INTERVIEWS

The questionnaire below was compiled to work on the theme of cultural identity. I made my students interview each other in pairs then present the results of their interview in a typed up report in their chosen format. Six of the interviews are presented below followed by some observations.
Names and some place names have been changed in the interest of students’ right to privacy.

Questionnaire
1. When asked to describe yourself, do you think of yourself as belonging to a particular nationality, religious or ethnic group? If so, which ones, and why?
2. What experiences have you had that increased you sense of belonging to a particular group?
3. Has your own background influenced:
a) the way you spend your holidays?
b) The way you express yourself, verbally and non-verbally?
c) The way you think about and relate to other groups?
d) The way you choose your friends?

4. What experiences have you had with people from cultural backgrounds different from your own?
a) friendships
b) social relationships
c) travel
d) media exposure (films, TV, books etc)

5. Have you ever experienced any communication problem because of differences between you own and another person's cultural background?
6. What can individuals do to make communication between themselves and people of other cultural backgrounds more effective?

Interview number 1

I’ve interviewed Berthe, a 16 year-old-girl who lives in LOMME ,
a city in the north of France . She was born in TOURCOING , which is also in the north of FRANCE . She wants to be a politician when she will be adult . Her hobby is theatre .

She doesn’t belong to a particular foreign nationality or religion , but her family is coming from all over France : her grandmother is from PARIS and her grandfather from LE LOT (an area in the South East of FRANCE) . Her other grandparents are from NORMANDY.
She is influenced by all the countries in FRANCE in her cultural identity .
She spends her holidays in L’ILE DE RE because her grandfather lived here when he was young . She often go to PARIS , to see shows with her grandmother .

We can conclude that Berthes‘ s culture is a mixture of many areas in FRANCE

Interview number two

A lovely ebony-complexioned girl about 16 is sitting in front of me. She has a wide smile on,showing magnificent ivory-white teeth.You can tell by the spark in the corner of her eye that she enjoys being alive and as I understand later, that's what connects her to French, this certain ''joie de vivre''. There's just this fairy-tale charm to her, something mysteriously wonderful. After having answered some questions about her cultural identity,I find out she's born in a little city called Cotonou deep down in sunny Benin. Somehow, paradoxically, she's doesn't feel African at all...but yet, she's proud of her roots. She qualifies herself as European, nothing else, nothing less, just European, she says...She had lived in rainy London for 2 years before moving with her family to Lille. But what does she admire exactly in our European ways? Our lifestyle and the way of thinking...that doesn't make her change her mind of us being pretentious and feeling superior...She is glad of being between us though, hope she'll continues enjoying her life here among us.

Interview number three

I interviewed Sylvia, she’s 16 and lives in Lille in France. She thinks she belongs to the French nation because she has a French identity card.

Her roots are deeply African because she loves her original country, her community and all the things belonging to her ancestors’ country, RDC (Republic democratic of Congo).
She’s Christian, more precisely, from the protestant evangelic branch. In RDC, there are many protestant Evangelists. That’s why she thinks in a certain way that religion reminds her of her own origins.
In RDC there are many dialects but there is a principal language that is lingala.
She likes to spend her holidays with her family and spent wonderful times with them.
She has many ways of expressing herself and it depends on the guy she is talking to. For example if she has trouble in understanding the language of someone she will move her arms energetically and wish her listener will understand.

Finally, she told me that she doesn’t choose any particular type of person as a friend. For example she doesn’t care about the religion, the race or any other communitarist criteria like that.

Interview number 4

Nathalie is 16 years old ,a French girl who was born in Lille, in the north of France and actually she lives in Loos. That is what she said when I interviewed her :

Geraldine : what would you say if you had to describe yourself?

Nathalie : I’d consider myself as Nathalie, 16 years old. I don’t like the idea to belong to a religion, a nationality or an ethnic group. I don’t want to be judged because of my belongings.

Geraldine: How do you choose your friends?

Nathalie : I try to have as many foreign friends as possible, for cultural richness and because they all have a different way of thinking.
I have friends from Portugal, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, USA, Canada, Laos, China, Japan…

Geraldine: Have you ever experienced any communication problem because of differences between you own and another person’s cultural background?

