The Dreaded EPIK Interview: Questions, Tips and Other Resources!
If there's a million EPIK blogs and youtube channels, then there's surely an equal number of posts/videos about the interview. It's what people stress about the most, I think. So what's really up with the interview? What are some good questions to prepare for?
In general, these questions range from asking about your application, specifically about revising the lesson plan if there's anything of concern to questions about your personality and goals, to behavioral questions about classroom situations.
Interviews can be 15 minutes, 30 minutes or even 50 minutes (very rare--the person in question got into some good bants with their interviewer, so...don't plan on it being this long). They might ask only a couple of questions and then ask tangential questions related to your first answers for the rest of the interview. Some interviews might focus mostly on the lesson plan and personal essays rather than behavioral questions. '
They will certainly not ask all the questions listed below, maybe a few, and this isn't a comprehensive list. The general idea is to get to know you, see why you're interested in teaching ESL and how you'll be able to handle stress!
My Interview Experience
The interview started like 5 minutes late, and we had some technical difficulties. Apparently their power went out right before the interview time! Yikes. Luckily, very luckily, we didn't have to reschedule.
My interviewer was an American, and he seemed really nice. Like most interviews, we begun with answering some basic information and going over my application. He liked my personal essays, so we moved onto the lesson plan.
I had written my lesson plan over describing appearances, and a few of the questions and vocab I had centered on skin tone and weight. I was actually a little worried about putting this into my application, but I needed more vocab and I had actually watched a classroom video made by EPIK that included vocab over skin tone and weight, so I figured it would be fine. Turns out, not fine! No big deal though, my interviewer just asked me to take it out and add a bit more to fill the text boxes back up. Revising the lesson plan is totally normal at this stage.
Then we got into questions. He asked me a bit about myself, including what I knew about Korea and why I wanted to be a teacher. He also asked some classroom management questions, like how I would handle a disruptive student, a stubborn co-teacher or lower-level and high-level students. I felt I did okay on all of it, except he prompted me to come up with another solution for an answer. I was able to, but I felt shaky since I wasn't expecting that.
Keep in mind your interviewer might not turn on their webcam and they're in a call center. They might have trouble hearing you. I had to run and grab a headset--so yeah, I'm glad I was wearing pants.
My advice is:
Prepare answers, but don't memorize lines. You don't want to sound rehearsed.
Be able to expand on answers! I wasn't expecting my interviewer to ask me to give another answer at all, and I had to quickly think of a different solution on the spot. I think he was looking for how I react under pressure.
Try copying the questions below onto a paper and think about your answers, then write down a few keywords next to the question. Keep this by your side during the interview alongside your printed application to help you remember in case you go totally blank.
Always wear pants in Skype interviews!
If you get the post-interview sense of doom, don't panic. I've read so many blogs and so many of them talk about how they felt the interview went terrible, and they passed! So seriously, take a deep breath and focus your attention on the things that bring you comfort.
Questions:
Here's a list of the questions I prepared for.
Tell us a little about you
What is your teaching philosophy?
Why are you interested in teaching?
Why Korea?
Why Daejeon? (My preferred placement.)
What do you know about Korea?
What do you know about EPIK?
How do you deal with culture shock?
Why did you choose Korea instead of [x] country? (I minored in Italian and studied abroad in Rome, so I was prepared to answer why Korea instead of Italy.)
Why have you chosen to pursue a teaching job in Korea?
What would you say are the top qualities in a teacher?
How would you motivate students?
How would you promote classroom management?
What are your strengths/weaknesses?
How would you handle students of different levels?
How do you go about making lesson plans? What is important and how do you decide what goes in a lesson?
What happens if you have a difficult student/need to discipline a student?
What would you do if students are speaking in Korean and not English?
What would you do if you and your co-teacher disagreed? How would you handle it if your co-teacher was absent/difficult/mean?
How would you handle it if your co-teacher was making an error in English? (How) Would you correct them?
What's your 3-5 year plan?
What would you teach Koreans about the U.S.?
How is the U.S. different from Korea? How would you teach that to your students?
Special Questions -- I was asked neither of these, and didn't even prepare for the second one, but I would DEFINITELY try to have something on hand because if you do get asked, these are hard to think up on the spot.
In 1-2 minutes, teach me something I don't know.
Introduce yourself in Korean.
Other Helpful Resources:
A video by SlayAllDay with some recent, general behavioral tips.
A list of questions I pulled from when preparing.