04 • Preparing Yourself as the Interviewer
17m 11s
Understand your role as the interviewer, how to build soft interview skills, and how to co-produce the oral history interview with your narrator.
LESSON OUTLINE
1. Your role as the interviewer
2. Building your soft interview skills
3. Informing your narrator
4. Interviewer reflections
TRANSCRIPT
Lesson 04: Preparing Yourself as the Interviewer
Hello hello, and welcome back to Self Evident's oral history training and archiving program. This is Lesson 04: Preparing Yourself as the Interviewer. In this lesson, we'll go through your role as the interviewer, building our soft interview skills, how to inform your narrator throughout the process, and then we'll close out with some interviewer reflections for you to self-reflect on who you are bringing as the interview, before you bring in your narrator to this process.
Your role as the interviewer
So your role as an interviewer will be to be your narrator's guide throughout the interview process. So that's before, during and after in two very important ways.
So first you'll be bringing out the fullest version of your narrator stories with your soft interview skills and your soft relationships skills. The second is making sure that your narrator is fully informed and comfortable with the full interview process.
Building your soft interview skills
So a big part of our interviews is not just the technical skills of recording, but really the, what keeps our conversation going is our soft interview skills. So how you guide your conversation with your questions and your interactions can actually help your narrator to fill in the gaps, spark buried memories, and bring out the fullest version of their stories.
So today we're going to go through four key soft skills that are really important to have during your interview.
First, you're going to get to know your narrator. Second, ask thoughtful, informed questions. Third, practice active listening. And fourth, follow your curiosity. So we'll go through each one individually right now.
Get to know your narrator
So first, you're going to obviously want to get to know your narrator. In oral history, it's so important to remember that you are not just recording an interview to put into the archive. We hope that your relationship with your narrator will live on long after and, honestly, before your interview. Oral history interviews are a co-production between the interviewer and the narrator, which means that you two are creating this interview and the experience together. Outside of the actual recording, you're getting to know your narrator, their stories, and also how they tell these stories in their day-to-day lives. Just as they're getting to know you too!
I know when I have a story to tell, I feel the safest telling someone I trust, who has taken the time to get to know me, my background, and what's important to me. So just like our real life friendships and relationships, this can take time and that's okay. The more that your narrator sees that you care about them and their lives beyond just the stories, beyond the interview, the more comfortable they'll feel with sharing their personal stories with you.
So put yourself in your narrator's shoes. What would you need to feel safe, to feel comfortable, to feel brave, if you had a personal story to share? Then, remember to give those very things that make you feel safe, comfortable, and brave back to your narrator all throughout the interview process.
Ask thoughtful, informed questions
We're going to also want to ask thoughtful and informed questions. So we'll want to use what we've learned from our narrator as starting points for our questions to learn even more about them. This is going to show that you, as the interviewer, have taken the time to understand, as best you can, your narrator's background. And to the narrator, this can be seen as your genuine interest in hearing and learning more about their story.
We'll dive into how to put together these thoughtful, informed questions in a later lesson. But we will keep those in mind for now.
Practice active listening
All throughout the interview process, from the pre- interview, to the actual interview, to even after the interview, we're going to want to practice active listening. So active listening is exactly what it sounds like. It involves us being fully present with our narrator in the conversation. And it is a combination of: 1. Preparing yourself to listen, 2. Looking out for any spoken and unspoken messages through your narrator's body language, and then 3. Responding to them with care and attention. So let's break down what each one of these means.
So first, preparing yourself to listen. It includes things like setting yourself up comfortably in a quiet space, so that you don't get distracted. It includes giving your full attention to your narrator. So this could be in the form of turning off or silencing any distractions, like your phone or any radios that are going on.
And also don't interrupt your narrator. Let your narrator do most of the talking. I know a lot of times, the oral history interview can feel like a conversation — and it is! But remember that it is still an interview and not a full conversation between you and your narrator. It should be that your narrator is doing most of the talking and most of the telling. Sometimes our narrators will say something that reminds us of something in our own lives and you'll want to share it too. But remember to let your narrator continue their train of thought and make note of this connection on your piece of paper or in your mind, and then use this to guide the rest of the interview, whether it is in the way that you ask follow- up questions or just your own personal interest and connection that you feel with them and their story.