Nathalie : I’ve never travelled as far and as long as you, so I don’t really have any experience. But I can say for example, when I had a penpal from the USA ( Suzy ), she was older than me and yet, she said she wasn’t able to speak a foreign language as good as French pupils. So I had to speak English every time I wrote to her. It’s a shame because I really wanted to see her level in French!
Geraldine

Interview number 5

Cecile is a 16 year old girl with short brownish blond hair and green eyes, who was born on the 23rd of June 1988 in Croix, France. When originally asked about her cultural background Cecile claimed that she did not have a culture and she was just simply French. Is that possible, I asked myself. How can a person claim to have no cultural identity and background, then at the same time claim to be French. Isn’t ‘French’ a culture as well? I then decided that I had to find out more and discover why Cecile felt this way.

As we continued to speak Cecile went on to talk about her family and also more specifically her grandparents. In Cecile’s eyes her culture identity is formed by her family heritage. This is how Cecile is able to feel that she doesn’t belong to a specific ethnic group and also call herself French. Cecile’s heritage is French. Her grandparents are originally from the North of France and therefore have most of the traditional aspects of the French culture. However Cecile’s grandparents are not completely ‘traditional French’, this is because they speak what’s called “Ch’ti.”

“Ch’ti” is a dialectic of French that is specific to the generations past of the North of France. Nowadays you can find “Ch’ti” spoken at home in the family with one’s grandparents but not on the street or at work. So in effect the cultural ties that Cecile feels is symbolised by this dialectic. Even though “Ch’ti’ is French not every francophone can understand, and also not ever francophone knows that it exists. In this way Cecile feels her cultural heritage is derived from her family who are French but not specifically the culture of France.

Geraldine is sixteen years old, she was born in Istanbul and used to live in Egypt. And yet, she's also French because she set up in Lille three years ago. We can wonder about her belongings, so I interviewed her about her cultural identity.

Interview number 6

Nathalie: When asked to describe yourself, do you think of yourself as belonging to a particular nationality, religious or ethnic group? If so, which one and why?

Geraldine: Well, if I had to describe myself, I'd say I have two nationalities: Egyptian & French. I grew up in Egypt. If somebody asked me about my religion, I'd say I'm a Christian.
I'd also say I've got more Egyptian than French culture, and that's why I consider myself as an Egyptian.

Nathalie: How do you choose your friends? Do religion, culture or ethnic origin have any importance?

Geraldine: When I want to have friends, I don't choose especially one person... but I'm not going either to be with someone who has the same culture as me. My friends are among the people I like to be with. Even if there are a lot of differences, I think we can all be friends.

Nathalie: Have you ever experienced any communication problem because of differences between you own and another person's cultural background?

Jess: One day, when I was at C………. Comprehensive School (Lille), I was in a special French class, and we were learning the different French accents. It was difficult because there is not any accent in English (my second language) or in Arabic! So, instead of saying in French: "accent circonflexe", I said "accent corn flakes"...

Interview number 7

I interviewed Marina, she’s 16 and lives in Lille in France. She thinks she belongs to the French nation because she has a French identity card.

Her roots are deeply African because she loves her original country, her community and all the things belonging to her ancestors’ country, RDC (Republic democratic of Congo).
She’s Christian, more precisely, from the protestant evangelic branch. In RDC, there are many protestant Evangelist. That’s why she thinks in a certain way that religion reminds her own origins.
In RDC there are many dialects but there is a principal language that is lingala.
She likes to spend her holidays with her family and spent wonderful times with them.
she has many ways of expressing herself and it depends on the guy she is talking to. For example if she has trouble in understanding the language of someone she will move her arms energetically and wish her listener will understand.

Finally, she told me that she doesn’t choose any particular type of person as a friends. For example she doesn’t care about the religion, the race or any other communitarist criteria like that.

 

SOME OBSERVATIONS

The class contained students of different origin and nationalities, and could be divided into three groups
- Students of French nationality but of North African origin.
- Students of French nationality
- Students of other nationalities (Finnish…) spending a year in France.

We observed that the students in the first and third groups quickly grasped the idea of “cultural identity” while the second group were a little ill-at-ease with the idea of claiming an identity.. Two of the boys proclaimed themselves “citizens of the world rather than say they were French.

After a debate on the subject, the class concluded that living abroad or having a dual culture (Egyptian at home, French in the outside world) made you more aware of your identity, while those who are “just French” had never needed to think about it. Their “culture” was the norm. However, a “simply French” student, when interviewed by a visiting Finnish student, turned out to have a marked cultural identity with its own “patois”.

|The sessions provided excellent practice in English. They also allowed the students learn a lot about each other and discuss issues like race and religion in a specific context. The issue of cultural identity would be the theme of our work until mid-term, working on the topic via texts (The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi…), films ( Bend it like Beckham, Gurinder Chadha…) and their own experiences.

Olive Kavanagh
English Teacher
Lycee Europeen Montebello
Lille

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