Questions to Ask an English Teacher
For principals, department heads and parents on a school visit: twenty questions that get an English teacher talking about the texts they teach, how much writing students actually do, how essays get marked, and what happens to the student who cannot read the book.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Which texts do you teach every year no matter what, and why those?
Why ask it
The list is a fair picture of their taste, and the reasoning matters more than the titles. Because it is on the syllabus is a weaker answer than a specific thing the book lets students learn to do.
What is on your reading list that is not on the department's list?
Why ask it
It shows whether they build anything themselves and whether they know their particular students. A teacher who has added nothing in five years is describing a delivered course rather than a taught one.
Take one unit you taught last year: what did students write, and how many times did they revise it?
Why ask it
Revision counts are the clearest measure of whether writing is being taught or merely assigned. One draft handed in and graded is not a writing course, however good the reading list is.
In a fifty minute lesson, how much of the talking is yours?
Why ask it
Most teachers underestimate this, and the honest ones say so. Follow up by asking what they do to shift it, since the specific technique is the real answer.
How do you get through a set of thirty essays, and how long does a student wait for them?
Why ask it
Marking load is what determines whether feedback arrives while the work still matters. Anyone promising detailed weekly essays for a hundred and fifty students is describing something that will collapse by November.
What does your feedback on a first draft look like, and what do you deliberately not mark?
Why ask it
Effective marking is selective: two or three things to fix, not every error. Comments on everything usually mean the student reads none of it.
What do you do about the student who has not done the reading?
Why ask it
The honest answers involve reading in class, audio versions, extracts, or knowing which chapters carry the unit. Answers built entirely on consequences suggest a class where half the room bluffs.
Do you teach grammar separately or inside students' own drafts?
Why ask it
Both can work, but the reasoning tells you how they think students learn. Listen for whether errors from their marking feed back into what gets taught next week.
A student in your class reads several years below grade level. What does their week look like?
Why ask it
This is where general commitments to differentiation meet the timetable. You want specifics: which text, what support, who else is involved, and what that student is doing while the class discusses chapter nine.
What is your position on students using AI to draft their essays, and how has it changed your assignments?
Why ask it
The useful answers involve changed task design: writing in class, drafts and process work, oral defence of an argument, questions tied to a specific lesson discussion. Detection software as the whole answer is a weak position.
How do you run a discussion when only four hands go up?
Why ask it
Every English teacher faces this and the good ones have concrete moves: writing before speaking, pairs first, cold calling with warning, no hands up. Vague answers about creating a safe environment mean the same four students talk all year.
Which text have you dropped, and what made you drop it?
Why ask it
Dropping something means they watched how it landed. The reason given, boredom, length, a scene that was doing damage rather than work, tells you how they judge a text against a real class.
A parent objects to a book you assigned. Walk me through the first conversation.
Why ask it
You are listening for someone who can explain why the text is there, offer an alternative for that student, and know the school's process, without either caving instantly or picking a fight.
How do you grade writing so two students with the same score know different things about their work?
Why ask it
Rubrics can hide as much as they show. The answer should involve comments tied to the next piece of work rather than a number and a general remark.
What do you do with a student who writes well but will not read?
Why ask it
It is a common profile and it exposes whether they have anything beyond compliance. Choice, short forms, audio, non-fiction and reading time in class come up in the better answers.
How do you handle a class where reading aloud embarrasses people?
Why ask it
Round the room reading is still common and it is where weak readers learn to dread the subject. Look for teachers who have thought about volunteers, rehearsed passages, paired reading or reading it themselves.
Which of your assignments failed, and what replaced it?
Why ask it
The willingness to name a failure is the point, and the replacement shows their diagnosis. A teacher who cannot think of one has either not looked closely at student work or is managing the interview.
How do you prepare students for the state exam without spending the year on it?
Why ask it
Exam pressure is real and pretending otherwise is not honest. The good answers fold exam skills into work that stands on its own rather than devoting terms to past papers.
What do you read for yourself, and when did you last write something?
Why ask it
Teachers who still write know from the inside what they are asking students to do. The answer does not need to be literary, but a long blank tells you something about the energy in the classroom.
What would you need from us in your first term to teach well here?
Why ask it
It shifts the interview to what the job requires and shows whether they know it: class sizes, book budget, reading support, time to mark, a room. Vague answers here often become unmet expectations in month three.
Interviewing an English Teacher
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Ask for the work, not the philosophy
Have them bring marked student writing
Two pieces from the same class, one strong and one weak, with their comments on them and names removed. You will learn more in five minutes of reading their marking than in an hour of conversation about their beliefs.
Ask for one assignment sheet and one unit plan
Look at what the task actually asks a fifteen year old to do, how success is described, and whether the reading and the writing are connected.
Give them fifteen minutes with real students
A short taught segment on a text you choose, with a class they have never met, sorts confident talkers from teachers. Watch how they handle the student who says nothing.
Ask them to mark a sample in front of you
Hand over one unmarked paragraph and ask what they would say to the writer and what they would ignore for now. It is the most useful ten minutes in the process.
Listen for whether the workload is real
- Do the arithmetic on their answers. Number of classes, students per class, pieces of writing per term, minutes per piece. If the total exceeds the hours available, the promise will break and the students will be the ones who notice.
- Ask when marking happens in their week. Someone who has never thought about it is describing intentions rather than practice.
- Ask what they cut when a term runs short. The honest answer is usually revision, and that tells you which corner gets cut with your students.
- Check what support exists in the department: shared units, common rubrics, moderation of grades. A new teacher without these will spend the year building alone.
Answers worth probing further
- A reading list that has not changed in a decade, with no reason offered beyond tradition.
- Differentiation described only as extension work for strong students, with nothing for weak readers.
- Every classroom problem explained by the students, the phones or the parents.
- Writing instruction that consists of assigning essays and grading them, with no drafting stage.
- No account of how they know whether a lesson worked, beyond whether students seemed engaged.
- Discomfort with being observed or with sharing marked work, in a job where both are routine.
If you are a parent rather than a hiring manager
- Ask how many books the class will finish this year, and which ones. It is a plain question and the answer is revealing.
- Ask how often writing is returned with comments, and how long that usually takes.
- Ask what happens for a student who is behind in reading, in practical terms: who works with them and when.
- Ask how you can see the reading list and know what is being taught this term, without needing to ask each time.
- Ask what your child could do at home that would actually help, and be prepared for the answer to be reading anything at all, regularly.
- Raise a concern about a specific piece of work rather than in general. Teachers can respond to a marked essay in a way they cannot respond to a worry.