...so here it begins....

....at the beginning. Well, no - in fact it's beginning around the middle, but all's well that end's well, so I'm assured.

I guess I should include some beginning type stuff - I am a lecturer in ESOL at a Further Education College on the outskirts of East London and I am taking a training course with a huge great long name that is crying out for an acronym - I can only imagine that the English Language Teaching, sorry ELT world seems to have run out of acronyms. In my case this course is a follow up to a CELTA (Certificate in Language Teaching to Adults) in order to help my transition from teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) to teaching ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) so that the DFES (Department For Education and Skills) will recognise me as a QTLS (no, still not sure on this one).

This is a result of last weeks session on the (ahem, wait for it) Certificate in Further Education Stage 3 with the Certificate for Subject Specialists qualification (try saying that when you're, er... tired) at Tower Hamlets College.

We had the importance of reflective development impressed upon us - and as well as being a requirement for our course it seems to be a very sensible procedure. So here goes....

I recently had an observation at short notice, well it was kind of a meta-observation - my boss was being observed observing me... It was a bit of a disaster to be frank, so I've been a bit concerned about the observation that I'm going to have this week on the course. I've been trying to plan my lessons with a lot more thoroughness - I usually get a bit (read, very) lazy so that's my target at the moment. That and making my lessons engage my students a bit more.

Another thing which happened recently was that I went on a training course in a Kensington Hotel (very, swish) on Differentiation last week. This was a real eye-opener when it comes to teaching multi-level (as ESOL classes often tend to be) classes. Basically differentiation is something which has to run right through my classes - which means that I just need to write down things that I would normally do... that and manage my group work much closer... Ok that's one to put on my list.

This weeks session at Tower Hamlets (slightly less posh) was looking at Assessments, Diagnostics and ICT/IT/e-learning/ILT (insert current buzzword here) and it was very useful. Particularly thought provoking was looking at Douglas-Brown's criteria for assessing assessments - and that basically the diagnostics used by most colleges (including ours, lovingly cribbed from Tower Hamlets College) are somewhat lacking, because - among other things:

• They feel like an exam, so Ss don't relax.
• They don't set any context so Ss can't get a hold easily on the content.
• They don't give realistic tasks that transparently test the four skills independently

We then looked at some currently being used at THC which seemed amazing - they basically run as mini lessons with small groups of learners, where learners are discreetly assessed by a teacher and then detailed diagnostic grids are recorded. It seems to be a much better way of doing things - much more pleasant for the students and probably more likely to give useable data.

Next week we'll be looking at ILP's (spits on floor with disgust). It seems that the Arbour Square team have almost completely eliminated them for ESOL. How they managed to do that and not get an OFSTED SWAT team abseiling through the windows is beyond me, so I'll be paying very close attention to that one next week.

Then in the afternoon with Graciano Soares, we looked at e-learning policies - to sum everything up, basically the government sees it as essential that teaching practitioners remain up-to-date with Information Technology. That's probably a sensible thing, because almost all areas of work need IT, so it fits with the vocational 'into-work' focus of the current government. I couldn't really disagree with it - but I could do with a bit more training in how exactly to TEACH IT, I have no problem using it, but I could do with a few more opportunities to practice.

Anyway, got to go now... it's getting late - hopefully this should be pretty much a weekly occurrence - I'm definitely going to try and keep it up.