Bruce TS#9

TS #9 Do-jun

I wanted to practice Do-jun’s formal speaking ability, so I arranged for an interview to be set up. A few days before our session, I sent Do-jun a document I created to prepare him for it. I think showing our documentation will summarize our session nicely. 

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Hello Do-jun,

I have been thinking about how to improve your speaking accuracy since our last conversation. I would like to try a few things.

I would like to have a fake (also called a “mock”) interview with you. I will pretend to interview you for a job at an Aerospace company. It does not matter what the job, in specific, is, as I will have your resume. I will only ask you questions related to general talents and traits that are useful in any job. Some questions I might ask could include:

 “Can you tell me a little about yourself?”

“How did you hear about this position?”

 “What are your greatest professional strengths?”

“What do you consider to be your weakness?”

 “Tell me about a challenge or conflict you've faced at work, and how you dealt with it.”  (Useful for practicing past tense)

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” (Useful for practicing future tense)

And many more. We will practice many tenses.

I will assess your progress, at the end, through this rubric:

Ability to express ideas	1	2	3	4	5
Range of topics	1	2	3	4	5
Listening comprehension	1	2	3	4	5
Intelligibility	1	2	3	4	5

I will assign a score for each category and average them out for a Total Communicative Effectiveness Score.

With your permission, I would like to record our session so I may listen to it twice and give you a more accurate assessment. If that is not okay, I will give you your score immediately. Once I identify any areas/patterns of speaking you struggle with, we can focus on improving those areas.

I have also prepared a list of Business English phrases which may come in handy.  Please look over them and practice speaking them before our session.

·         Let me explain…

·         Here's what happened:

·         There's a (good) reason for this:

·         The reason is . . .

·         I'm sorry. I can't tell you that (right now).

·         Can I get back to you on that?

·         Can we save that until later?

·         Well…

·         I expect . . .

·         I plan to . . .

·         I project . . .

·         I hope to . . .

·         I should . . .

·         I will be (V+ing) . . .

·         If all goes as planned…

·         My projections are . . .

·         According to my projections..

·         My long-range objective is…

·         My long-term plans include…

·         I've found that when conflict occurs, it helps to..

·         My key quality is…

·         In my opinion…

·         It is my opinion that…

·         I appreciate your hospitality.

·         Thank you for having me over.

Practicing these will help you sound like a more natural speaker. You do not need to memorize these and you can look at your list during our interview.

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The interview went very well and Do-jun incorporated many phrases in his answers. When he was unclear on a certain point, I, acting the part of a manager and understanding that I am dealing with someone who speaks English as a second language, asked him if he could clarify his statements, or I rephrased them in the proper way. I even threw in a sneaky question asking “Why is there fuzz on a tennis ball?” When I did my research on interviews, I found it as one of the puzzle questions some companies use to throw prospective employees off their balance, to see how they react when faced with an unexpected circumstance. Do-jun answered it pretty well and quickly! He said that the fuzz could be there so that tennis balls are easier to grab. I was very impressed.