About this activity
Eight phrases for a first interview: Thank you for meeting with me. I'm interested in this position. I have experience with customer service. I use a device to speak — give me a moment to answer. Can you tell me about the schedule? What are the next steps? That fourth phrase does more than the other seven combined, because it tells the interviewer what the pauses mean.
How to use it in a session
Pre-store everything and then practise the timing. An interview is a series of questions with a socially expected response window, and the whole task is getting inside it. Run mock interviews with someone the student has not met, and let the silences sit — an interviewer who fills them is the realistic case, and I'm available after 3 p.m. on weekdays needs to arrive while the question is still live. Finish with I'd like to follow up by email, which converts a hard live exchange into a medium the student controls.
What to listen for
Watch what happens after a question the student has no stored answer for. The recoverable outcome is a disclosure phrase and a slow answer; the unrecoverable one is silence that the interviewer reads as no answer. Notice whether the student uses the device introduction early rather than after the first awkward pause — early changes the whole interview.
Carrying it home
Practise with adults outside the family who will behave like strangers. A parent asking interview questions is useful once; a neighbour or a family friend asking them is closer to the real thing, and the difference in pressure is the point.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Ninth through twelfth, aligned with transition and vocational goals.
- Do I need an account?
- No, it plays free in the browser. An account is only for assigning it or scoring it toward a goal.
- Should the student disclose device use up front?
- That is the student's decision, and worth discussing rather than deciding for them. The phrase is on the board so the option is available and fast, not so it is mandatory.