Developing EFL Learners

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Developing EFL Learners Job Interview Skills
Through Autonomous Learning

• Kentei Takaya

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Junior Conversation Composition Class

• Job Interview Task
• 5 weeks of preparation
• Job Interview Exam

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Objectives

• To help the learners become competitive in
  todays job market
• To develop the learners competence and
  performance regarding their job interview skills

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Competence v.s. Performance

• Competence Linguistic knowledge
• Performance Language production
• 
  
• 
  (Chomsky, 1965)

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Why AL for developing job interview skills?

• To identify learners weaknesses
• To make learners control their own learning
• To facilitate peer learning
• To enable learners to monitor their own learning

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Procedure

• Searching for interview questions
• Practicing in pairs in outside class
• Writing journals

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Identifying Weaknesses

• In the first place, when I was interviewed, I
  didnt know how to answer questions and spent too
  much time in figuring out the question itself as
  well as finding out the way to answer the
  question as properly as possible. Thus, I was a
  little bit confused and frustrated after going
  through the first-time practice. I had never
  thought it would be difficult for me to have a
  job interview.

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Identifying Weaknesses

• I answered the self-introduction question
  easily, and I was able to articulate my dreams
  and motivation. Listing my experiences and skills
  wasn't too difficult either. But the "why"
  questions were much harder. "Why do you want to
  apply for this job?" and "Why should we hire
  you?"

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Identifying Weaknesses

• I think that my mouth is too lazy no matter I
  am speaking Chinese or English. That makes my
  intonation and pronunciation much more unclear.

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Identifying Weaknesses

• I find that I have difficulty finding the
  proper terms to deliver myself which in turn
  makes me use lots of tedious words during the
  interview

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Controlling learners own learning

• I thought its the best part in the interview
  practice because I could find out what I didnt
  consider about and tested my ability of
  contingencies as well. Then, I would search some
  useful information on the Internet after the
  practice, so I could have a better idea. I found
  out that it did work because I could think faster
  and answered in long sentences when the second
  time I practiced with my partner.

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Controlling learners own learning

• I gave my partner the questions I found on the
  Internet while practicing. Some of the questions
  were hard to answer. Take one for example. A
  mother asked you for some painkiller, what would
  you do? At first, I feel that the flight attend
  cannot offer medicine. However, after reading
  Qatari flight attendants blog, flight attendants
  do offer medicines. The medicines are in the
  basic first aid kit.

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Controlling learners own learning

• Through the process of preparation, ones
  mind gets clearer while new ideas come up at the
  same time. I am not a person who is used to
  memorize what has already been written down.
  However, as experiences of practicing job
  interviews accumulate, I realize its essential
  to memorize things in certain cases. By memorize
  I dont mean memorize things word by word.
  Instead, one must be flexible and objective when
  memorizing. In this way, one can see the flaws
  and adjust properly.

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Facilitate peer learning

• My partner is very responsible that she will
  help me to get a better answer, and so do I. I
  will also think about the answers of her
  questions when I ask her and do my best to give
  her some suggestions. I think we should all help
  each other to earn what we want.

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Monitoring Progress

• Mostly, my reply to the questions would be too
  short. It would be better if I elaborate a little
  more.

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Monitoring Progress

• After many time practices, almost all the
  questions have been asked already. Therefore, we
  decide to ask and answer previous questions
  again. Surprisingly, I find out that although we
  answered those familiar questions before, we
  still hesitate about some of questions. I think
  it shows that we are not fully prepared.
  Therefore, I think I should do more work and get
  the information together.

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Monitoring Progress

• This time we focused on our previous questions
  since we wanted to know whether we have improved
  after many times of interview. As usual, we
  started our interview by asking each other to
  introduce ourselves within one minutes. To be
  honest, it was quite boring for repeating the
  same questions over and over again. However, I
  did find out that we were very skillful which is
  really good news to us.

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Conclusion

• Autonomous learning enabled learners
• To identify their weaknesses
• To control their learning
• To facilitate peer learning
• To monitor their learning