Different teaching for different levels

Until this year I have had most of my hours with e1 classes, and last year a low e1 group. I have had short periods with e2 and e3 groups. I had a short spell with an L2ICT 16-18 group, but that was particularly to take them through an ICT group and really bore no comparison to e1 ESOL classes, or even to ESOL classes at all.
This year most of my time is spent with an L1 ESOL group, also teaching the same group ESOL+numeracy, ICT and cultural studies - a variety - in my hands, of abstracted, secularised RE.
Until you have this experience across the levels, you might imagine that the same process - teaching - takes place but with different subject matter: more advanced lexis and grammar and more challenging tasks and contexts. But in practice, they are activities with almost no points of comparison.
In the low e1 group, you have very little language with which to transmit new meaning of the new language. In practice this means you often behave like a children's TV presenter: big motions, big slow artificial speech patterns, broad humour, lots of gesture and physical expression.
With the advanced group, you can explain new language and new styles, formats and manners of discourse using fairly sophisticated language. Indeed the language you choose to express the language has to be carefully chosen as it is a form of meta-teaching.
For example: explaining the construction and delivery of a formal presentation, I would be less likely to begin with a discussion than with a slow, careful, somewhat didactic jug and mug presentation, rigorously structured and littered with formal discourse markers.
Then, rather than talk about the subject matter, I might ask the class to discuss the manner in which I presented the information
Also, because the class is better able to cope with more complex information, we are more likely to ignore the formal explanation of the grammatical forms for which the contexts offered an exemplar, but rather to discuss the context itself, discovering interest for its own sake. During this apparent meander, I would try and prompt and direct in such a way that learners would use the target structures, and then at the end, perhaps I would point out what they accidentally picked up.
This is the advantage of a subject like ESOL+cultural studies. I might have target language in mind, but so long as the students use it, I don't need to make it an explicit part of the lesson. Though it is an ESOL lesson, there are two sets of objectives, I know both, the students know only one.
In a recent lesson, the two objectives were: ESOL - use may, can, could, should and their negatives in a discussion. Cultural studies - discuss whether there are any moral or ethical imperatives or whether all apparently firm rules on behaviour depend on the context of the act? and what do major religions have to say about this?

Some teachers are thought to be naturally better at one level or another and, unfortunately, because I had great rapport with most of my e1 classes, I was thought to be a beginners specialist. But after requesting an advanced class as I thought I was becoming stale, I know for certain that I am happier in the more advanced classes.
I also had some concerns, after teaching so many adult classes, with the motivation of 16-18 groups. There is often a residual worry that the main imperatives are keeping parents happy that they are occupied, and EMA.
While this is certainly true for some, without a doubt, once they are in the class, the learners inherent energy and enthusiasm make up for this.
Given a choice now, I will take the kids over the adults and the advanced over the beginners.
One caveat to that though. I also have a class through a programme supporting local schools in which we take mixed high e2 to L2 groups of 14-16yos. Some are children; some young adults. More specifically, some are talented, hard working enthusiastic young women and some are silly little boys. These two groups don't go well together and discipline takes more time than teaching which is frustrating for me and the girls.

What's to be gained from observations?

Luck of the draw, because of first a practice inspection to prepare us for the possible real inspection, then the real Ofsted, then the inspections that were due anyway, then the obs through HGSI, I've been observed a terrific amount this year, and what have I gained from it?
I observed one lesson from my mentor, Julia, and gained more from that than the lot of the obs. I got to see a different approach, a different feel, different level of formality and how the whole thing held together - which was very well - but the observations were a different matter.
The observers aren't really watching you teach, they're watching you deliver an observed lesson. It's not the same thing. It's like watching a waiter, perfectly adept at carrying four plates, spin eleven on sticks.
No-one teaches, prepares or writes lesson plans for an obs the way they do for a normal lesson. Some teachers get great obs results because of the time they spend preparing, but the rest of the time have poor retention. Obs are a exhibition. Perhaps I'm being obtuse but I don't think I got a thing out of the whole lot of them. Observers, with too many boxes to fill, tend to make obtuse observations, like 'the room is too small, the board is dirty.' Sure the board is dirty, the cleaners don't have board cleaner. Yes the room is too small. Why don't I have the college move to handsome new buildings.
Teachers are always assured that it's only the teaching parts of the observations that apply to them, but the grade is overall. It's less a measurement than a stick.
Do I sound bitter? Probably. I am.
I love it in the classroom. It's a happy, creative, functional, purposeful place with a whole group of people all pulling the same way. The staff room and college management are an incompetent self-serving bureaucracy. Most FE and HE institutions run for the benefit of faculty and staff with education running a poor second. If you doubt this, look at the pay structure. As teachers drop teaching for management, their pay rises.
Observations are an unwelcome intrusion of this bureaucracy into the classroom.
I'd rather drive a van.
I own a van.
Hmmm.