[ohlove]

Ahhhhhhhhhh! I'm kind of freaking out right now, and I hope I can get some insight. I recently applied for a part-time English instructor position with a local community college. I have my BS and MA, but this would be my first teaching job. I got a call back, and I'm supposed to talk with the Associate Dean of Academics tomorrow. He left me a message, so I'm assuming tomorrow we'll just be setting up an interview or something. Does anyone have any experience with teaching interviews or the process of getting a teaching job? I don't know what to expect. Interview questions, teaching demonstrations, what to bring, committee interviews? Any insight would be helpful. Thanks!

[tea2]

Congrats on your interview!

Some things they might ask about/ask to see:

-your teaching philosophy or mission statement
-sample syllabus for a course you might have to teach
-what's an ideal or dream course you might like to teach
-sample assignments (good essay questions, for example)
-teaching evaluations (if this is your first job, you won't have those)
-an example of how you might set up a class on, say, using semicolons and colons or teaching a particular novel/play/short story (a lesson plan).
-conferences or workshops on teaching you've participated in.

Some of this may come sooner or later in the process.

You might be able to get some info on their courses--I assume it's freshman teaching for a part-time job. See if you can find some web pages for English faculty (sometimes they post their syllabi if they're not using course software or in addition to it). That might give you some ideas of what they offer.

Good luck!

Edit: I'm in Canada, and the advice they give us is to prepare a teaching dossier (portfolio). I had a short/mini-version of one of these.

If you've got the interview, it means they've seen some things they like in your c.v.

Here is a link to community college hiring info/advice at the MLA site. If you scroll down far enough, there's a good list of questions they might ask about English positions specifically.

http://www.mla.org/commcollege_teachcar