As Priddis et al. (2013) note, even degree-holding TESOL graduates can struggle to find stable employment. If graduates of our teacher education programs cannot communicate their new knowledge and skills well in interviews, they won’t be competitive in finding teaching positions.

In the case of the MA in linguistics with a language teaching specialization (LTS) program at the University of Oregon (UO), a grant opportunity from the UO Graduate School led to a yearlong project to develop a set of free, interactive online materials that are specifically tailored to the needs of language teachers who are seeking positions in the field. The materials allow users to view and evaluate a range of multimedia examples of job application and mock-interview examples.

Now that the materials have been available online for more than a year, we are able to report on some initial results gathered from a quiz module on the website.

Description of the Interactive Materials

The online materials are housed in an open course management system developed at UO, and include

1. tips and information about finding position announcements and relevant information in the field.

2. authentic job announcements, authentic examples of CVs and résumés, as well as a set of cover letters that have been tailored to specific types of position announcements.

3. 15 videos of unrehearsed mock-interviews of LTS students, divided into more than 50 short Q&A clips and organized into five categories. Users can rate each of these clips on nine different criteria. (See Figure 1.)

4. a set of ratings on the same nine criteria, as well as audio commentaries on each of the 50+ clips by up to four commentators (the interviewee, the interviewer, another professional in the field, and a career counselor). Users can compare their own ratings to those of the commentators.

5. a multiple-choice before-and-after quiz, designed to simulate the interview process. This element was intended to capture any improvements in choosing effective answers to interview questions after viewing the mock-interviews and commentaries.

Figure 1. A screenshot showing a video clip of a mock-interview (in this case for an ELT position in the United States) and commentator audio clips (ratings are not visible here).

Results From Quiz Data

The before-and-after quizzes described above are called “Try It” and “Try It Again,” and take about 15–20 minutes to complete. The questions across the two quizzes are identical. In the quiz, five main interview questions are posed, with four or five potential answers to choose from. If a less favored answer is chosen, a clarifying follow-up question is posed, just as might happen in a real interview. Here is Question #3:

"What is your approach to teaching grammar? And if you can, could you please pick one grammar item that you have taught in the past and share an activity that you have done?"

You promptly explain...

1. specific activity, in detail, that you believe has helped and can help students learn a common but difficult grammar point.

2. that grammar is a necessary part of language. You add that you believe that because communication is most important, all grammar should be learned inductively through extensive listening and reading.

3. that you generally use deductive grammar teaching approaches, but that you also believe that sometimes inductive approaches are appropriate as well.

4. a time when using an inductive approach was very successful, but that teaching grammar deductively also has a place and that balance is key. You then describe a deductive grammar activity that you have used.

5. three grammar activities that teach grammar deductively and state that these activities have been successful and so you will continue to use them in the classroom.

The less-preferred choices were drawn from remarks by the commentators in the mock-interviews (e.g., not providing an example, not answering the question clearly, giving clichéd responses). The best answer, though not necessarily perfect, should provide a clear answer to the question and address all elements of the question in a way that reflects reasonable best practices in the field.

Two LTS cohorts, totaling 28 students, were asked to take the “Try It” quiz, then watch at least two interview clips in each of the five categories of questions (i.e., 10 clips each, including listening to the commentaries on each clip), then take the “Try It Again” quiz.

The initial results surprised us: on average, users improved their scores by only 3% (from 76% to 79%) across the two quizzes. Upon looking closer, however, we decided to drop one user whose score decreased by 30%, as he only watched five instead of 10 clips, and also somehow bypassed the follow-up questions, lowering his final score. Removing him from the data set changed the average improvement to 5% (from an average score of 75% to a score of 80%).

• According to the activity log, 25/27 of the users did view a minimum of 10 video clips before taking “Try It Again”; the other two completed nine.

• Three users scored 100% in both the pre- and postquiz, 18 users improved their scores, while 7 users’ scores actually decreased.

• Most of the users’ scores changed between 5 and 10 percentage points. Four improved by 20–30%.

• One question, #4 “Handling Personal Interactions,” was clearly the most problematic:

"Can you give an example of a time you had a conflict in a work situation? This could be with a colleague, or a student, or a supervisor. And how did you fix it?"

After a moment, you describe...

1. how a student continued acting up during class and after having a discussion once with the student about the behavioral problems, the student persisted. You describe how you solved it by reporting it to the principal of the school.

2. a time when an issue with a colleague came up during a team meeting and how both you and the colleague acted impatient and unprofessionally. You describe going to the office of the colleague two days later and apologizing.

3. how a conflict came with up with a supervisor for which the supervisor was at fault. You how you were offended but wanted to keep the peace and so avoided the issue and the supervisor as much as possible until you changed jobs.

4. how a colleague criticized a homework assignment you had created but that later the colleague came to his senses and apologized. You explain how you graciously accepted the apology.

The preferred answer was considered by the team of question designers to be “b” because the speaker was taking responsibility for the conflict. Indeed, 13 users chose this answer in “Try It,” and 17 chose it in “Try It Again.”

The most frequently chosen alternate response, however, was “a” (10 in “Try It” and 7 in “Try It Again”; answer order was randomized in the actual quiz). In a group discussion about the quiz results with the second cohort, some students noted that alerting a supervisor early about a problem would be preferred in many teaching contexts (e.g., in some Asian and European contexts). They also felt waiting 2 days to address a problem with a peer in answer “b” was too long.

Discussion

Overall, reactions by LTS students to the multimedia interview materials themselves have been very positive. Noted as most helpful are the many example clips and the range of commentator evaluations on these clips, which was in fact the primary vision for the project. Rather than provide model interview performances, these materials showcase real interactions involving less seasoned interviewees. And rather than provide one authoritative viewpoint on the effectiveness of the interactions, various professionals appraised each clip, some of whom provided quite different and even conflicting evaluations, as would be the case among real interviewers. Reflections from the interviewees themselves were also included, which modeled the lifelong process of teacher self-reflection and growth.

In contrast, the “Try It” and “Try It Again” quizzes were by nature more prescriptive, with their emphasis on “best” answers. Although we had piloted the quiz questions with faculty and students before opening the site, some validity problems remained, as in Question 4 above. Some of these problems can be addressed through better contextualization of the answers, as well as the scoring design (e.g., weighting answers). And some may question whether a user’s ability to score well on the quiz reflects either the value gained from using the materials or the user’s eventual success in an interview. Based on students' feedback about their pre- and post- answers, however, the quizzes do appear to have raised awareness about answering interview questions clearly and completely.

Although the quizzes themselves have so far proved less fruitful in tracking the impact of these materials than we hoped, we consider the project to be an overall success and are glad to have provided these materials for our students and for others who may find them useful. We will continue to improve the site through surveys on user experience. Please feel free to share the link to Oregon LTS with your students or colleagues.

Reference

Priddis, E., Tanner, M. W., Henrichsen, L. E., Warner, B., Anderson, N. J., & Dewey, D. P. (2013). Career path trends of alumni from a U.S. TESOL graduate program. TESL-EJ, 17(3).

Keli Yerian is a senior lecturer and director of the language teaching specialization Masters of Arts track in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Oregon. Her primary interests are teacher education and multimodal interaction.