A few people who have observed my lesson comment that I tend to overuse "okay" while I teach. "Your students may be secretly counting the number of times you utter the word 'okay', " my mentor Mrs Emily Teo once cautioned. But in all honesty, I have never been aware of this; it's my blind spot. I nod my head and pledge to be more conscious in regulating my use of "okay" but it's hard to do so because I'm not conscious about using it.

Until this week. I caught myself saying "okay" several times.

If nothing else, going for the Beijing Immersion Programme seemed to have made me less hurried about things. It's like, I am sufficiently calmed down to be able to notice the way I deliver my instructions.

Or maybe I'm just more conscious of the way I teach because I'm still feeling my way around with the students whom I only get to meet once a week.

We all know that students hate it when teachers ramble on and on, adopting a didactic style of teaching. But if truth be told, I think some of the best moments of my classes are when I get the entire class to quieten down and launch into an explanation of what they ought to do for their upcoming CAs.

I mean, some students get very restless and can't concentrate when tasked to work on pair/group work. If left to their own devices, the activities won't allow them to apply what they have learnt because their hearts aren't in it in the first place.

They are quite all right though when I get their classmates to present the activity. Maybe I should think of activities that can involve the entire class.