Interview Feedback
28/05/
1.) Shahim Shahriari (Level 6)
Shahim started well with a detailed, yet natural-sounding introduction of herself and her family. Her listening skills are good, although she did misunderstand my question of whether or not obesity is a big problem in Iran, and she self-corrected some of her tense errors. She would benefit from spending some time practising her prepositions as she made a few mistakes in this area and must make sure not to forget the main verb in her sentence e.g., ‘In the past, I used (to eat) a lot of fast food’.
2.) Parvin Basatandaz (Level 6)
Parvin started well but became quite nervous and stumbled over what she was saying when it became more difficult to answer my questions using her own opinion rather than a practiced response. Her pronunciation is fine and her use of articles, subject verb agreements and prepositions were generally very accurate. Going forward, Parvin should spend some time on revising her sentence structure which would gove her more confidence when trying to express her ideas. She must also be aware of mixing up her nouns and adjectives.
3.) Mohammad Bagher Maleknia (Level 6)
Mohammad spoke very clearly and concisely throughout the interview and clearly pays a lot of attention to accuracy. He used some really natural-sounding phrases such as ‘I’m crazy about...’ and ‘I’m a real fan of...’ which sounded great and some advanced vocabulary which together, added to his fluency. In order to further improve his fluency, Mohammad should try to practise the use of prepositions which is difficult to perfect but having the ability to use them accurately is very beneficial.
4.) Somayeh Mahmoodi (Level 6)
Somayeh’s pronunciation is good and she both listened and spoke confidently, with no repetition of my question in her answer. She possesses a nice mixture of vocabulary and was able to use a number of verbs for the same purpose such as ‘ I advise...’ and ‘I suggest...’ which adds a good variety to her speech. One area in which Somayeh could improve is her ability to correctly differentiate between nouns and adjectives, with which she made some mistakes in the interview. She must also remember not to use the use a definitive article with ‘people’ when talking in generalities e.g., ‘The people like fast food because...’.
5.) Maryam Farhadi (Level 6)
Maryam understood my questions well, although I did have to rephrase my question of her least favourite colours, and she provided examples in order to expand her answers, which is good to see. She also self-corrected a present/past simple mistake and included some helpful phrases correctly. Maryam must be careful not to mix up her nouns and adjectives and needs to remember that when referring to dates, she must try and use the Gregorian calendar.
6.) Leila Safari (Level 6)
Leila’s interview was interrupted more than once by problems with the internet connection which may have affected her grade slightly. Despite this, she used some good, topic-specific vocabulary and useful, pre-learned phrases during the interview to help her express her ideas but she would benefit from more standard answers at this point as she is not able to structure sentences without difficulty. Working on sentence structure should be her first priority. She must also be careful not to include the verb ‘to be’ in sentences unnecessarily.
7.) Amir Fasilat (Level 6)
Amir’s pronunciation is good and he is both a confident listener and speaker with good skills in both of these areas. He has a good range of vocabulary which allows him a high level of fluency. The area in which Amir regularly made mistakes was his confusion of nouns and adjectives which is frequently done by language learners but affects overall fluency and accuracy dramatically. It would help Amir to be aware of this when he is speaking and to learn, or revise, the word-endings that can help you identify whether a word is a verb, noun, adjective or adverb e.g –ly = adverb, -sion = noun, -ious = adjective, etc.
8.) Abdolrasoul Salehi Afroz (Level 6)
Abdolrasoul’s pronunciation is fine and he has a large amount of topic-specific vocabulary which he used well. He also clarified before answering a question he was not sure about which is the correct thing to do. Unfortunately, however, Abdolrasoul repeatedly made the mistake of incorrectly including the verb ‘to be’ in his present simple which is a common mistake in beginners but he should not really be making this mistake at level 6. He must also remember the necessity of adding ‘-s’ to the end of nouns when using plurals. These two areas should be his main points of focus over the next period of study as they are having an effect on his fluency and will prevent him from advancing to the next level if they continue.
9.) Gholam Reza Mansori (Level 6)
Gholam’s listening skills are generally quite good, although he did not understand a couple of my questions. He tried very hard to provide detailed answers but was held back by a lack of awareness of sentence structure and so became hesitant and provided broken speech instead. Spending some time becoming more familiar with sentence structure should be his first priority as understanding it better would give him the freedom to express himself in the detail he clearly wants to. In the meantime, learning and implementing some fixed phrases and responses will help him provide answers with less hesitation.
10.) Farid Bostani (Level 6)
Farid Bostani was able to understand my questions without difficulty and his pronunciation was good. Unfortunately however, his answers were very short and there was no real attempt to expand them, even when pushed. This may be a result of nerves and the desire to provide a quick answer and move onto the next question but in a situation like this Farid needs to be pushing himself to develop his answers and show the examiner what he is capable of. He lost marks today because he didn’t do that.
11.) Hosin Ziyari (Level 6)
Hosin’s pronunciation is fine and he both listened to and answered my questions well. He expanded his answers confidently without encouragement and included some unusual but effective phrases when discussing the role of art in his life. An area in which Hosin made a couple of mistakes was in his use of prepositions. Although these are difficult things to use correctly, improving his use of them would really add to the language skills he already possesses.
12.) Shahrzad Rasekh (Level 6)
Shahrzad’s pronunciation is very good; as was her use of prepositions, articles and subject verb agreements. She included a number of pre-learned, key phrases which worked well but also has a good enough understanding of sentence structure to be able to form her own sentences as she thinks of them. In order to keep improving, Shahrzad could look to try and include some more complex grammatical forms in her speech, for example and conditional or perfect.
13.) Saharnaz Sepehr (Level 6)
Saharnaz’s interview was cut short and repeatedly interrupted but she did very well and maintained a level of confidence throughout. She understood my questions well and was able to provide detailed and interesting answers using a variety of expressions. Of the few mistakes made by Saharnaz, a couple centred around her use of the verb to be which was sometimes forgotten. This is easily remedied by a little more concentration. She should also be aware of the difference between ‘I associate pink with...’ and ‘pink is associated with...’.