Which famous person have you always wanted to interview?
Summer is getting more exciting. This paper’s My Dream Interview Contest has been officially launched.
Ads have been coming out in the Inquirer since Thursday last week. The Department of Education has endorsed the contest. The official rules are online. Helpful workshops are on the calendar.
Private and public schools that have active school papers may have a definite advantage over those who do not because they already have a pool of students who have the interest to join both the workshop and the contest. But you can never discount the students who are young, inexperienced and naturally curious. Anyone can win this contest.
Presented by Inquirer in Education and Nokia, in cooperation with World Association of Newspapers (WAN-Ifra), Inquirer.net and Maynilad, the MDI Contest has two phases.
Visit www.inquirer.com.ph for complete contest mechanics and to download all MDI Contest forms. Or go to https://misc3.inquirer.net/my-dream-interview-contest/.
Here are the salient contest rules:
The contest is open to Filipino students between the ages of 11 to 15 years. However, they have to enter in teams of four.
Each school may be represented by one team only.
Each team needs a teacher, preferably an English language teacher, to guide the students. So the teachers do not feel it is a waste of their vacation time to mentor the kids, they will receive the same prizes as the students if the team wins.
Phase 1
Students in each team must pick a famous person they’d like to interview. That person may be in government, NGO or any public service area, in the arts, media, entertainment, sports or any field, as long as he or she has achieved prominence and/or success through hard work.
Each team must submit a set of at least 15 questions in English that it wishes to ask its chosen interviewee.
These questions must be submitted on a separate sheet of paper with the name of the person to be interviewed on top. No information about the school, team members or the coach must be written on the questions page.
All sets of interview questions must be accompanied by an entry form (downloadable from www.inquirer.com.ph) with all required information filled in.
Submissions must be made via e-mail, hand delivery or express mail to the Inquirer by midnight of Friday, April 27, 2012. E-mail to mydreaminterview@inquirer.com.ph. Hand deliver or express mail to My Dream Interview Contest, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1098 Chino Roces Avenue, 1204 Makati City.
The Inquirer will choose the five best sets of questions as finalists. Criteria for choosing the questions are: Originality (30 percent), creativity (30 percent), relevance (30 percent) and grammar and spelling (10 percent).
The four students and the teacher in each of the five finalist teams will each receive a Nokia mobile phone.
Phase 2
The finalist teams will then proceed to interview the persons they have chosen as subjects. The newspaper will also help the winning teams secure an appointment with their dream interviewees if needed.
After the interview, each team must use the question-and-answer material to write a feature story in English on the person interviewed.
The resulting stories must be submitted to the Inquirer via e-mail, hand delivery or express mail by midnight of Friday, May 25, 2012. E-mail to mydreaminterview@inquirer.com.ph. Hand deliver or express mail to My Dream Interview Contest, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1098 Chino Roces Avenue, 1204 Makati City.
Submissions must include: (1) the written story, (2) the transcript of the interview,
(3) the taped interview, whether audio or video,
(4) photos or video of the team interviewing the subject,
(5) names of the team members and coach written on a separate sheet of paper,
(6) parental consent forms signed by the parents of each student in the team and (7) appointment/authorization/endorsement letter from school.
All five interview stories will be published in a series in the Learning section.
Inquirer editors will pick two interview stories to be the Philippines’ official entries to the WAN-Ifra “My Dream Interview Project: World Young Journalists Festival of Success Stories.”
From the entries of the participating countries, two teams will be chosen as global winners by a panel of international editors.
The two (2) teams selected by the Inquirer editors as Philippine winners will be the country’s official entries to the WAN-Ifra “My Dream Interview” international project, which is supported by the Fundación Acindar of Argentina and The Interview People.
Two students and the teacher of each team named as global winner will be flown to Madrid, Spain, to receive their awards at the WAN-Ifra Expo in November.
Free workshops
Inquirer in Education is offering free how-to-interview workshops to the students who want to know more about interviewing before submitting their entries. Even to kids who are not entering the contest and are just in a learning mode.
The workshops will be held in four cities, namely Makati, Tanauan, Baguio and Cebu.
All workshops will be held at 1-5 p.m. on these dates at the following venues:
Wednesday, April 11, 2/F Multi-Purpose Hall, Inquirer building, 1098 Chino Roces Avenue corner Yague Street, Makati City;
Thursday, April 12, Lecture and Discussion Hall, 3/F, Faith Multiversity Library at Faith College, 2 Pres. Laurel Highway, Tanauan City, Batangas;
Saturday, April 14, Room JL205, University of the Philippines-Baguio, Governor Center Road, Baguio City; Monday, April 16, Cebu Daily News Library, CDN building, North Reclamation Area, Cebu City.
To reserve a seat, text the student’s name, age, grade/year level and school to 0918-3824061 or 0919-3472130. Or e-mail the same to learning@inquirer.com.ph or ms@inquirer.com.ph.