As an interactional genre, interview has a distinctive design, in which, typically, questions and answers are pre-allocated to interviewer and interviewee respectively. The interviewer in particular is interactionally obligated to take the initiative in the talk and facilitate the interviewee?s responses. Viewing these characteristics from a pedagogical perspective, the interviewer role provides an excellent practice opportunity for learners: the expected task is transparent in its value, yet it leaves room for individual creativity within it. Taking this into consideration, instead of the typical role assignment for the learners as interviewee, this study required them to take the role of interviewer in the target language.
A total of 20 students in a 4th year language class at the University of Hawai'i participated in this project. The instruction, which took a total of three hours over two weeks, highlighted how to insert a personal anecdote as a preliminary move (Schegloff, 1980) in the posing of a question to the interviewee, and how to display one?s involvement with the interviewee utilizing a range of listener responses.
Using authentic video/audio materials, the learners were first exposed to model performances of interviewers. Secondly they experienced a 'coached' (Walker & Noda, 2000), hands-on practice to carry out a simulation interview in class, giving them the opportunity to participate at least at the peripheral level (Lave & Wenger, 1991). After the instruction, the learners then performed the interviewer role in an interaction with the researcher.
Through conversation analysis-informed microanalysis of the interviews, I show that the set of interactional strategies aimed at in the instruction were integrated into the learners' performance. Students were successful interviewers who not only managed the interactional obligations but also simultaneously communicated at an interpersonal level, showing their development of interactional competence (Hall, 1995; Young, 1999; Young & Miller, 2004).