Special Person Interviews

Special Person Interview is an activity from Bryce Hedstrom. Some people call it Star of the Day or Star Student, but essentially it’s taking one student, putting them in front of the classroom, and interviewing them in the target language. Bryce Hedstrom has many posts about how to get started as well as this resource explaining step-by-step how this process works!

Watch the Video on All My Classroom Routines!

Rules for Special Person Interview

Things to keep in mind to make Special Person go smoothly (from Amy Marshall):

• Don’t be bored yourself (if you’re bored, they’re bored!)
• Be a good listener
• Talk about the students’ interests.
• Pull stories out of the students
• Create excitement with your voice and your actions
• Talk about interesting places the student mentions
• There is something interesting about every student – find it.

What challenges do you have with Special Person? What’s holding you back from starting?

• What to ask during the interview? – Check out this list from Bryce Hedstrom for some interesting questions that kids want to ask each other and what they want to talk about! There’s also this PDF of questions Bryce Hedstrom suggests. Here’s the presentation that I use! Give it a Google – there are TONS of conversation starters that would make great questions!
• What to do with the shy kids? – Don’t force them. Let them “sit and soak” up the language. It will come when they are ready. They should be paying attention and engaged, but don’t need to be speaking and in the center of attention.
• How do you keep kids in the target language? – Use presentations, visuals, and WRITE ON THE BOARD to give them the support they need. If they need a vocabulary word, give it to them!
• How do you keep students engaged? – Keep it short! 10 minutes or so is a good time frame or you will lose them.
• How do you keep track of the information? – Write & Discuss about the kids and the information you have learned. A student secretary writes, or you type it on the computer as you discuss it so you have a record.
• Who goes first? – The very first time you do this, you may not have a brave student. Try inviting another teacher or your administration in to be a special guest for your first try!

What do you do when you’re done with a Special Person Interview?

There are several options! When you finish, you could give everyone in the class a few minutes to write as many sentences as they can about their classmates. The special person will write about themselves. You could also do a Write and Discuss about the students that you have talked about, putting together a short paragraph as a class based on what they remember from the interview. Amy Marshall suggested several activities you could do with that Write and Discuss paragraph to follow up:

• Volleyball Translation
• Horizontal Translation
• Fill in the Blank
• Marker Game
• Textivate, Quizlet, GimKit
• Draw 1-2-3

Many people like to do a Special Person Interview Quiz. Bryce Hedstrom has a form here that is an easy print and go resource for this! The important thing to note here is that you are not assessing their grammar skills. You are assessing the information gathered about the Special Person.

What are you looking for? Students should share in complete sentences, their writing should be comprehensible, and they should be writing information shared in class – not stuff they already knew about the student from outside of class time. Again, the handout linked from Bryce Hedstrom has guidelines on the top!

Make It Meaningful and Manageable

One of the best things about Special Person Interviews is how naturally they build classroom community while delivering tons of input. But if you are feeling overwhelmed about making it a routine, start small. Try doing one interview a week or every other week, and build from there. The magic is in the consistency and the simplicity. You do not need a fancy slide deck or a perfect list of questions. What you need is curiosity and a few minutes to shine the spotlight on your students in a way that feels safe and positive. Over time, these interviews turn into something your students really look forward to. You will start to see them making connections, using more language naturally, and genuinely listening to each other. It is one of those classroom routines that feels small but delivers a huge return in both language growth and classroom culture.

Easy Ways to Extend Special Person Interviews

Once your Special Person Interviews become part of your routine, you can take that rich input and turn it into all kinds of low-prep follow-up activities. A class favorite is the classic Write and Discuss. Review the interview together and co-create a short paragraph. Then turn it into a guessing game, sentence scramble, or fill in the blank challenge. You can even drop it into a Quizlet or GimKit set for review and let students show what they remember in a fun, interactive way.

Want to go even further? Use past interviews to create a “Who Am I” review game or build a simple reading station. These activities not only reinforce comprehension, they also encourage your students to listen more carefully during the interviews. Every Special Person Interview becomes a springboard for meaningful input and fun, no-stress output. That is what makes this strategy such a win in any Spanish class.

More on Special Person Interview

Are you still looking for ways to get started with Special Person Interviews? Check out my post here on bringing in your admin as your special guest!

Have you been doing Special Person for a little bit? Check out my post here on reflections and things I added to change it up!