This happens to everyone - even though you should know what to say, you don’t. Even though you’ve prepared for your interview, you still get a question you don’t know how to answer. Show
What should you do if this happens? Don’t panicI know this situation is everyone’s interview nightmare, but you can handle it. Most importantly, stay calm. Not knowing how to answer a question is actually a normal thing. If you stay calm, you’ll be able to deal with it. Pause / StallThere are a few techniques you can use that are basically various ways of pausing or stalling to give yourself some extra time to think. One of your options is to acknowledge that the question was asked and that you’re thinking about it. You can say, “That’s a great question. Let me think about that…” Or you can say, “Let me think about that for a second…” Then pause. You can be silent for a few seconds before you start talking. You don’t want to wait too long, 4-5 seconds is long enough, but this can give you a few extra seconds to gather your thoughts. 2. Ask for more timeInstead of saying you’re going to take a moment to think, you can also change this slightly and ask for a moment to think. “I need a moment to think about that.” You may feel awkward doing that, but you don’t have to jump in and answer the question in the first second after it was asked. You may think that’s what they’re expecting, but a pause is normal. 3. Repeat the question yourselfSometimes all you need to think of an intelligent answer is a few extra seconds, so you need to stall a little. Try repeating the question. If they ask, “Why do you want to work at Amazon?” You can say, “Ah, you’d like to know why I want to work here. Okay.” Or if they ask this, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” You can say, “In five years, I’d like to be…” This can buy you a few extra seconds to think of a solid response. 4. Ask them to repeat or rephrase the questionYou can ask them to repeat or rephrase the question or say that you don’t understand the question and could they clarify. Don’t use this more than once because it will look like you’re not paying attention. 5. Focus on the question or talk about itWhen you’ve tried repeating the question, try focusing on it instead. Say things like "that's a really good question" or "I was wondering when this question would come up" or "I was hoping you would address that topic." Again, this gives you a moment to think. Aren’t fillers bad?I know using “fillers” isn’t generally a good thing. Many people say “um” or “uh” or “you know” or other nonsense words too much. It’s true, you don’t really want to use fillers, and these stalling techniques are a type of filler. But it’s better to stall than to say nothing. Drink some waterDo you have a bottle of water sitting next to you? Take a drink before you answer. Be honestIf you have no answer, you can say that, but you need to do it well. You can't just say "I don't have an answer for that, so let's go to the next question." You can admit that you can’t think of an answer at the moment and ask to come back to the question later in the interview after you’ve had a chance to think. You can say, “I’m sorry, I can’t think of an answer to that, can you ask me again at the end?” This isn’t ideal, of course, because you’re supposed to be answering their questions, but it’s much better than silence. It shows you can handle an awkward situation. You can only use this once, so don't use it on something where you have some idea of an answer, and they may actually remember to ask you the question again at the end, so keep working on an answer as you answer the other questions. You also can’t use this tactic on a common, easy question. If they ask, “Why did you leave your last job?” and you can’t think of an answer, you have absolutely no chance of getting the job. Use only in an emergencyThink of these as emergency techniques. They can’t substitute for thorough interview practice, but they can help you if things don't go as you would expect. We were having dinner with friends recently, and one of them took the opportunity to get a little free advice. She had a speech coming up, and she said, “I remember something about pausing being important. I can’t remember the details, so what are three most important ways to think about using pauses?” You can’t tell friends to research old blog posts and find the one on pauses, so I was happy to tell her the answer over dessert. And it occurred to me that it was probably time to update my thinking on pauses anyway. I had just been reviewing a tape of a client speech, and what struck me about the tape was that it seemed performed, not conversational. You can’t tell someone caught up in adrenalin to “be conversational!” because they may well believe they are already. It’s just that adrenalin time is faster than normal, and so even though the speaker doesn’t appear to be waiting for the other half of the conversation, he is – just not long enough. Which leads me to the first most important way to use pauses: build them in to your speaking in order to appear genuinely interested in the audience. A simple example will make this point clear. Lots of speakers will do something like ask a rhetorical question of the audience, or even ask them how they’re doing, for example, at the beginning of the speech. But after asking the question, they’ll move onto the next point so quickly that the question appears insincere. It’s like the doctor in the examination room asking you how you are and not waiting to hear the answer before moving on to her next question. The question no longer seems genuine. A conversation is always two-way. So if you want your connection to the audience to appear genuine, to feel like a real conversation, you have to build in pauses so that the audience feels like you’re waiting for them to respond – and you care about the response. The second most important way to use pauses comes at the very beginning of the speech. If you insist on saying a few “throat clearing” sentences, like Thanks for that great introduction. . . I’m really glad to be here. . . I love everything that the International Belt-Tightening Association puts out. . . ., then pause for three full seconds before you begin the substance of your speech. If you can skip the throat-clearing, do so, and simply look at the audience for those three seconds once you’re on stage and ready to begin. Those three seconds will allow the audience to focus on you and the message, and will build a little drama into your opening. The third most important way to use pauses is whenever you make a key point. If it’s a key point, you want to make sure the audience has heard it. The only way to do that is to stop talking and watch the audience’s eyes. Watch your point land. Once you see a reaction in the eyes of the audience, you’ll know that you’ve gotten your point across. You’ve seen it land, and you’ve paused long enough. The art of the pause is an important one for speakers to develop. These are the three most important ways to begin to use the pause to improve your speaking right away.
