Multiple Cultures in French - final report

The proposal “Attaches culturelles multiples : Multiple Cultures in French” as originally proposed has produced a minimum of twenty-five interview clips based upon video that Margaret and Susan made. In the Ivory Coast Margaret was fortunate to film interviews with two speakers, one African and one Lebanese. Susan traveled to Haiti under the funding provided where she was able to interview several speakers. All the film has been digitized and edited for initial use in intermediate French courses and during the second semester of Introductory French. At Ohio Wesleyan Veenusha Santchen, a native French and Creole speaker from Mauritius (Ile Maurice), has provided the technology work. Her French language fluency and technology expertise have been instrumental to the production of clips from travel by Margaret. Through exposure to video from Haiti taken by Susan she has added another dimension to the multicultural collaborative aspects of the project. The Creole of Haiti and Mauritius are similar enough for her to give additional useful interpretations to the Haitian interviews. Some classroom exposure to the video has resulted this semester in each participant’s classes, even as the work of editing was underway.

Videos produced

Short interviews were the main product of her trip to Ivory Coast for Margaret, though one longer interview of an actress, producer and writer of Haitian theatre made on a return stop in Paris has also been edited for use in advanced French courses on the francophone civilizations (French 379 especially). As for Susan, interviewees included educated but working class individuals, not members of a cultural elite. The edited video clips from Haiti have been shared with Margaret and colleagues at Wooster who teach French 203 Intermediate Reading and Writing. Both participants then have begun to initiate their students to video even this year, although full implementation and distribution will be possible only after the postings to OhioLink. The contribution to OhioLink Foreign Language Database from Susan’s work will number a minimum of twelve clips and Margaret has the same number.

Teaching with video clips

Implementation of in-class discussion and subsequent writing exercises has begun this year, especially this semester for intermediate French students in Margaret’s intermediate francophone cultures course. Free writing exercises were based upon these and previously filmed video clips. For example, Margaret’s Friday laboratory session of French 255/257 (a course cross-listed for Black World Studies majors and minors) provided students a choice of one assignment (out of two or three) based upon a viewed interview clip. For their portfolio students wrote five to fifteen sentences in French based upon the clip of their choice. Repeated use of this sort at the intermediate level and then next year in the francophone course (French 379) teaches students the versatility of French and the cultural plurality of areas studied. In Susan’s teaching of introductory French, the clips serve to introduce students in their first year to the many cultures where French is used.

Margaret has previously integrated clips like these (where racial and cultural diversity was visible in the interview subjects) into her Fall 2002 intermediate intensive French grammar review (French 225/226) from a bank of unpublished clips now expanded to include Susan’s and her own from this project. Among the video materials also produced for this project are longer VHS interviews intended to expand and deepen the cultural dimension of language study. Intermediate and advanced students in both participants’ courses next year will be shown portions of tape for in depth class discussion and longer assignments. These interviews tend to expose students to historical, social and linguistic phenomena that a short interview clip only could suggest. An example from the Haitian context by Susan explains aspects of Creole and the Ra-Ra. Margaret filmed a Haitian artist talking about the historical context for the struggle for cultural autonomy from a personal and family perspective.

Collaboration works

Susan has experienced this project as an introduction to francophone studies (distinguished from French studies geographically), whereas Margaret has expanded her awareness of areas where French is used, some known and some new to her personally (after three trips to the Ivory Coast and having never been to Haiti). The technology collaboration with Susan has served purposes at Ohio Wesleyan that amplify the otherwise limited capacities of language faculty like Margaret operating without technology assistance for video work. With Susan guiding Veenusha in specifics of her work, Margaret was more able to produce clips from her interviews despite limitations, her own and Ohio Wesleyan’s. Student Assistants at OWU primarily responsible for production have made invaluable if limited contributions, although Veenusha and her predecessors at OWU in the technology assistant positions created under this and previous grants have performed sophisticated work with modest training. The role Susan has played as technology expert has assured our success. One unexpected aspect of our work was that Susan made two trips to work with Margaret and Veenusha on site at OWU so that actual clips in final copy have been produced. Collaboration has gone well beyond the topical sharing and technology planning to hours actually spent before the screen designing clips and VHS tapes. For this additional travel an alteration in the original proposal was requested and approved.

Video topics

Some of the topics of interview clips follow:

Review and Assessment

Our intent to use the cultural expertise of colleagues in the schools beyond the GLCA who were initially contacted has not yet been realized. However, the possibility remains that Margaret will be able to meet with a colleague (Lifongo Vitende) at a professional workshop at Lawrence College in June. In that case, the completed CDs could be evaluated by one or two contacts for this purpose. The allied intent of a larger project involving others has to follow the actual production and implementation of the fruits of this project.

The Future

Video interviews continue to engage interest for the teaching of both participants, after this experience and because of the reactions of colleagues with whom we have and are sharing. (Both Susan and Margaret are presenting on video in teaching at national or international conferences this summer) In effect, we have an interest in continuing some collaboration in another project, expanding and incorporating longer cultural projects that native speaker francophonists at other institutions have expressed interest in. The potential for such collaboration is greatly enhanced through this experience with the technology and because of this collaboration.

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