Speaking skills – especially in stressful situations – matter.
Most quality Business English and VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) programs provide extensive training and practice in both short and long job interviews. Job interviews are stressful – especially for English language learners. In fact, many adult, community college, and university ESL programs also include mock job interviews in the curriculum so ESL students can learn how to better answer simple and difficult questions. After all, many career experts recommend native speakers practice and practice again for these high-stakes interviews. It behooves English language learners to practice, practice, and practice some more for job interviews.
During these difficult economic times, however, Business English trainers, advanced ESL (English as a Second Language), teachers and VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) job coordinators should focus on an even wider range of interviewing skills. Many people have to interview co-workers, customers, strangers, and even more senior professionals at work. Speaking skills – in particular interview skills – matter.
Informational interviews – where future professionals ask questions to working professionals that hold a desirable position – achieves this goal – and a few more. Informational interviews deserve far more attention in English language programs, but especially in Business English programs and VESL classes since informational interviews provide practical opportunities to develop business contacts and remain a savvy job hunting tactic.
A common practice in the United States in many white-collar professions, informational interviews allow students (or individuals seeking a career change) to meet more successful and senior professionals in a field. From scheduling an appointment and preparing questions to collecting information on common business practices, this professional exercise tests the fluency and language skills. Informational interviews also expand their personal network of valuable business contacts. Sometimes these 20-30 minute interviews, often at offices, offer surprising insights into the typical work experiences and best workplace practices. Topics can range from the biographic to industry trends. Best of all, informational interviews can also lead to job leads, internships, and even new jobs.
This real world assignment can work with high-intermediate and advanced Business English clients. In fact, asking clients or students to find, research, and conduct an informational interview requires a certain level of fluency and confidence – outside the classroom. This challenging, authentic class assignment requires English language learners to perform a vital workplace skill, respond in real time to a potential supervisor, and ask appropriate questions.
What are appropriate questions? Here are a few classic informational interview questions:
How did you first enter the field? Why?
How has the industry changed since you began your career?
Can you describe a typical day at work?
What are some trends that you are watching?
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
What question should I have asked that I didn’t ask today?
These simple questions often provide illuminating glimpses into the professional lives of successful professionals.
I recommend requiring a “trip report” or a presentation to show the results of the informational interview with fellow Business English students,. This reflective exercise requires students to concisely summarize their interview. Learning how to conduct an informational interview is a crucial skill that they can use over and over again during their business careers. Many graduate programs strongly recommend (and sometime mandate) their students conduct regular informational interviews.
From my perspective, adding information interviews to Business English classes and VESL programs seems extraordinarily sensible. It also qualifies as an effective use of precious instructional time. Practical and popular, this multidimensional assignment consistently engages students and provides surprising insights in a university setting. I’ve been requiring informational interviews for several years in my university courses for both native and non-native English speakers. Students consistently rate the informational interview highest among the course assignments – and often praise it on course evaluations.
Therefore, I’m quite confident that quality Business English and VESL programs can clearly benefit from adding this real-world, authentic task to their curriculum too.
Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create Compelling Conversations – in English!
www.CompellingConversations.com
Informational interviews have become a common practice among American professionals, but many English language learners remain unfamiliar with this type of networking and job search activity. ESL teachers can create both compelling classroom assignments and provide opportunities for ESL students to explore their career options by including informational interviews in their courses.
As readers of this blog know, I have given several presentations at CATESOL conferences on “Informational Interviews: A Practical, Multi-skill Activity for High Intermediate and Advanced ESL Students.” Based on my six years of assigning both undergraduate native speakers and international graduate students at the University of Southern California to conduct informational interviews, this presentation demonstrated how this one presentation assignment can lead to an entire month of engaging, demanding, and career-focused lessons for advanced ESL students. Students expand their vocabulary, write questions, conduct an off-campus interview with a working professional in a field of interest, and share the career advice they collected in a short oral presentation. It’s a challenging, satisfying, and popular assignment in my oral skills classes.