View printable Wait time (PDF) What Is Wait Time?Wait time refers to two specific practices where instructors deliberately pause. First, wait time 1 constitutes a 3-5 second pause between asking a question and soliciting an answer. Second, wait time 2 is a 3-5 second pause after a student response. This time provides students with time to think about the question and develop a response, either to the instructor’s question or a peer’s response. As a result, more students may be willing to answer the question and responses may be more thoughtful. While this deliberate pause sounds simple to implement, many instructors have been habituated to resist any silence in the classroom and may find it surprisingly difficult to enact this pause. Introduction to Wait TimeWriting that “Reading and writing float on a sea of talk,” James Britton argued that engaged classroom discussion, substantive interactions between teachers and learners, as well as student-to-student interactions are crucial to learning (p. 11). But through a two-year study of 450 language arts and English classes, Martin Nystrand and his colleagues (1997) discovered “most schooling is organized … for the plodding transmission of information through classroom recitation. Teachers talk and students listen. … Almost all teachers’ questions, moreover, required students to recall what someone else thought, not to articulate, examine, elaborate, or review what they themselves thought” (3). Other researchers have described this form of classroom discourse as IRE: teachers interrogate by posing a question to the class, a student responds, and the teacher then evaluates that student response before once again interrogating the class, thus beginning the cycle again. In IRE-dominated classrooms, teachers dominate the classroom talk through more turn taking, more floor time, and by establishing the terms of the discussion (Cazden, 2001; Nystrand et. al, 1997; Tobin, 1987). Additionally, research has suggested that the time faculty wait for responses to their questions rarely lasts longer than 1.5 seconds, implicitly suggesting to students that the questions are not authentic questions which teachers expect students to answer. In response to research on IRE classroom talk patterns, Mary Budd Rowe developed and studied the effects of a concept she described as “wait time.” Her research demonstrated that “If teachers can increase the average length of the pauses at both points [after interrogation and after student response], namely after a question (wait time 1) and, even more importantly, after a student response (wait time 2) to 3 seconds or more, there are pronounced changes (usually regarded as improvements) in student use of language and logic as well as in student and teacher attitudes and expectations” (Rowe 43). Rowe identified several improvements in student learning as a result of wait time:
Stahl noted that when teachers practice wait time, positive changes occur in their own behavior:
The positive changes can lead to students taking more control over the conversation, through asking and answering their own questions of each other or the instructor. However, the interactive, student-driven discussion that wait time facilitates is not a free-for-all, unguided by faculty, where anything goes. Instead, faculty responsibilities shift from mediating every student contribution (thus, establishing the instructor at the center of the learning environment) to being responsive to student contributions by:
ImplementationWhen initially establishing student-led classroom talk using wait time, teachers may have to wait longer than 3-5 seconds in order to convince students that their participation is authentically desired. Students may not be used to this wait time; they may expect the teacher to evaluate the student response, and the silence may make both you and your students uncomfortable. To mediate this challenge, faculty can avoid eye contact by looking through the text or writing notes while waiting for the student response.
Frequently Asked QuestionsHow often should I use wait time?
Is wait-time appropriate for all questions posed to the class?
What do I do if the same student answers the questions every time?
What if students don’t provide a response after the 3-5 seconds of delay, and instead there is uncomfortable silence? How long should I wait? What if it doesn’t improve?
Is there a better way to craft questions to demonstrate to students that the question is not rhetorical?
ReferencesBritton, James. Language and Learning: The Importance of Speech in Children's Development. Second Edition. Heinemann, 1993. Cazden, Courtney. Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning. Second Edition. Heinemann, 2001. Nystrand, Martin, with Adam Gamoran, Robert Kachur, and Catherine Prendergast. Opening Dialogue: Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the English Classroom. NY: Teacher’s College Press, 1997. Rothstein, Dan & Santana, Luz. Make Just One Change: Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions. Boston: Harvard Education Press, 2011. Rowe, Mary Budd. "Wait Time: Slowing Down May Be a Way of Speeding Up." AMERICAN EDUCATOR 11 (Spring 1987): 38-43, 47. EJ 351 827. Stahl, Robert J. Using "Think-Time" and "Wait-Time" Skillfully in the Classroom. ERIC Digest. https://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/think.htm Tobin, Kenneth. "The Role of Wait Time in Higher Cognitive Level Learning." Review of Educational Research 57 (Spring 1987): 69-95. EJ 371 356. Cite this resource: Takayoshi, P and Van Ittersum, D. (2018). Wait Time: Making Space for Authentic Learning. Kent State University Center for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved [today's date] from [insert URL].
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