PwC Employability E-learn Interview script - Emma

Podcast – Learning from self and others:

Candidate: Emma

Listen option C:

Interviewer: Tell me about a time when you've learnt something from feedback you've received from a colleague or friend or someone else you know

Okay right well, I’ve just got back actually from teaching English to children in South America  and whilst I was there one of the girls gave me feedback that me teaching style was a bit formal – we had a  peer review system and I was observed by my friend, Anita who was also on the volunteer programme with me. I can see now where she was coming from….I didn’t really have many activities for the children in that lesson so; I guess it just came across like me just talking at them for an hour. I mean they were only about 7 or 8 years old so it would’ve been quite a long lesson for them – and in hindsight, I was struggling to hold some of their attention. She said it would be good to use some interactive tools as she’d seen a real difference in the learning and level of engagement by her class when she used them.

Erm and this was great feedback for me….. (Enthusiastically) I really really wanted the children to enjoy being in me class and listen to what I was saying so I asked Anita if she had any ideas to help me change my style up a bit. She mentioned a few things that she’d done for her class…. like using cards with pictures as part of a game. So, I asked if I could watch her lesson that afternoon to get some ideas to help me.

And I am really glad I went to Anita’s class; I could see the children were a lot more energised with the lesson and it really did look like a lot of fun. So I created some new lesson plans…..I added a few activities like matching words to pictures…..doing role plays with new words, you know that sort of thing, just to break down the lessons a bit.

Interviewer: What did you learn?

Well, I learnt that I needed to adjust my teaching style to suit the children. You know it was a big learning point for me early on in my placement as I realised that there’s different ways to reach a goal and that I don’t need to do things a certain way you know to get there. Anita’s feedback really helped me see how I could change my style….she made me more aware of how much of a difference it could make to the students. Plus the students loved the new lessons! I saw the difference straight away, they were picking up the new words a lot faster and I could see that they made a lot more sense to them now as they were using them in the right context….. Anita came to watch my lesson with the role play game and she was really impressed with  it and, in fact, she actually asked  to use it in her lesson in her class too so that was nice to hear! She said my style was more relaxed now as I was interacting with the students more so you know I’d definitely taken on board her feedback.