OK to ask for an interviewee?

November 15, 2010 11:41 PM

I'd love to find someone to interview for a class assignment (due Thursday), about problem solving in teaching English as a second/foreign language in a classroom. There seem to be a few experienced ESL teachers around here, and it would be awesome to be able to talk to one on the phone here in the US. Would it be appropriate to look for an interviewee via AskMe?

It's just a short, relatively informal paper, not a huge deal, but it would be very convenient to be able to find someone this way. I have a contact in a local elementary school, but scheduling is difficult and I'm not sure my interests lie that way.

There seem to be a lot of Korean students here in Durham/Chapel Hill NC, so I'd particularly like to find someone who's returned from teaching in Korea or another Asian country.

It doesn't really seem to fit AskMe, though. I figured I'd ask here just in case it was OK.

And, yes, it would be awesome if someone saw this post and was interested... I'll send you some Chapel Hill Toffee or some homemade cookies if you want! Or a copy of my "Natural America" trivia question activity card set!

posted by amtho to Etiquette/Policy at 11:41 PM (17 comments total)

Try posting this in Jobs?
posted by Phire at 11:52 PM on November 15, 2010

re-phrased perhaps an Askme.
-i have a class project
this what i need
what resources could you point me to.
posted by clavdivs at 11:59 PM on November 15, 2010

'this is' rather
posted by clavdivs at 12:00 AM on November 16, 2010

Why not quietly mefi-mail some of the commenters here?
posted by malibustacey9999 at 12:38 AM on November 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

You could always try posting it in Metatal...

oh.
posted by item at 12:38 AM on November 16, 2010 [5 favorites]

If you don't mind an email/chat kind of interview, you could memail me, or some such. I don't have much to do this evening, and I'll have some down time at school in the morning where I could answer follow up questions. EFL teacher in Japan, over 10 years experience, from conversation school to university level.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:30 AM on November 16, 2010

Like Ghidorah, I'm available if you're okay with a non-phone based conversation. I'm currently teaching in Korea and would be happy to help.
posted by Someone has just shot your horse! at 2:42 AM on November 16, 2010

Also in Korea
posted by timsteil at 5:13 AM on November 16, 2010

Thank you for the suggestions so far! I'll think seriously about contacting Ghidorah and Someone hjsyh -- an e-mail/chat interview would be OK (a while ago, I did try MeMailing two other teachers who had already returned to the US, but no response).

The focus of the interview is solving a classroom dynamics/classroom problem. I imagine the poster of last night's AskMe question about teaching in Korea has some of those - I considered e-mailing him, but actually solving any of his problems seems difficult since he hasn't described them very much, and he's only just starting himself. It may be that most teachers have to address something like this early on, often working to encourage more participation or investment in learning, particularly with Asian students but probably everywhere.
posted by amtho at 6:01 AM on November 16, 2010

Like Ghidorah, I'm available if you're okay with a non-phone based conversation.

I didn't see the other poster's username at first, and thought you were making a bizarre Japanese movie monster comparison.

"Like Gamera, I am a friend to children, but not all that good with power tools."
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:24 AM on November 16, 2010 [8 favorites]

This is one of those things that there's really not an easy way to do on MetaFilter. You're right, it's not okay for AskMe. Your best bet is to post it in Jobs and offer cookied.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:37 AM on November 16, 2010

offer to get someone cookied
posted by found missing at 9:28 AM on November 16, 2010

I thought the place to get cookied was Dictionary.com.
posted by hippybear at 12:14 PM on November 16, 2010

It's the lack of hands, Mr. Bad Example. It's hard to use a phone with no hands, and my heads are always fighting over who gets to wear the bluetooth thing. Migi always wants to wear it, and Hidari thinks they're stupid and gets angry at being made to look uncool, so we stick to voice recognition software. We were some of the earliest testers. I mean, why do you think it's called Dragon?
posted by Ghidorah at 1:50 PM on November 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

MeMail me - I teach in Poland.
posted by mdonley at 1:53 PM on November 16, 2010

check your MeMail.
posted by gursky at 4:31 PM on November 16, 2010

I've taught all over the place, incl. Korea - feel free to MeMail.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:45 AM on November 17, 2010