As you're preparing yourself to listen and giving your full attention and setting yourself up comfortably, you'll be able to set yourself up to absorb more information from your narrator. And this will allow you to make connections, paint a scene in your mind, and ask further follow-up questions.
So the next thing is that you'll want to look out for any spoken and unspoken messages through your narrator's body language.
So, remember that silence is okay. Because silence sometimes can make us uncomfortable, so we feel like we need to jump in with something to say with a comment, a question. But silences during an interview can actually be really useful for your narrator. It gives them time to process your question, to think through their response, and also think about whether they want to share a particular story.
Silences also give you and your narrator the chance to take a deep breath, gather your thoughts, and continue smoothly throughout your conversation. So a great tip would be to encourage your narrator to be comfortable with using silences to think about what they would like to say, to process what you've just said, or just to take a deep breath.
And remember that narrators don't always have to answer your question just because you asked it. So they can either say it right out to you and say, "I don't want to answer this question," or they can tell you through their body language. If they're closing up and giving very short answers, maybe it's a good chance to ask your narrator how they're feeling, if they're feeling comfortable with the question, or we can move on to the next question that you have ready for them. So look out for these signs. Sometimes our narrators will say them feel comfortable enough to say them out loud to you. Sometimes our narrators are not as comfortable verbalizing it, so you'll want to look out for their body language. Just remember how you feel when you're having a conversation and somebody asks something that you don't feel comfortable answering. How does your body react to it? How do you react to that person? And look out for those signs.
The last part of practicing active listening is to respond to your narrator's messages, whether they're spoken or unspoken, with care and attention. This will show that you're showing your genuine interest in what they're saying, and also that you care about them as a person experiencing the interview with you.
So if you see that your narrator needs to take a second to pause or just a moment to gather themselves, you can offer your silence. You can also offer to pause the recording at any time and we can restart again whenever they're ready. Or if they need to end the interview early, that's okay too.
During the conversation, you can also show positive affirmations. So that includes nodding your head or saying things like "I see." Or even repeating back to them what they said, to make sure that you understood them correctly. You can also ask follow-up questions. We'll talk more about how to ask these questions in the following lessons, but this will really show that you want to learn more about what they're telling you.
Another good tip to keep in mind is also to keep track of time during your interview. This will show that you're being mindful of your narrator's time and that you're looking out for the questions that you may not have covered yet, and wanting to make sure that you want to cover those important topics that you heard from your narrators.
It's so important to remember that active listening does not only happen in the oral history interview. It's a helpful tool for any and all conversations in your day-to-day life. And so your everyday conversations are a great place to practice this skill, not only to prepare for this oral history interview, but also to be better listeners with the people around us in our everyday lives.
Follow your curiosity
And finally, our last soft interview skill is to follow your curiosity. This is what makes an oral history interview fun, unexpected, and full of surprises. It's a great skill to be able to maintain a sweet spot balance between being prepared and being spontaneous. I know, especially when it's your first time interviewing and you've created your list beforehand, it can feel safer to just ask a question, get an answer, then move on to the next one.
But no matter how much you prepare and review your questions, remember that this is not a scripted interview. Your questions list should just act as a safety net to guide you through the main themes and questions you want to cover with your narrator, but it shouldn't be a checklist. It's okay to go out of order and onto a topic you didn't originally have on your list.
And then a lot of the times, we'll see people start off with the prepared questions that they have, and then as the conversation continues and takes off and they feel more comfortable with each other, they may not look at their questions list again. It shows that they're comfortable enough with each other, to have a conversation that just bounces off of each other. And this is just like our everyday conversations. We'll never really know what the other person will say and how they'll respond to what we say. Sometimes tangents surprise us with the most incredible stories, so just go with the flow.
There is also, though, a fine line between following a tangent and going too deep into that tangent that it distracts from your overall conversation. So it's important to know when to bring your narrator back. When you start to feel like your narrator is moving way too far away from your initial question or the themes you want to cover, you can redirect them by connecting back to the original question you asked. So an example of something you can say is, "I'd love to circle us back to the question that inspired this story."
