En español: Entrevista Oral

THE ORAL

INTERVIEW

1. To begin with the obvious: the person you must speak to – the person who will judge your ability – will be very pleased if you have an excellent conversation. No one enjoys an embarrassing, hesitant talk where one person struggles to find some words to say.

There will be no trick questions and you will not have to speak about anything that requires specialist knowledge; your interviewer will not deliberately use ‘difficult’ or obscure words.

2. Your first step? Simple – get into training, NOW. Like a marathon runner or any other athlete, your real work must be done long before the event. This means regular practice. It is almost impossible to do well in the interview if you do not speak English aloud regularly.

Of course you should be doing this practice at school or college but please assume that this will not be enough; do more practice with your friends or a private teacher.

In my opinion you must be so used to (accustomed to) speaking English, even at a basic level, that you don’t get excited about it. Your target is to speak your second language naturally and without stress.

You must work, of course, but you must aim for the thought that speaking English to a stranger is ‘no big deal’. After all, children of four years old speak English without getting excited about it.

Practice your breathing – take deep and regular breaths to enable you to speak calmly. Learn to use your diaphragm. Ask a music teacher or trained singer how to do this.

3. Training. Like the athlete, you must build up from where you are now. Are you sure you know what a conversation is? Are you sure you know what a good interview should be like?

Start by doing conscious conversations and interviews in your own language. By ‘conscious’ I mean that you should be able to assess how well you are speaking. Make it a habit to do these interviews with your friends and ask them to give you ‘feedback’. Even a conversation lasting two minutes can be ‘feedbacked’.

For example, one of your friends can be responsible for judging and commenting on the pace of your speech, another can judge your voice level (too loud or too quiet) and another can give you feedback on how well the content of what you said was organized and presented.

In addition, someone should check your pauses: did you ever give the other guy a chance to speak?

When you are comfortable with these short sessions (15 minutes per session should be enough) move to speaking English and continue with the feedback method mentioned above.

But now another feedbacker will be needed to comment and discuss the quality of your English. This doesn’t need to be an expert; someone of your own level in English will be able to do this.

4. Yes and No Answers. You must avoid these, except perhaps when confirming your name. As you may know –

a)    closed questions are those which permit you to answer yes or no. An experienced interviewer will avoid giving you these.

b)    open questions are those which oblige you to say something; you cannot answer them with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. These questions are very good for you because you are there to show  your command of English.

An example –‘How do you feel about sports?’ ‘What do you think about sports?’

If you don’t like sports or have very little interest in the subject you cannot simply say, ‘Yuk!!’ like Bart Simpson.

You can still speak about it, perhaps explaining why you don’t like sports and maybe mentioning other things that do interest you. Perhaps you enjoyed sports in the past?

Remember, you’re looking for anything to say that fits your vocabulary and allows you to use various verb tenses. So the past, even the distant past, is good for you.

5. Positive and negative. There is no rule that you must have positive opinions on everything. You can speak equally well against a subject. This is obvious on topics like crime, war, violence in general.

But it could also be about baseball, pets or little brothers. You don’t have to like something to be able to speak about it.

You should find that the options that arise in the interview allow you to express yourself on both sides of a subject [this is also true of examination essays, of course].

The point of this is to give you choices, ‘on the one hand I think this, but on the other hand….’ At the practical level this approach is valuable because it should give you twice as much to say.  And that is good for you.

You should, of course, listen to the other person carefully, not only to understand what they are saying but also to select ‘openings’, opportunities to take a point or subject on which you’re sure you have a lot of vocabulary. In this way, you can ‘lead’ the conversation to your favorite subjects.

6. Bringing it Home. As a general rule I believe you should take every opportunity to guide the conversation to areas that you personally know – or topics that help demonstrate your vocabulary.

It simply means turning the conversation to your advantage. What is to your advantage? Anything that helps you to show your command of English in a natural way.

I also use ‘Bringing it Home’ in a geographical sense. You know your own town or city better than any other, so any discussion about places or cities, urban problems etc should focus on where you live.

Maybe you think you love New York or Paris but if you try talking about them for three minutes you’ll probably run out of vocabulary: stay with what you know.

7. The Pause. In any interview or conversation you must allow the other person to speak. You must not be afraid that if you pause the person will hit you with a very difficult question. It isn’t like that.

If you have done your preparation there should be no surprises for you. You should try to give a complete answer to any question. For example, if you are asked about your University studies you can state your university, your subject, how many years the course lasts, what year you’re in, what grades you’re getting and how you are enjoying it.

After a full answer like that you can pause because your interviewer is almost certain to move to a new topic, e.g. your future etc.

Do not be tempted by the idea that you should say as little as possible in the hope of making fewer mistakes. This is a bad idea. If you give only one piece of information at a time in three or four words, your interviewer may need to ask more questions.

This is bad because it can quickly seem like an interrogation and this can create a negative and nervous atmosphere.

8. Volunteering. In an interview or test conversation it is not necessary for the student to wait for questions – you are allowed to volunteer information; this helps you to be natural and you will get points for it. If you see a natural opportunity you can contribute anything reasonably relevant –

‘I’ve never been in this part of town before.’

‘This is a lovely room, isn’t it?’

‘I like the paintings on the walls.’

‘It’s very quiet here, isn’t it?

‘This must be the coldest day of the year so far.’

You can contribute anything sensible PROVIDED you have the vocabulary; it helps to create a relaxed atmosphere. Do not speak quickly in an effort to show your fluency. In this exam, as in life, anyone who is worth talking to will give you time to speak. So take your time.

9. What time is it? If you have a good standard of English the main challenge for you is time or, more accurately, filling the time. Every sentence you speak uses up valuable seconds and takes you nearer to the end of the interview. But remember the marathon runner and take a steady speed. There is no hurry.

10. Two final points – try to look the other person in the eye most of the time; it really helps. Perhaps most important of all – SMILE sometimes! This is an exam, not an execution.

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Conversation Practice - Teacher and Student

By the way – have you read our article A Tale of Two Cities?