Planning your own interview lessons?

[MissPrimaryCrafts]

I don't want to come off as bitchy, but I'm a trainee and I'm in a FB group for trainees. Every day there are so many posts from people saying 'I have an interview, here's the task for the interview lesson, any ideas for what I should do?'

And I think, isn't the whole point for YOU to come up with the idea? Because the school wants to see your ideas, not someone else's? I know people want to get advice and do well in interview, and I understand for really tricky tasks (I know someone who was given 'science with a literacy base' which needs some unpacking) - but if you can't come up with an idea for an interview how are you going to do the job?

Does this frustrate anyone else?

I've never met anyone in English who thinks an interview lesson should be original and involve reinventing the wheel, mainly because a lot of what's good is out there and used regularly for being good. There's loads out there for English to be fair. It's why it's even more concerning if someone can't think of what to do and requires other people to do it for them. It's lazy or incompetent.

I've been trying to express my reservation in a way that transfers to Maths, but it's difficult. For science it might be comparable to "I've got an interview lesson on the human body, but I've no idea where to start. Someone tell me some body parts and send me your planning please". If they can't be bothered to read up enough on the human body for an interview lesson, are they likely to bother to make sure their subject knowledge is appropriate whilst teaching?

@LolaSmiles okay? So just because you have interview experience means you know the a-z of English lit and every single text taught at every level? I’m so confused.

Why does it frustrate you how people choose to approach their interview. The content varies from school to school. You can’t say you got to where you are without support or help. People just need help sometimes. It doesn’t mean they know nothing and don’t know how to teach. It means they’re probably just wondering what they should do. English is one of those subjects where finding a good poem to teach can be hard. Asking around about what others may have chosen to do helps a lot sometimes. It’s not hard to support others. All it
is, is bouncing ideas around to guide the person and being kind when someone’s most likely stressed over the whole process, but then, I’m sure you’ll tell me you have more life experience about that too though than I do lol!

[quote Watercress99]@LolaSmiles okay? So just because you have interview experience means you know the a-z of English lit and every single text taught at every level? I’m so confused.

Why does it frustrate you how people choose to approach their interview. The content varies from school to school. You can’t say you got to where you are without support or help. People just need help sometimes. It doesn’t mean they know nothing and don’t know how to teach. It means they’re probably just wondering what they should do. English is one of those subjects where finding a good poem to teach can be hard. Asking around about what others may have chosen to do helps a lot sometimes. It’s not hard to support others. All it
is, is bouncing ideas around to guide the person and being kind when someone’s most likely stressed over the whole process, but then, I’m sure you’ll tell me you have more life experience about that too though than I do lol! [/quote]
There is a difference between asking others what poems you should teach outright (because really, it should be something you know and like or you'll find being able to adapt to the class harder) and suggesting a couple that you know and like, then seeing if others agree that they are suitable. I'm assuming that you are so defensive because you are guilty of the former, which isn't unexpected for a trainee.

@LolaSmiles tbh I’m not ashamed to ask for help. I’ve never asked anyone online to plan and teach my lessons. I take it you skipped the training period of teaching? Did you just know everything? I’m sure you have ended up needing help from others to progress. There’s literally no shame in it.

The purpose of being a teacher is to teach. You can have the best ideas and poems planned for an interview with a snazzy ppt. But if you can’t teach it for shit then the lesson was a waste of time.

Helping people is literally free, costs me £0. They’re doing the teaching if I have lesson ideas etc or a poem I’ve used that fits the time they have I’ll tell people. I'm not planning anything for them. So I can’t see the issue.

Watercress99
You seem disproportionately annoyed by someone with more experience than your almost-completed training year sharing their experience of teaching and the impact of poor subject knowledge.

In fact, you're so defensive annoyed that you've written 2 replies to me in almost 3 hours in which you continue to think I need English teaching, the interview process, and teaching resources explaining, all with a healthy dose of missing the point.

I do like this though:
The purpose of being a teacher is to teach.

It is, and in order to teach well, teachers need decent subject knowledge that is appropriate for the students in front of them.

I have already said I have no problem with help and I don't see the point in teachers reinventing the wheel when it comes to resources.

I do believe that competent English teachers should be able to select a text that is age-appropriate, and it is concerning if someone genuinely has no idea where to start with that.

**defensive/annoyed

Why does it bother us how someone approaches an interview? Well, that’s because we are interviewing to see who would be a good fit for our department as much as anything. In our department we all share lessons. That’s (good) and common practice. However, we like to know that the person we are hiring can be a PART of that team- not just TAKING from the team. Which we have seen in the past and doesn’t lead to harmonious working conditions 😂

I do think there are a lot more trainees coming through these days who struggle with the basics of lesson planning. Maybe it is an issue with the training providers?

The best student teacher we ever had used our lessons as guidance to hone her practice. She was as far from lazy as you can get: but there’s a marked difference in using ideas to help you learn and using ideas to hide the fact you haven’t learnt. From an English teaching perspective, @LolaSmiles is spot on.

Also- your comment about it costing nothing to be nice and helpful is true. But you do realise that Lola has given you lots of support on your threads, don’t you? There is no need to be snappy back.