A small vocational college in Los Angeles, CES College, asked me to share the exercise with their faculty last week. Would middle-aged immigrants in blue collar jobs find this exercise worthwhile? I’m quite confident that immigrants would learn from all steps of the exercise, and expanding their social network beyond relatives and friends remains essential. Mechanics can interview mechanics and car repair show owners, and construction workers can interview construction workers – or managers. The proof, as the cliche goes, will be in the pudding and let’s see what happens with their students in the next six months.
Would this exercise work in an EFL context? I’m not sure. Many American universities can count on alumni to help their students in their job search, and granting an informational interview is a relatively easy way to contribute. Many American professional organizations also encourage their members to both assist and recruit students into the field. It may be difficult in many cultures for a younger person with less status to directly contact an older professional to seek career advice.
I do know, however, that many American colleges and graduate programs train their students to go on informational interviews to gain more detailed knowledge of their prospective careers. As in so many other areas of American life, white collar professionals have far greater access to both more information and stronger personal networks. This assignment brings a best practice outside of the elite circles.
Informational interviews can also be used with high school students as they begin to focus on their career ambitions. Here is a short list of additional links that I found last night as I prepared my presentation. The links are loosely organized from the most general sites that explain the concept to general audiences in simple English to professional documents for more specialized, often graduate-school audiences. Adult and community college ESL programs would probably find the earlier links more helpful than the later ones. As ever, use or lose.
University of Notre Dame Informational Interviewing – This six-page guide provides excellent step by step instructions for students needing assistance with locating individuals, asking interview questions, writing thank you notes, and professionally networking. http://careercenter.nd.edu/assets/488/informational_interviewing_guide_8.16.pdf
Finally, here’s a 13-slide PowerPoint presentation titled “Networking and Informational Interviewing: Nuts and Bolts” by Scott Turner from USC Marshall School of Business, one of the world’s top MBA schools. Although I’m biased as a USC instructor, I think this presentation captures the practical possibilities of information interviewing. Many Marshall instructors advise MBA students that they should always be networking and conducting informational interviews during their graduate studies.
Given the difficult economic climate in many countries, I would suggest that it behooves more ESL and EFL teachers and tutors to consider adding informational interviews to their oral skills courses for their high-intermediate and advanced students.
Sometimes we don’t see what is in front of our eyes.
Today I learned a bit more about my own website from a fellow English teacher and friendly fan.
A gentleman from Tennessee called my home, thanked me for the sample conversation materials, and asked some insightful questions about the updated Compelling Conversations website. I appreciate his call – and his giving a practical suggestion on how to improve the site for adult educators by adding clearer language. The influx of new immigrants, mostly Spanish speaking with limited formal education, can be seen across the United States. As you might expect, many churches are providing many education and literacy programs for new immigrants in the South – often on a shoe string budget. I’m glad that the free reproducible worksheets can be of some assistance.
Second, the gentleman’s call encouraged me to take a longer look at my own website through new eyes. Designed more for English teachers than English language learners, the revised site does include an entire section for students. The materials, however, are probably too hard for most English students to understand since they are written for high intermediate and advanced ESL students.
Fortunately, there are also rough Google translations for the Compelling Conversations website now for speakers of 46 languages. The long list goes beyond the usual suspects (Chinese, French, German, Korean, Spanish) to cover tongues ranging from Albanian and Arabic to Vietnamese and Yiddish! That’s sort of amazing – even if the computer translations remain imperfect and contain many errors. Consider me jealous of my computer’s language skills! Wouldn’t it be great to just know 10 words in 46 languages?
Perhaps in the future. For now, I’m grateful for Google translations – and dedicated English teachers who share their experiences about my small, evolving website and niche conversation textbook. Maybe it is silly, but I still get a kick when – like today – an adult education teacher tells me about how their students enjoy the book – even when it is a bit difficult.
