Conferences and interviews

Nur Rahayu M
 Conferences

 As a standard part of the process approach to

teaching writing
 Conferences are not limited to drafts of written
work
 The list of possible functions and subject
matter for conferencing :
 Commenting on drafts of essays and reports
 Reviewing portfolios
 Responding to journals
 Advising on a students plan for an oral presentation
 Assessing a proposal for a project
 Giving feedback on the results of performance on a test
 Clarifying understanding of a reading
 Focusing on aspects of oral producion
 Checking a students self-assessment of a performance
 Setting personal goals for the near future
 Assessing general progress in a course
 Genesee and Upshur (1996,p. 110) generic
kinds of questions that may be useful to pose
in a conference :
 What did you like about this work?
 What do you think you did well?
 How does it show improvement from previous
work? can you show me improvement?
 Did you have any difficulties with this piece of
work? If so, where and what did you do (will you
do) to overcome them?
 interview
 This term is intended to denote a context in
which a teacher interviews a student for a
designated assessment purpose.
 Interviews may have one or more of
several possible goals in which the teacher
 Assesses the students oral production
 Ascertains a students needs before designing a
course or curriculum
 Seeks to discover a students learning styles and
preferences
 Asks a student to assess his or her own
performance, and
 Requests an evaluation of a course
 The guidelines that can help to
frame the questions efficiently:
 Offer an initial atmosphere of warmth and anxiety-lowering
(warm-up)
 Begin with relatively simple questions
 Continue with level-check and probe questions but adapt to
the interviewee as needed
 Frame questions simply and directly
 Focus on only one factor for each question. Do not combine
several objectives in the same question
 Be prepared to repeat or reframe questions that are not
understood
 Wind down with friendly and reassuring closing comments