Robert adds another interview topic to our list of interview activities. This time it’s pets. Of course, this may be an activity we all do, but it needs to be categorized for reference. So thank you Robert for this description, offered here first back in 2015 :
Students were divided into three groups. Each group had a white board. On one side was written “Ja”, and on the other side was “Nein”. Then I asked yes/no questions. The student being interviewed sat still when first asked. Then the groups had to decide if the answer was going to be yes or no and hold up the corresponding side of the white board. Then I asked again, and the student answered.
I used pictures of animals so I wouldn’t have to translate anything unusual and asked about some outrageous animals: elephant? rhinoceros? shark? as well as some “normal” pets. Students were very involved, and it helped that in one class the student had two dogs and two rats. Between yes/no questions I followed up with questions about how big, color, name, etc. In the other class the student had 11 bearded dragons and two dogs. Once we had gotten through them, I invited students to write on a piece of paper what pets they would like to have. Then we played the game as if they already had those pets. (Writing them down was just to keep the interviewee honest.) My first student had a family of gorillas that wanted to kill him. (Can we say “knows how to play the game”?)
We will continue the game this coming week. Later we will change the questions. The two original interviewees (one in each section) were quiet students who were very relieved when I told them they couldn’t say anything except yes/no – and then they started volunteering more information as we found out about their pets.