Multiple Cultures in French
Abstract:
Video contributions to the Ohio 5 Viewpoints project already prepared and published by both participants in this request have served as a first experience in teaching with authentic video interviews. From our initial project which produced short introductory interviews, the idea to explore more and different video materials has motivated us to design a short-term project as a phase into a larger potential collaborative project.
The Viewpoints interviews completed so far have a significant shortcoming for cultural studies in French, in that they were in no way intended to provide a cross sample of the various cultural and ethnic populations represented in the French-speaking world globally. Margaret has already attempted campus interviews for Viewpoints of native speaking French and Spanish subjects from multiple cultures. Susan has conducted interviews and produced a Viewpoints CD-Rom project containing interviews of continental French speakers.
Objective:
The interviews proposed in this project will be filmed this summer during travel to the Ivory Coast (in Margaret’s case) and/or Haiti (in Susan’s case), depending upon the availability of funds and subjects. The goal is to film longer more culturally embedded samples of native speakers and to expand our students’ access to those French speakers whose cultures are non-European. Traditionally French textbooks have only an obligatory chapter or unit on the variety of speakers we will be interested in filming.
Margaret Fete, mrfete@owu.edu
Susan Binckley, binckleys@kenyon.edu