Interviewing Activities
Interviews are a powerful way to get students practicing and learning English.
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Over my long career as a teacher and teacher trainer, I’ve often been amazed at how well students respond to lessons where they interview each other. It is a core TBLT (Task-Based Learning and Teaching) task and it works wonders.
Interviews can be as simple as brainstorming together the questions to ask for a particular context (personal interview, job, registration, journalism etc …) and then having students ask and answer in pairs - interviewing each other. Or interviews can be more complex and elaborate - for example asking students to interview a member of the community, or a family member as homework and then presenting the interview to the class.
Interviews can either be oral (spoken, recorded audio or video) or written. Further, interviews can be the perfect “back to school” activity and way to get students to know and learn more about each other in class.
Here are a few ideas and resources in our lesson library about the different kinds of interviewing activities you can do in class.
Personal Interviews. Students simply interview each other and then present their findings, key things about each other, to the class. You can offer students some basic questions as prompts.
Job Interviews. A vital skill, get students to practice the most common questions asked in English at a job interview. See our full packet of job interview resources.
Street Interviews. Michael Marzio and Real English perfected this kind of activity, years ago. He was a pioneer of the interview methodology. Students simply interview people on the street about a topic and record it on video. It’s real REAL English! See this example.
Family Interviews. Students can interview a veteran, a family member that is interesting, fathers or mothers for those holidays. Interviewing an elderly person is a great approach and motivating for younger students.
Celebrity Interviews. Students can interview an imaginary celebrity. Imagine their answers and then role-play the interview in class. Or watch as a listening activity, an interview with a famous person. Pause after the question and predict their answer!
Personality Interviews. For advanced-level students, interviewing others about their personalities works great! See the Proust Interview questions as an example. Watch a video example.
These are just a few of the many kinds of interview tasks teachers might think about using in class! It’s a great activity and generates high student interest.
You might also consider as part of a lesson, walking students through the interview process, as this organizer elaborates.
Enjoy your interviewing activities! Please comment and share any other interviewing ideas that have worked for you.