Possible Interview Questions (for interviews held at AATSEEL/MLA)

Your Interest in Our Institution
Why are you interested in teaching at our institution?
What qualifies you especially well for the position in our department?
How do you see your place in our profession as a teacher and scholar five years from now?  What kinds of support would you expect from our institution to help you meet these goals?

Dissertation and Research
How does your dissertation contribute to humanities scholarship?
How is your dissertation an original contribution to research in your subfield?
Tell me about your dissertation in ____ language. (Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbian, etc.)
Tell us about the research projects you plan to undertake after your dissertation?
Where (in what context / journals / presses) do you plan to see your research published?

Teaching
Tell us about your teaching philosophy and methods.
What are your course objectives in teaching language (literature)?
Tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of the language textbooks you'd recommend we use in one of our courses (sometimes specified first-, second-, third-year etc.)
Tell us about a literature or culture course you'd want to teach?
Tell us about how you use technology in your teaching.
Tell us about one of your proudest teaching achievements.
Tell us about a teaching failure and what you learned from it.

Service
Describe your preparation for leading our study abroad program.
What kinds of cultural programming (extracurricular activities) would you be interested in leading?
How do you propose to increase enrollments in our department's classes?
What does being a good colleague mean to you?
How have you contributed to the profession?

Language Check
If your language (Croatian, Polish, Russian, Ukrianian, etc.) hasn't been checked previously in the interview, expect a question that will require you to speak in that language at some point during the interview.

Conclusion
Do you have any questions for us?(Do not ask about salary, benefits, etc. at the first interview.  This is a good time to ask about the selection process, when you might expect to hear from the committee, what the next step in the process is, and so forth.)