About this activity
Eight tasks that point articulation carryover at an interview: say your full name and the position you are applying for; answer tell me about yourself in thirty monitored seconds; state your availability out loud in days and hours; say three words from the job description clearly; record the whole practice interview and rate your own clarity. Carryover work usually stops at conversation, and an interview is harder than conversation in every dimension.
How to use it in a session
Record. The self-rating card is the point of the board — a student who hears their own practice interview learns more in three minutes than in a session of feedback, and the recording removes the argument about whether it was clear. Start with the name and position, which is short and high-stakes, and build up to the thirty-second answer. Twenty minutes covers a full run with a recording and a review.
What to listen for
Listen for clarity dropping as the answer lengthens. Most students are clear for a sentence and lose monitoring by the third, and the thirty-second answer is deliberately long enough to show that. Watch the job description words, which are unfamiliar and often long — a student who is clear on rehearsed material and unclear on the vocabulary of the actual job has a specific and fixable gap.
Carrying it home
Ask the student to record one thirty-second answer on a phone and listen back before showing anyone. The listening back is the intervention, and it works without any adult judgement attached.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Ninth through twelfth grade, for students with a residual articulation target heading into work.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all eight tasks are free to use.
- Why interviews specifically?
- Because the stakes are concrete and the listener is a stranger with no context. A residual error that friends and teachers have adapted to is fully exposed in an interview, which makes it the situation worth preparing for.