"Face to face" - structured student interviews: a possible tool for promoting understanding of other cultures

[Boyd Roberts]

Attached is a format developed for short, prepared structured inerviews between students, or a student and an adult in the school context or elsewhere. The idea is that this tool could help participants find out about other outlooks and cultures directly and personally in a way that can be relatively easily implemented.
The method is based on a model used in higher education and found in research to be effective. It has been trialled with 13-15 year olds in the UK in summer courses with some success - though students tended to stay at superficial levels. These students did not know each other well. They had just arrived from different countries and were getting to know one another.

There are two versions - one drafted by me, and another modified by Andy Greenall (AG) for use with students on the summer courses.

They would need some adapting to suit your own context.

It would be very interesting to see whether and how the approach works with students.
Please record any experience as posts here.

[Nichola Smith]

I like this idea, especially as we have so many different nationalities at Park House. I will give it a go and give feedback later

[Judith Shorrocks]

We don't have so many different nationalities really, and, many of those that we do have, haven't ever lived in the Middle East or in the Far East, so their own knowledge is limited. If you have many nationalities and any of your students would like to be in touch with any of ours, please let me know. They can Skype each other to conduct the interviews.

[Rachel Tang]

These interview guidelines have been very successful with our students. They feel very comfortable conducting an interview now because it is simple and relevant. Thank you so much to Boyd and Andy for this.

[Boyd Roberts]

Delighted to hear they were useful.

 

If you found ways of adapting them to make them work better in your context, do share.

 

Boyd