Interviewed on TV

I've just got back from appearing live on a programme on one of the local TV stations, TV Makedonia here in Thessaloniki. A nerve wrecking experience as you can imagine, not helped by the fact that the interview was all in Greek and not my mother tongue.

Once again, the photographs I posted on this blog of what happened when I was violently detained by the Greek riot police, simply for taking pictures of them have had effects in the "real world". I was contacted by a journalist yesterday who had seen my blog and wanted me to come in and tell my side of the story.

As well as talking to me, the presenters talked by phone with a representative of the Panhellenic Federation of Police Employees, who, by strange coincidence is in many of the pictures I took on Saturday, 8th. The person, whose name escapes me for the moment, categorically insisted that I had no right as an ordinary citizen (i.e not an accredited member of the mainstream media) to take pictures of him in the street. Indeed, that as there was a march going on that I should not have been doing so.

Even when the presenter asked him which law stated this (which as far as I can see doesn't exist) he insisted on the fact that such photography was not permitted.

I don't know what is scarier; that a police officer is so unaware of basic rules governing conduct in public spaces or the fact that they feel that they can impose whatever rule they want, at a whim.

Spiderman, Batman and the FCE interview

The FCE exams are fast approaching and that means getting students ready for their interviews. The problem is that after you've done the format a few times the students start to get bored and their answers become wooden and stilted. So to liven up the whole procedure I've been playing with a few ideas that spark interest.

Part one

In this part of the FCE, CAE and CPE exams the students is expected to give information about themselves. they are asked things such as;

Where are you from?
What do you do for a living?
What do you like about where you live?
Do you have plans for the future?

Instead of asking about themselves, students can answer as if they were;

1 - A famous person.
2 - Somebody else from the class?
3 - A super hero
4 - A character from a fairy tale/movie/book.

Part two.

Instead of the usual stock photos choose two photographs of

1 - Super heroes
2 - The class at tho different times during the school year.
3 - You at two different stages of your life.
4 - A recent news story.

Part three

Ask your students to think of the different powers that super heroes have e.g. invisibility, flight etc. Write these on the board. Divide them into pairs and ask them to either rank them in order of importance or choose the four they'd most like to have.


Part four

In this part of the FCE exam the questions are usually based on the topic discussed in part three. So try these;

1 - What do super heroes do for a living?
2 - What problems do the husbands/wives of super heroes face?
3 - If you had super powers would you use them to make money?
4 - What disadvantages would your powers bring you?

Using video to improve student's interview performance

Here is Dimitris's and Bill's FCE interview. As you can see, neither of them particularly enjoyed the experience but it is a great learning activity. I'll let them know how they did in more detail next lesson. However, I wanted the rest of the class to comment on their performance on their blog using the ideas and suggestions from the handout below.

PART ONE

1 Be friendly, be polite. This is a chance to show the examiners how well you can speak English, not a fight to the death.

2 Learn some words that may come up, e.g. the name of the subject you are studying or the job you want to do in the future.

3 DO NOT learn a little speech by heart. It sounds unnatural and you'll get even more nervous than you need to be trying to remember it.

4 Keep eye contact with the examiner. That means looking him or her in the eye rather than staring at your shoes or some point on the wall behind them.

5 Remember there are no wrong answers here, only well- expressed and badly expressed ones.

6 DO NOT give short, monosyllabic answers, nor tell them the story of your life.

PART TWO

1 Remember that the question you'll be asked about the photos will have three parts, answer all of them.

2 If you don't understand the question ask the examiner to repeat it. You'll not lose marks for this. However, you will lose marks for answering the wrong question.

