When students interview their teacher

Last week I gave my English students the luxury of preparing questions they would like to ask me in a one-on-one personal interview.

This was designed as a means to explore students creativity, writing, reading and speaking skills. It was also intended to give them a confidence boost.

As it turns out, they didn't really need that lift in confidence, as I answered a whole range of questions from silly, to obvious, to hilarious!

Here I'll share with you some of the more notable questions I was asked, and by whom, along with the answers I gave:

To kick off the analysis of the interviews with Mr. Duncan, I want to share this question asked by a young Shuen Lin: 

"Do you like to speak English?"

My response was a "yes" since English is the only language I can indeed speak! I have no option but to like it!

Another similar question with an obvious answer came from Marcus:

"Do you have a toilet in your house?"

I sure do, Marcus. My students, particularly the younger ones, use it often!

Meanwhile, Seng Fong asked me the criminal question, 

"Which daughter is your favourite?"

As you can imagine, this question is impossible to answer other than "I love them both equally."

Kghartie seemed to be giving me a general knowledge test with these two questions:

"Is Pluto a planet?" and 

"Where is the world's driest and hottest deserts located?"

I answered him that Pluto is not a planet, but used to be. Now it's just one of many thousands of similar 'rocks' floating around in that region of space.

Regarding the deserts question, I honestly didn't know, so we did a quick Google search to discover that the Atacama desert in Chile is the world's driest, as it gets just 4 inches of rain in a thousand years while the Lut desert in Iran is the hottest in the world with a recorded temperature of 70.7C!

Mastermind quiz over, here are some more funny questions:

Adam and Brandon wanted to know, (and I'm not sure why!):

"What is your favourite underwear?" and

"What colour is your underwear?"

For those who are interested, I answered 'Superman' and 'white' respectively!

Xiang Qiao: "How many fingers do you have?"

Me: "Is that a trick question? I have 8 fingers, and 2 thumbs!"

Cindy: "What is the thing you like the most about Malaysia?"

Me: "Good weather, good food and good people."

Cassy: "What present did you give to your wife on her birthday this year?"

Me: "An ipad mini."

Muiz: "What is your favourite sport besides football and tennis?" (He knows my sporting preferences well!)

Me: "Formula 1 racing."

Xiang Meng: "Why do you love Man. Utd?"

Me: "They were the first team I ever saw play football way back when I was in primary school. Oh yeah, they are the best too!"

Ser Han: "What is your ambition?"

Me: "To be a famous English teacher."

Jen Yee: "Why did you come here?"

Me: "Because I fell in love with Fidelia!"

Sheng Wey: "What cartoon do you like to watch?"

Me: "Special Agent Oso."

Shafiqah: "Who is the person who inspired you?"

This question made me think. A lot. Eventually I answered "my mum."

Kelly: "What do you think of your Wednesday adult class?" (Kelly belongs in that very class!)

Me: "It's a good class, lots of fun, but they also do all the work I present to them."

Pui Wan: "Where did you get the idea to name your daughters Lauren and Leah?"

Me: "There was a nice girl at my high school called Lauren. She seemed to be different to everyone else and had straight, black hair. I very quietly admired her though I never spoke to her. But I remembered her name. With Leah, we wanted it to begin with "L" like Lauren, and we experimented with many different names. We just liked Leah the best."

To finish off this post, here is a selection of the more amusing questions:

Marilyn: "Why did you marry your wife?"

Let me think . . . you know what? I fell in love with her!

Yu Chen: "How do you prank your hometown friends?"

I mentioned the story of camping with a large group of friends. We went into someone else's tent at 3am and put toothpaste on this boy's eyebrows while he was asleep. It was a killer to get off in the morning!

Irfan: "What are you talking about?"

Well, I had to laugh at that question. I told him I was trying to answer his questions!

Ye Hao: "Do you like Barbie dolls?"

Me: "No." But I probably should have said 'yes' as I play Barbie dolls with Lauren from time to time!

Kelly: "What is your average monthly income?"

Me: "That's confidential!"

Theresa: "Why do you cut your hair?"

Me: "To keep myself cool, and light, and it's easier to maintain."

Sook Chia: "How many girlfriends did you have in college?"

This answer actually included 2 girlfriends in primary school and 3 in secondary school (though two of them lasted no longer than a couple of weeks). So I answered '5, and not at the same time!'

So that wraps up my students interviews. If you don't see your name or your child's name in this post, it probably means you or your child asked me very good and proper interview questions. Not too crazy, not too funny, not too obvious. But hey, I enjoyed answering every single one of them!

Congratulations to my students for successfully participating in a very good exercise!