Sample Job Interview Questions

Each interview will be unique and will reflect the type of institution you are interviewing with. Your first line of defense is to be well-informed about the institution, the department, and the degree options and courses offered in the department. Here are some tips and sample questions from me, other LPD's in German and from experiences other graduate students have had:

1. Be prepared to speak at length in German and in English and to be asked to go back and forth.
2. Above all, be able to clearly and succinctly describe your dissertation research and your research agenda going forward. In English as well as in German.
3. Look at the types of courses offered at the institution. If they tend toward literature survey courses, have some specific ideas of how you would structure a survey course in 18th, 19th and/or 20th century literature.
4. Under Useful Links, there is a document of mock interview questions related to teaching. Look through them and think about how you might answer them.
5. Have some very specific and concrete examples of what you have done in your teaching to facilitate learning - use of technology, field trips, ideas for getting students to talk, designing 'Lernstationen', etc.

Statement of Teaching Philosophy

As you begin to prepare for the academic job market, one of the first steps will be to refine your statement of teaching philosophy. Way back when you began your teaching in the German program, you explored questions about how students learn in general and how students learn a foreign language in particular. You may have even written a first version of your teaching philosophy. Now, as you refine your statement, draw on your own experiences - successes and failures - in the classroom to inform your statement and make it your own.

Your teaching statement should address your belief system about learning a foreign language, culture and literature in a university context. What role does the learner play as well as the instructor / professor in that learning. What goals and objectives drive your teaching. There are no mandatory 'buzz words' and there is no one way to teach. But you should consider learning as a critical activity and ultimately one that leads to autonomy. Finally, your teaching statement should be clear, elegant and specific enough to be convincing and worth reading. If possible, it should be kept to one page this early in your career, maximum two pages.

Start by reading one of the sites listed under 'Helpful Links' and reading samples from our discipline. Ask me or a trusted colleague to help with the editing.

Good luck!

Deborah