Where does one get good grammar-joint oil? It's been a while since I did grammar with a class- mainly because we're approaching exam time, and if they don't know it by now, they never will, thus we do revision but not learning the new stuff.

As a result, I was somewhat rusty on that bit when I had to teach it in an observed class today. Fortunately the rest of the class was fine, so the observation still went OK.

I seem to be a bit better about observations now. Maybe that's because we've got the Communication Seminar coming up in a couple of weeks, and not only are we being filmed, but our supervisors have been invited to come and watch.

I'm SURE they can't have done this last year- a friend of mine did this course last year and she would have said something.

It's quite comforting to realise that although I've added a lot more to my teaching from the course- the things I consider when planning a lesson are more detailed, for example- my CELTA training is still very relevant.

For example, we have been thinking about communication, and how we make sure the student understands what we meant them to. One of the main techniques I was taught in CELTA was how to ask Concept Check Questions and Instruction Check Questions- how to make sure the students understand what you are talking about, and what they have to do. I think perhaps that some aspects of teacher training are a bit easier for me because of the subject that I teach- communication is a key part of everything we do. We have to think about everything we say, have to choose resources very carefully, have to think about how and when we use ICT etc, all because we have to make sure that our students, whose first language is not English, will be able to use what we give them.