This skill will take practice. So keep looking out for ways to practice in your day to day conversations, which are also full of surprises and quite a ride.
And finally, be yourself and have fun! It's okay to show your sense of humor and your personality, because honestly this can make your narrator feel more comfortable with you, like they're having a regular conversation with you rather than an intense, serious interview.
Recap: Building your soft interview skills
So, a quick recap of our soft interview skills. First we'll want to get to know our narrator. Second, we want to ask thoughtful, informed questions. Third, we want to practice active listening. And finally, we want to follow our curiosity.
Informing your narrator
On top of drawing out our narrator's stories with our soft interview skills, it is our job as the interviewer to make sure that our narrator is fully informed and comfortable with the interview process. Especially if it's someone's first time ever doing an interview, it's important to walk them through exactly what they should expect in the experience. By letting them know all of this in advance and answering any questions they may have, you're setting your narrator up to come ready for the interview.
It's also important to remember that you are building trust with them by showing that you're not hiding anything from them and that you're available to walk them through the process step-by-step.
We've seen many examples of media, like the news and movies, history, research, where storytellers are only seen for their stories and not as active participants in the telling of their stories. We've seen reporters, researchers and media makers come into communities, ask the questions they want to know, then leave with people's stories, never to be seen again. And even though these final stories that the interviewers tell come from community stories, they're retold by someone else, who has no connection back to the communities. In this way, these interviewers are creating and telling stories about, rather than with, communities and their narrators.
But remember, oral history is not just about the final interview recording that you produce. It's also an opportunity for you and your narrator to get to know each other all along the way and co-produce this oral history experience together. And this could reshape your relationship with them by deepening your trust and understanding of each other. Building this trust and understanding with them, especially through storytelling, can strengthen the relationships that hold us together, while also opening up the space for us to learn from each other about the histories that led up to where we are today.
Interviewer reflections
Oral history can be a really personal experience for both the narrator and the interviewer, especially for two people who care about each other. So, just as your narrator has to prepare themselves to share their personal stories with you, you as the interviewer will also have to prepare yourself to hear and learn their stories. So before you come to your interview, take some time to self-reflect and understand yourself as the interviewer and why you're doing this interview with your narrator.
So why are these reflections important? Really, your responses to these reflections and these questions about yourself as the interviewer will help you to start talking to your narrator about conducting an interview together. Especially if they have never recorded in any interview before, it is very possible that they'll ask you questions like: Why should I record an interview with you? Why do you want to talk to me? Why do you want to hear those stories? They're not a big deal. So be ready for those questions by first, reflecting on your role as the interviewer and answering them for yourself.
These interviewer reflections can also help guide the questions that you ask during the conversation. We'll talk more about putting together interview questions in a later lesson.
So to get you started thinking about your role as the interviewer and who you're bringing to the interview, here are some examples of interviewer reflections. Who am I bringing as an interviewer? So this can include your skills, whether that's within oral history or any skills that relate to oral history, like having a conversation with someone. This can be your own lived experience. This can also be curiosities that you have that you've always wanted to know more about, whether it's from your narrator or beyond. What am I hoping to get out of this interview? What are some feelings, things you want to learn, hear about? Also what are some future plans that may be informed by this interview?
Why is this interview important to me? Why did I choose to conduct an interview with this particular narrator? What is my relationship to my narrator? What do I already know about them? What do I want to know about them? And then what will be difficult about this interview? And if I were the one being interviewed, what would I want and expect from my interviewer?
Before the next lesson
So before jumping into our next lesson, please take some time to think through these interviewer reflections, so you have a well-rounded understanding of who you are bringing as the interviewer.
At the same time, I encourage you to continue practicing your soft interview skills in your day-to-day conversations, so you can feel ready to talk with your narrator before and during the interview. So go out, talk to people you don't know, talk to people you do know, and practice these skills in your everyday conversations.
Once you're feeling ready and excited to get started with your narrator, then you can head to our next lesson: Preparing Your Narrator.