3 DO NOT stop speaking till the examiner tells you your time is up.

4 Pay attention to what the other person says as you will be asked a similar question to theirs when they finish.

PART THREE

1 Make sure you understand the question before you start speaking. If necessary, ask the examiner to repeat it.

2 Move your chair so that you are facing the other person. Remember what we said about eye-contact.

3 Start with a question, not a monologue.

4 Listen to what the other person says, comment on it, ask them questions.

5 Disagree with the other person whatever they say. It's always easier to have something to say if we disagree.

6 Give the other person chance to speak. You'll lose marks if you monopolise the conversation.

7 DO NOT stop speaking until the examiner tells you that your time is up.

PART FOUR

1 Remember the questions asked in this part are always connected with the topic in part three.

2 Give full answers, not just short, monosyllabic ones

3 Comment on what the other person says, use their name.

4 There are no wrong answers, only badly-expressed ones.

Here are the questions from the interview. I asked the students to pay particular attention to those in Part 2 and 3.

FCE interview tips

One of the things I do to help prepare students for the First Certificate interview (paper 5) is to record one with them. So, over the next month or so all the students will be videoed and I'll burn the interviews onto CDs which they can take with them and see at home (we have only one PC available so watching in the lesson is not really an option). The benefits of doing this include:

1 A chance to spot an persistent errors in grammar, pronunciation etc.

2 They make sure that non - linguistic elements, such as body language, eye contact etc are appropriate.

3 The opportunity to see where they didn't understand something and how they dealt with it.

Mistakes students make in the interview

From my experience as an examiner I've noticed that poorly prepared students often make the same kind of mistakes in the interview. These include failing to make eye contact with the person they're talking to, whether it be the examiner or the other candidate. Also, they don't ask for help when they don't understand something and so lose marks for not answering the question asked. Finally, as they have not been taught suitable repair techniques; unable to switch the Greek, they are at a loss to deal with a situation where they can't think of a suitable word or phrase and hence just wait in silence.

Click here to see a handout I wrote that helps students identify and correct such issues.

Teacher feedback

In the interview above both students are great, confident speakers who will do well in the FCE exam in May 2007. We can see this in the way they answered the questions in Part 1 and Part 4 of the interview.

However, their performance in Part 2 and Part 3 could have been much better. The main problem was that they failed to answer the questions fully (part 2) or failed to understand them (part 3). This was, in part due to the fact that we haven't done much interview practice yet but also because they rushed to answer, even though they didn't really understand what was expected of them. Instead what they should have done is asked for the question to be repeated or checked with each other what they understood in part 3.

CAE interview - do's and don'ts

PART ONE

1 Be friendly, be polite. This is a chance to show the
examiners how well you can speak English, not a fight to
the death.

2 Learn some words that may come up, e.g. the name of
the subject you are studying or the job you want to do
in the future.

3 DO NOT learn a little speech by heart. It sounds
unnatural and you'll get even more nervous than you
need to be trying to remember it.

4 Keep eye contact with the examiner. That means looking
him or her in the eye rather than staring at your shoes
or some point on the wall behind them.

5 Remember there are no wrong answers here, only well-
expressed and badly expressed ones.

6 DO NOT give short, monosyllabic answers, nor tell them
the story of your life.


PART TWO

1 Remember that the question you'll be asked will vary.
Sometimes it may require you describe and comment or
you may be asked to compare and contrast.

2 If you don't understand the question ask the examiner to
repeat it. You'll not lose marks for this. However, you will
lose marks for answering the wrong question.

3 DO NOT stop speaking till the examiner tells you your
time is up.

4 Pay attention to what the other person says as you will
be asked a related question when they finish.

PART THREE

1 Make sure you understand the question before you start
speaking. If necessary, ask the examiner to repeat it.

2 Move your chair so that you are facing the other person.
Remember what we said about eye-contact. Also use their
name.

3 Start with a question, not a monologue.

4 Listen to what the other person says, comment on it, ask
them questions.

5 If you can't think of something to add, disagree with the other
person, whatever they say. It's always easier to have
something to say if we disagree.

6 Give the other person chance to speak. You'll lose
marks if you monopolise the conversation.

7 DO NOT stop speaking until the examiner tells you that
your time is up.

PART FOUR

1 Remember the questions asked in this part are always
connected with the topic in part three.

2 Give full answers, not just short, monosyllabic ones

3 Comment on what the other person says, use their name.

4 There are no wrong answers, only badly-expressed ones.

FCE Interview tips

The exam season is once again fast approaching so I though I'd post this again.

