Looking back at the years of teaching writing to English learners, I recall some projects that kids and I truly enjoyed. I want to share this one. Ms. Burtt, a first-year teacher at the time, came up with this brilliant idea. We both taught Practical Writing for ELs, so we planned our lessons together.
In our ESOL 2 (English II) class, we happened to read a text about the obnoxious behavior some parents displayed during their kids’ sporting events. The article mentioned a college recruiter who wouldn’t draft a player because of their misbehaving parents. WHAT? My students were intrigued! The text turned out to be interesting and compelling! The kids kept talking about it! So, we decided to ride that wave of enthusiasm just a bit longer! We had students interview our campus coaches about the topic!
Here is the sum-up of the project with the language domain connections:
- Read a high-interest text (READING)
- Prepare interview questions (WRITING)
- Interview an expert (READING and LISTENING)
- Transcribe the interview in writing (LISTENING and WRITING)
- Summarize the interview in writing (WRITING) (pick a grammar point to focus on)
- Share the sum-up orally with the class. (SPEAKING)
High-interest Text
I cannot find that wonderfully accessible one-pager from Edge that we used. So, here is a link to a text on this topic (you only need a tiny part of it to read in class.) My text included elements of an interview — the genre we were studying– but you can find the text that suits your needs. I am a passionate believer in curriculum and textbooks for ESL classrooms, and the Edge textbook was a wonderful resource with plenty of high-interest texts!
Write the questions for the interview
I had students brainstorm and record 5-7 questions to ask a coach about sportsmanship, the role of parents in the life of an athlete, behavior at the games, etc. Share this tip with the students: if you ask a coach to describe a specific experience, you will have a more detailed response! There should be no Yes/No questions. The students submitted the questions for a daily grade. I did check the questions thoroughly because the kids needed an error-free final draft to rehearse for the interview.
Sample Questions:
What can parents do to support an athlete?
How can parents promote sportsmanship during the games?
Do you think parents’ beliefs and behaviors affect young athletes? Can you give an example?
What should parents never do during sporting events?
How can parents support a young athlete at home and during the games?
Tip: If a student missed the first two steps of the process (life happens), I gave them those questions and sent them to do an interview.
Request an interview
The kids had to approach a coach and request an interview.
The students practiced saying the request, but they also had a printed text in front of them just in case.
Hi, my name is_______. I need to interview a coach for Ms. Heckman’s class. Will you please answer a few questions? It may take up to 10 mins. I will be recording your answers on my phone. I will transcribe the interview for my writing assignment. Here are the questions I have prepared.
The kids gave me the name of the coach they wanted to interview. It was critical to let the coach know about the upcoming request to confirm that everyone was on board! Our coaches were awesome and supportive! If the students didn’t know any coaches, I found one for them, but it was the last resort because I didn’t want to overwhelm the same teacher with multiple requests.
I thanked the coaches in advance and confirmed the information to create their hall passes.
Coach___!
Thank you for participating in the interview!
My students are learning English, and this is a great opportunity for them to practice asking questions! The students will use your responses to complete a written report. Please answer their questions with some detail. Please speak at a natural pace. You do not need to slow down or simplify the language.
I really appreciate your help!
Conduct the interview
I let the students out with a pass during my class or they conducted the interview on their own time. The kids were visibly excited about the entire experience! They wanted me to hear them read the questions over and over.
They were also pumped when they returned. “Miss, I got it! Do you want to listen to it?”
Transcribe the interview
Students will ask you to listen to the parts they don’t understand, and although at first, I was helping, very soon I realized that there was a better way. I told the kids to play the confusing part to at least 3 classmates before asking me for help.
ASK THREE BEFORE YOU ASK ME!
It took an entire period to transcribe the interviews. It was a chance for students to train their ears, focus on listening, and get some words on paper. Transcribing the interview was a daily grade. I did have to help the low-intermediate students, but the majority of them did fine on their own. Remember that you cannot grade the transcription on sentence quality or punctuation. Students transcribed what the coach said verbatim. We heard fragments and pauses, and it was authentic and natural! Even coaches pause to think! It is natural to search for words sometimes! I did want the words to be spelled correctly, and that took time- I had the kids check the spelling.
Write a detailed summary
The students converted their interview transcripts into a detailed summary. That was the part where I expected the degree of accuracy and sentence quality. Our grammar point was indirect (reported) speech.
I taught a short lesson over reported speech from the textbook Grammar and Beyond (I described this resource here) and gave the kids sentence stems. Students glued these into the notebook but they did not have to use all of them in their summary. The summary was a major grade for us.
said that ____
stated that____
made it clear that _____
agreed that ____
confirmed that _____
suggested that ____
recalled ________
described the incident when_____
emphasized the importance of ______
Here are some more ideas in the word bank below:
Classroom Presentations
Students summarized their interview as a 4-5 sentence paragraph and were ready to share it orally with the whole class. We used a paragraph frame similar to the one below. The rest of the students were to write at least one question to the presenter and be ready to ask it. The presenters were excited to call on some classmates and answer their questions.
I interviewed _____________
The coach shared about _________________
Some valuable takeaways are __________
The most interesting part of the interview was______
The most surprising part of the interview was____
Grading
Depending on students’ language level, the entire project may take between 1-2 weeks. There is no expectation of spontaneous language production during any of the steps. You would have to help your low-intermediate students with transcription and summarization. Every part of the process is scaffolded, so learners of all language levels can be successful. Most importantly the kids feel empowered after interviewing the coach! They were also engaged in tasks that were fun and productive. It’s a student-driven project and I hope it brings joy to your writing instruction!
| Write questions for the interview | Conduct an interview | Transcribe the interview | Summarize the interview | Oral presentation |
| Daily (completion) | Daily (completion) | Daily (completion) | MajorMay take several drafts | Daily Rubric |