've set ... if they can't, then erase their score. But think about this ... if you have an academic game that kids care so much about, that they cheat to win ... then you've got a wonderful game!!!

Well, I see that my picture did not upload. So here is a link, just in case you'd like a glimpse of our town:

I would love to see your town, but I do not see the link. Would you be able to repost?