So please feel free to share your experiences, positive or negative, because we are learn from each other. As the cliche goes, “everyone is a student; everyone is a teacher.” Today I learned quite a bit about my own website, its strengths and flaws. Have you visited the revised website yet? What worked? What could be improved? Do you have some suggestions for the next version?
“A word is dead when it is said, some say.
I say it just begins to live that day.”
Emily Dickinson
Cheap pleasures can sometime be the most satisfying.
Reading, an activity that often costs nothing, falls into that category. Reading provides many pleasures and many insights. So does talking about reading.
Following a December ritual, I’ve been reviewing the year and find many reasons for satisfaction. Co-writing a monthly column called “Instant Conversation Activity” in the newspaper Easy English Times makes the list for the third straight year. Each monthly newspaper column in the Easy English Times, modifies and expands a thematic chapter from Compelling Conversations, an advanced ESL textbook, for lower level English language learners. The August issue, for example, talked about watching television and favorite programs; the November 2010 issue celebrated the American tradition of choosing leaders in elections. (Immigrants, refugees, new citizens, and potential citizens often appreciate voting while too many American citizens fall into apathy.) It’s an honor to have the lessons used in ESL, EL/Civics, and literacy classes.
In reviewing the 2010 clips, however, my favorite column this year remains “Reading Pleasures and Tastes.”
Reading can be a great – and overlooked – pleasure. Reading allows us to imagine life in distant lands and times – and better understand our own lives and climates. It broadens our imagination, highlights absurd situations, shows new possibilities, and can deepen our sympathy. Since urban Californian classrooms often resemble a mini-United Nations, reading provides a passport to better understand our classmates and our ever-changing world. .
Yet too few American adults – including adult education students – allow themselves the pleasure of reading books and newspapers in English. We can see and hear on adult school campuses how the inability to read causes real problems. We know the many studies that document the links between illiteracy, poverty, and criminal activity. One reason might be that reading builds empathy and instills information. Reading can also provide solace, inspiration, and perspective. Celebrating the pleasure and power of reading to the Easy English Times column audience, including adult immigrants, GED students and some prisoners, seems appropriate. Perhaps it could have been called “Three Cheers for Reading – Even if Life is Hard.”
Yet I also like the Reading Pleasures column because discussing books has created some of my most poignant classroom moments. During a decade of teaching advanced adult ESL, we often read short stories, memorized proverbs, and wrote about living in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Many ESL students also demonstrated their passion for literature. A Polish student sought help translating romantic poems, a Mexican immigrant constantly recited lines from Cervantes, and an Iranian woman journalist discussed her fear of reading banned books – even while in the United States.. Reading matters and transcends borders.
Let me give another example from a global classroom with a dozen or so different best languages. Each evening we would have a “brave volunteer” give a short oral presentation at 8:30 as a closing activity. I wanted everyone to be a volunteer, but I left the choice of presenting to students. Some students introduced their hometowns, a few gave product reviews, and many recommended movies. Topics and styles varied.
One night an older Korean woman gave an eloquent, moving book review of To Kill A Mockingbird that combined personal biography and literary criticism. Chloe, not her real name, began smiling because she had just finished rereading her favorite book in its original language – English. She joked about how long it took, but she had patience. Chloe went on to confess that she often had racist feelings like some ugly characters in the novel. “But I learned from the noble character too”. Chloe stated that living in Santa Monica and studying English she had learned to overcome racism. Her daughter was going to marry a non-Korean – something once unthinkable. Then, returning to the novel, she concluded by quoting her favorite character. “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks. ” Her daughter visited our class that night, and cried. She was not alone. Powerful. Poignant. Unforgettable.
Reading remains a great pleasure and a helpful guide. Literature can also enliven our ESL classrooms, and discussing our favorite books opens up new possibilities. The humanities should be for everyone – including English language learners. Let us, as Emily Dickinson advised, “dwell in possibility” and bring more literature into our English classrooms.
