Continuity and learning
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# 3.1 Practical activity

In the following practical activity, you will gain experience of carrying out an informal interview and reflecting on your own learning life. There are two parts to this activity. First you will interview a colleague or friend for about 30 minutes, and second they will interview you.

## Activity 3 Learning lives interviews

You will need to choose an adult you know and who can talk easily about themselves. It could be someone you work with, or a friend, but not someone in your close family. Agree a time when you can spend about an hour together. As good practice, prepare your colleague or friend by showing them the following prompts and questions you will be using:

- Tell me what you remember most about being a child at primary school.
- Tell me about your experience of secondary school.
- Tell me about what you’ve done since leaving school.
- What is the most enjoyable job you have done so far and what did you feel you learned from doing it?
- Looking back on your life so far, what do you think are the main things you have learned about yourself?
- Is there anything else you would like to say about yourself?

Interview your colleague or friend for about 30 minutes, and then ask them to interview you in the same way. You should not electronically record this interview. Try to make notes as you talk together. If this feels difficult, you should write notes as soon as possible afterwards. As you carry out this interview, there will probably be times when you will need to prompt your interviewee – for instance, ‘Can you tell me any more about this?’ or ‘Yes, please go on’ or ‘Can you remember anything else?’

After you have done the interviews, write in draft or note form (approximately a page, or 500 words) an account of your own ‘learning life’, drawing on your memory of the interview and any notes you took at the time. Try to become aware, as you begin to construct this biography, of how you are telling your life story and the learning that this narrative describes for you. You could use a first-person voice to narrate this biography (using ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my’) and you could use the questions above as headings to help you structure your draft.

What would you say are the key points in your learning life biography? What connections are there, in your biography, between your learning experiences and your work experiences?

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Following this activity, take a moment to consider the process of informal interviewing and writing up notes of the main points. Was any of this more challenging or easier than you thought it might be? You may wish to write further thoughts about your experience.

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