It is also important to explore the folk taxonomy, or how the informant's culture relates different types of shoes. From this one can then build semantic networks and cognitive maps. Again, the art and the challenge is to do the above while maintaining a friendly conversation and not lapse into the typical medical history interrogation. It can be difficult to perform an ethnographic interview that avoids fatiguing the informant, who will quickly realize that she is being turned into the teacher. Sometimes you have to balance free conversation with information gathering.
People get bored when they have to go over a story twice in the same conversation.
Use a tape recorder for all of your interviews to help avoid this. Avoid letting the conversation become one-sided. Incorporating native terms into questions. By using terms the informant has taught you, you tell the informant that you are interested in the conversation and are learning from it. Often this is used together with incorporating native terms.