Speaker
Description
In ELT, interviews are powerful tools for qualitative researchers to uncover insights, understand experiences, and explore pedagogical practices. As a novice researcher on my journey of doing my master thesis, I use an autoethnographic research methods to investigate the roles of interviews in ELT studies. My presentation includes three parts: immersion, challenges, and implications. In the first part, I will reflect on my immersion into over 70 top journal articles and book chapters from well-established publishers about using interview instruments in doing research in social sciences, especially ELT. Those scholarly works illuminate interview techniques, emphasizing rapport-building, active listening, the art of probing for deeper insights, and so on. By synthezing diverse perspectives, I seek to enrich my understanding of interview dynamics. In the second part, I will discuss some practical challenges before, during, and after doing interviews, such as participant recruitment, doing piloting interviews, relationships between interviewees and interviewers, and so on. In the final part, I will share my experience-based advice to other novice researchers, such as how to establish rapport with interviewees, how to manage the transition from the body of literature to the practical interviews. In conclusion, my autoethnography raises my voice about the importance of doing interviews in ELT and informs future studies using qualitative data instruments.