What is a clarifying question? What do you mean? Can you be more specific? Can you give us some examples? What do you exactly mean?
Sometimes our English students need help asking questions, especially critical questions that allow them to clarify concepts and better participate in conversations. One crucial skill that needs to be explicitly taught – after being informally modeled in class discussions – is asking for clarification. In fact, I consider the ability to ask appropriate follow-up questions a vital life skill.
Here are some simple questions that students can, and often should, ask to collect more information. I often encourage students to make a general statement or bold claim, and support their opinion with some reason. Proverbs and advertising slogans are great for this purpose.
Sunshine promises happiness.
Just do it.
Laugh and be well.
Bad luck can’t last forever.
You create your own luck.
Be bold.
Yet these absolute statements require qualification and clarification, especially in the context of an academic discussion or intense conversation. Therefore, it’s natural to ask some practical clarifying questions in a friendly, open-minded way.
Here are some useful examples of common clarification questions:
What does that mean?
Can you be more specific?
Why do you think that?
How did you reach that conclusion?
Can you share some examples?
To what extent, does that saying apply here?
What do you really mean?
Can you clarify that for me?
How does that statement apply to….?
Can you spin that concept out for us?
What are the implications of that statement?
What are you implying?
We can also ask questions to confirm information or paraphrase.
Are you saying that….
Are you claiming….
Do you mean ….
So you are saying…
Do you want me to…
This simple exercise is also quite helpful when teaching hedging language and formal definitions to add precision. Since I primary teach graduate students who must participate in classroom discussions and answer questions after giving presentations, I consider this ability a vital skill for intermediate and advanced English language learners.
How do you clarify information? What questions do you ask as follow-up questions when you feel confused? What questions do you teach your students to use to collect more details or verify information? Why?
Millions of people, around the world, have chosen – or been forced – to leave the nation where they were born. Immigration has become more popular – partly due to modern technologies like planes, trains, and cars – than ever before in human history.
Immigration remains a vital, if controversial, topic. Why do people immigrant? How have immigrants contributed to your country? How important is the distinction between legal and illegal? Do wealthy nations have an obligation to open their doors to refugees? What qualifies someone as a refugee? Should nations chose their immigrants? If so, what criteria should nations use? How have immigration laws changed over time in your country? What, by the way, do you consider “your” country? Do you think someone can be a loyal citizen to more than one country? How?
As today’s federal court decision in Arizona shows, the debate over illegal immigration remains alive, often hot, and frequently ugly in the United States. On one hand, the United States celebrates the Statue of Liberty as a national symbol and accepts more legal immigrants than any other nation on the earth. On the other hand, the continuing economic crisis and high unemployment rates have led to widespread resentment about the large number of illegal immigrants. President Obama has called for a civil, open, and honest debate as the United States debates its immigration policies. Many other nations are holding similar debates.
Teaching Tolerance, an exceptional educational non-profit that provides many free resources to American teachers, is asking a simple question this week. How do you teach about immigration issues? Join the discussion here.
Context, as ever, remains crucial. Teaching about immigration issues is far easier in some contexts – such as an intensive English language program – than in other contexts. Teaching the history of American immigration in an EL/Civics class is far easier than discussing current events in my advanced adult ESL classes in Santa Monica. Why? Everyone in the EL/Civics class was pursuing citizenship, and held legal status. On the other hand, the advanced ESL class – on the same campus – was clearly divided between refugees, visa lottery winners, other legal immigrants, and many undocumented/illegal immigrants. With limited language skills and great passion, the topic was too controversial to rationally discuss.
Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and many other English-speaking nations continue to attract immigrants and refugees from around the world. As English teachers, we know the faces and stories behind the statistics. We also know the crucial role that English skills play in creating successful immigration policies. But do we teach about immigration? And, if so, how?
