LAE

7735 – TeacherEd P-TIP 1

Prospective Teacher Interview Project (P-TIP)
Purpose:
As with other kinds of teaching, teacher preparation requires you to know your audience: to learn from
your students (in this case, prospective English teachers) how to teach them better. In this assignment,
you will interview a prospective English teacher about that person’s personal history, educational
background, interests, preferences, learning styles, and other characteristics that might help you to
plan for teaching future English teachers. In addition, this is an opportunity to practice English teacher
education research methods: generating and analyzing interview data.

Audience:
This assignment will generate interview data you can use to inform your teacher education pedagogy
and research. YOU are the primary audience for this work. However, OUR CLASS will also compile and
analyze the data you generate. So you may wish to prepare questions about what you would find most
interesting and useful as an English teacher educator/researcher.

Process:

1. Preparing questions
Please complete this step in preparation for class on 01/17. What questions would best help you to
learn from this person how to become a better teacher of prospective English teachers? You may wish
to consider the NCTE/CAEP standards for initial teacher preparation at
http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Groups/CEE/NCATE/ApprovedStandards_111212.pdf.
Please consider the following categories/examples as possibilities to adapt to your own interests:
WHERE/WHEN
• Where are you from? How old are you?
• Where did you go to school? What was it like?
• Where do you imagine yourself teaching? Why?
• When did you first know you wanted to be an English teacher?
WHO
• Who are key figures in your life that influenced your decision to become an English teacher?
• When you imagine an English teacher, whom do you see/hear?
• In the future, who would you like to teach? Why?
WHAT
• What were some key events that made you want to become an English teacher?
• When you imagine an English teacher, what is that person doing/saying?
• What does an English teacher need to know and do?
• What experiences would help you to learn to be an English teacher?
HOW
• How do you learn best?
• How do you know if students have learned something?
• How do you think someone learns how to teach?
• How do you know you’ve done a good job as a teacher?
WHY
• Why is English worth teaching?
• Why is teaching important?
• Why did you decide to become an English teacher?
• Why did you choose this path to becoming a teacher (vs. alternative certification)?
 LAE 7735 – TeacherEd P-TIP 2
2. Interview Protocol
Please identify a person you would like to interview for this project. This person should be a prospective
English teacher. If possible, choose someone who is neither a shining star nor a class clown, and
someone who is “unlike you.” Please arrange to conduct this interview:
• With permission to use these interview data for educational purposes only (“not for publishing,
just to help me learn how to be a better teacher of teachers”)
• With permission to record and to take notes
• With a copy of the questions in front of you
• With questions listed in a logical order
• Face-to-face or by phone/Skype/Zoom
• At a place/time when you and the person can talk for 30-60 minutes, uninterrupted, in a safe,
quiet space (i.e., not within earshot of others in the teacher’s lounge or the classroom)
• At a place/time when you can spend at least 10 minutes afterwards writing additional notes
while the experience is fresh
Please remember that an interview can be intimidating. What you ask and how you ask it can put the
person at ease or on their guard; this can have an impact on the quantity and quality of the data you
generate. Before the interview, please consider what you will do with your body and voice as you ask
questions and listen to the answers.

3. Interview Analysis
Please complete this step before class on 01/24:
• Immediately after the interview, please spend at least 10 minutes making notes about your
conversation. What, if anything, stood out to you about the content of the person’s answers?
What, if anything, stood out to you about how the person answered? What overall impressions
did you have?
• If you recorded the interview, please listen to it again at a time when you can review the
recording uninterrupted, starting and stopping to make notes about the answers
• As you listen to the interviewee’s responses
o What similarities/convergences do you notice?
o What differences/contradictions do you notice?
o How are this person’s experiences/preferences similar to your own?
o How are this person’s experiences/preferences different from your own?
o As you consider these similarities and differences together, what does it make you think?

4. Interview Synthesis
Together, in class, we will compare the responses to the questions you asked your interviewees. On
your own, please write a synthesis that includes the following parts:
• Beginning: Who is the person you interviewed? What basic information does a reader need to
know to understand what follows?
• Middle: What patterns did you find in the interviewee’s answers? What do they make you think
about teaching future teachers? For example:
o “One pattern I noticed across this person’s responses was…”
o “For example, this person said that…and….”
o “Based on this pattern, I think that as an English teacher educator I will…”
o “Another pattern I noticed in this person’s interview answers was…”
o …
• End: Based on the patterns you noted, please draw some conclusions about your future teaching
of prospective English teachers. What activities might this person enjoy and benefit from? Why?
 LAE 7735 – TeacherEd P-TIP 3

5. Lesson Planning
Based on your interview synthesis, please plan and annotate a lesson you would teach to
prospective English teachers. Please use the following format, or another that addresses the same
purposes:
• Objectives: What will they learn? (“Prospective teachers will…in order to…”)
• Materials: What will they need? (Books, tools, resources, handouts)
• Activities: What will they do? (Imagine a sequence of activities for a 50-min. class session)
• Assessment(s): How will you know if they learned something? (“I am looking for prospective
teachers to ______ “)
• Annotations: Why did you make this choice? (Using MS Word or Adobe Pro, please add
comments that link your interview analysis/synthesis to the choices you made in this lesson)
In place of standards, please consult the NCTE/CAEP standards for initial teacher preparation at
http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Groups/CEE/NCATE/ApprovedStandards_111212.pdf.

Rubric:

Criterion 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0
Process: Synthesis and annotated lesson plan emerge from the
author’s interview process materials, turned in with the assignment
draft
Aligned: Synthesis and annotated lesson plan clearly align with
standards in conclusions, assessments, lesson objectives and
activities
Scaffolded: Synthesis and annotated lesson plan clearly sequence in
a coherent fashion for a particular audience the lesson objectives,
activities, and assessment(s), based on prior info about prospective
teacher
Relevant: Synthesis and annotated lesson plan explicitly connect
content to learners’ needs and interests, based on prior info about
prospective teacher
Diverse: Synthesis and annotated lesson plan imagine a variety of
materials, activities, and assessments to elicit and address
information about learners’ diverse cultural/linguistic backgrounds,
ability levels, or learning styles.