About this activity
Eight planning tasks to do before an interview rather than during one: which questions are you most afraid of stuttering on, list three; write your disclosure sentence; where will you plan a pause in your tell me about yourself; which tool comes first — easy onset, light contact, or pull-out; what will you do if you block for five seconds mid-answer. An interview is the highest-pressure speaking task most teenagers face, and improvising a plan inside it does not work.
How to use it in a session
Write the disclosure sentence down and rehearse it until it is automatic. It is the single highest-value item here, because it changes what the interviewer makes of every pause that follows. The say a hard word instead of switching card is the one that matters most for the student's own sense of the interview — an answer given with a stutter is better than a different answer given fluently, and deciding that in advance is much easier than deciding it under pressure.
What to listen for
Listen for the plan surviving the practice. A student who has a tool chosen and abandons it on the first hard question has a plan and not a habit. Notice what they say they will do about a five-second block — students who have no answer to that question tend to avoid the interview altogether, and having any answer changes the calculation.
Carrying it home
Ask an adult outside the family to run a mock interview. A parent asking these questions is useful once; someone the student does not know is much closer to the real pressure, and the difference is the whole point.
Questions
- Should the student disclose that they stutter?
- It is their decision, and worth discussing rather than deciding for them. A disclosure sentence is on the board so the option is ready and fast, not so that it is required.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all eight tasks are free to use here.
- What ages is this for?
- Ninth through twelfth grade, aligned with transition and vocational goals.