Cambridge interviews do's and don'ts

PART ONE

1 Be friendly, be polite. This is a chance to show the
examiners how well you can speak English, not a fight to
the death.

2 Learn some words that may come up, e.g. the name of
the subject you are studying or the job you want to do
in the future.

3 DO NOT learn a little speech by heart. It sounds
unnatural and you'll get even more nervous than you
need to be trying to remember it.

4 Keep eye contact with the examiner. That means looking
him or her in the eye rather than staring at your shoes
or some point on the wall behind them.

5 Remember there are no wrong answers here, only well-
expressed and badly expressed ones.

6 DO NOT give short, monosyllabic answers, nor tell them
the story of your life.

PART TWO

1 Remember that the question you'll be asked about the
photos will have three parts, answer all of them.

2 If you don't understand the question ask the examiner to
repeat it. You'll not lose marks for this. However, you will
lose marks for answering the wrong question.

3 DO NOT stop speaking till the examiner tells you your
time is up.

4 Pay attention to what the other person says as you will
be asked a similar question to theirs when they finish.

PART THREE

1 Make sure you understand the question before you start
speaking. If necessary, ask the examiner to repeat it.

2 Move your chair so that you are facing the other person.
Remember what we said about eye-contact.

3 Start with a question, not a monologue.

4 Listen to what the other person says, comment on it, ask
them questions.

5 Disagree with the other person whatever they say. It's
always easier to have something to say if we disagree.

6 Give the other person chance to speak. You'll lose
marks if you monopolise the conversation.

7 DO NOT stop speaking until the examiner tells you that
your time is up.

PART FOUR

1 Remember the questions asked in this part are always
connected with the topic in part three.

2 Give full answers, not just short, monosyllabic ones

3 Comment on what the other person says, use their
name.

4 There are no wrong answers, only badly-expressed
ones.

Lesson plan

1 Ask students to write down three things they should or shouldn't do in the interview.

2 Students swap answers in groups of four.

3 Elicit answers from the class, write them on the board.

4 Give out the handout above and ask them to underline any words or phrases they don't understand.

5 Go through the handout, section by section, giving examples of things.

6 Chose two students, preferably ones who aren't shy about talking in front of the others, and tell them that you are going to interview them.

7 Explain to the rest of the class that they are going to listen to the interview and make note of the ways in which the two interviewees do or do not follow the advice given in the handout. Also they should think of ways in which the people could improve their performance.

8 Do the interview. It would be a good idea to record this. Usually, I use my digital camera to do this and then transfer the recording to my laptop in order to burn a cd which I give to the students who've been interviewed.

9 Divide the class into two groups and assign an interviewee to each group. The groups then discuss the interviewees performance and make suggestions as to how they can improve.

10 If you have enough time, get students into groups of three and ask them to do the same interview (one person being the examiner, the other two candidates). Just make sure that those who were interviewed are now examiners.

11 Give the students who were interviewed the cd and as them to watch it and see how they did or did not follow the advice in the handout.

Help with the Cambridge interviews

Here's a teaching tip for helping students prepare for the Cambridge exams, and in particular the interview section. The activity is designed to help get the ready the parts of the interview that involve working together to discuss a question. In this part of the test students are given long, complicated instructions which must be followed carefully.

Lesson plan

1 Instead of asking students just to read the instructions, get them to close their books and listen. Explain to them that they are going to hear the instructions for this part of the interview twice.

2 Read out the instructions for the first time, remind students that all they should do is listen.

3 Next explain to them that they are going to hear the question a second time and that they should note down as much as they can about the question. Tell them that you will read the question out at normal speed and so that nobody can be expected to note down everything.

4 Read out the question again ( at slightly slower speed than before).

5 Students then work together in groups to reconstruct the question.

6 They then compare their version with the original in the book. Once again remind them that the most important thing is that they have the same idea rather than being a carbon copy of the original.

7 Students then work in pairs and do the interview exercise.