Olga Marchenko wrote:
> Dear Tane,
> unfortunatelly, I missed the moment in comversation and have found your
> letter a liitle late.
> The biblios you have cited are interesting for me since I have callected the
> data on different techniques of interviewings. It is obvious that technique
> is determined by the goul of investigations, context of situation of
> interviewing, specialty of subject and so on, but to teach students how to
> be observant in interveiwing,
> what verbal and non-verbal factors shoud or can be under control I collect
> bright examples if utilizing the interviews in different settings. My the
> last super-prise was the meeting with a historian of Russian fashion abroud
> who lives in Paris and had gathered incrediably huge volume of brilliant
> data and published the book (rara avis) interviewing Russian emigrantes of
> all the waves. Between different factors that he tried took in account
> preraring and condacting interviews he underlined special language and fair
> mannerism of Russian emigrants in Paris.
> What are the most important factors when psychologist or teacher conduct the
> interview with deaf kids or adoults?
My experience is that one must always be on the lookout for the polite nod and
smile, which ironically usually indicates that the interviewee has NO IDEA what
you are talking about. There is little difference between that nod and smile
and the nod/smile that indicates that they are indeed following you, and I have
found the best way to check on this is to ask a wh-question (who, what, where,
how, why) and see if you get a "yes" for an answer.
Having said that, of course, it is very important that the interviewer be able
to truly communicate with the interviewee. This is more than language technique
(what form of signed language, what form of spoken language), but also how well
both the interviewer and interviewee can handle abrupt changes in register,
style, etc.
A third factor is that, especially with children (although I have had this
difficulty when working with a few adults as well), the particular words/signs
that they choose may not have the same meaning for us as for them. One extreme
example: one child reported that another older child had exposed his private
parts to her. Without asking leading questions (a very difficult thing to do
with young deaf children) the story eventually came out that the older child
noticed that his pants zipper was down and zipped his pants up in full view of
other people, and she happened to see this. Now that is not the most delicate
thing he could have done, but he certainly did not expose himself! Imagine
calling in the police if we had just gone with the initial impression.
So, I would seem to be in agreement with others that the style and language of
the interview is important, and that one must be familiar with the "quirks" of
one's own language and those of the interviewee as well to be on the alert for
possible misunderstandings.
> May I ask you kindly to send me the article if you have?
I will send you the Akamatsu & Musselman chapter. That seems the closest to
your interests. As a preview, it deals with interviewing a sample of deaf
adolescents under each of three conditions: spoken English only, combined spoken
English and a signed form of English, and American Sign Language. As you might
expect, different students were able to perform maximally under different
conditions, depending on their skill level with the three forms of
communication. We discuss what this means in terms of educational policy and
practice for deaf students.
Thank you for your interest in our work. I would appreciate any comments you
have.
Tane Akamatsu