Hi,
I am doing a paper on Whole Brain Teaching after having had a training in the district I sub in. It was so much fun, and so successful with students, I just want to inform all the people I know about it. I am taking a "Children Around the World" course, and I am supposed to talk about how Whole Brain Teaching is good for different children from different cultures, socio economic statuses, etc.

I was wondering if anyone reading this, who does this in their country, could tell me if, when you decided to use Whole Brain Teaching, what specifically made you choose it over other approaches, like Reggio Emilio for example.

Also, what is the socio economic status of the area you are in? Languages? Traditions in teaching subject matter and morals, etc?

Is there anything culturally specific that makes Whole Brain Teaching more feasible?

How is it working for you if you are using it? What are the positives and negatives, especially in a cultural context?

Any information you can give me would be appreciated. My professor was so vague, I'm not really sure what other questions to ask, so hopefully I can compile enough for my paper. Also, if Chris reads this, if you have any information about using Whole Brain Teaching in different countries, I would SO appreciate hearing it. Thank you!

Dear rayleneakins,

Well, this probably way too late for your paper, but I thought you might like to know anyways.
I teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a small town in the Amazon Region of Brazil. Our town is the farthest west you can go and still be in Brazil. The school system is quite different here than in the U.S. and even middle school and high school the class schedule is more what we are used in college in the U.S. - that is, they don't have the same classes five days a week. EFL is an "80 hour" subject, which means the students have 2 hours of English each week. I teach 10 different classes each week with a total of 367 students. Also here it is not the students who move from class to class, but the teachers.

As for what made me choose WBT over other methods - well, I actually stumbled on it in my search for EFL resources. English is not my area (I majored in Math) and there are so few resources availabel here that I am constantly searching the Internet for methods and resources to help me. I was never a very confident teacher and was fascinated when I came across WBT. I started to use some of the concepts and techniques last year, but really dived in this year. Consistancy and implementation of the techniques has been a real challenge, but the results so far have been much better than when I wasn't using it.

You asked about the socio economic status of our area. Most of my students come from an agrarian culture, and are low economic status. Most of the students in our school rank average and below average on the nationa standardized tests. They have few academic opportunites and the dropout rate is quite high. As I indicated above, their native language is not English - it is Portuguese. Except for a few students who are fascinated with languages, there is no real interest for learning English amoung my students because they think they will never have an opportunity to use it. Most of the students have never used a computer, much less accessed the internet - although that is changing. Lecture, have the students copy form the board, and do exercises is the most common form of teaching, although there are some more creative and adventurous teacher who do other types of activities. Discipline is a problem in all of the schools in this area.
My students are very active and VERY talkative, and Brazilians, in general, are very creative people, thus WBT goes right along with their need to be active and talkative. It also uses these traits to help keep them engaged. The biggest problem I have is my lack of expereince and training in this method. The rules are a real challenge since the students are not used to having "classroom rules". I have tried to make them as appealing as possible by relating them to soccer - the Brazilian passtime. I recently inicated leaders in some of my classes with moderate success. As I mentioned before the problem is my lack of consistency.
Well, I hope this helps, or at least I hope you find it interesting.

May our good Lord bless you!
Sister M. Josefa