Interview report

Arabic Culture (Arabic 330)

Guidelines for Interview Project (10% of final grade), a written report on an interview conducted

with someone who identifies as an Arab/ from an Arabic-speaking country.

Due: Sunday November 8 – via Canvas.

Formatting: 1 page, double-spaced, using Times New Roman 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins on all

sides.

Students will need to interview someone who identifies as an Arab/ from an Arabic-speaking

country. Due to COVID, the interviews will be conducted online. The interviewee might be a family member or a student from SDSU. Do not record your interview. Instead, try to take brief notes during the conversation (you will need to ask for your interviewee’s permission). You will

use a pseudonym to protect the identity of the interview participant. The general topic of your

interview is the person’s experience of Arabic culture and language(s), e.g. an oral history of

their experience in an Arabic-speaking context, or any other Arabic cultural topic that interests

you. You may link your topic for the interview to what you plan to pursue for your final project.

General questions to consider would be:

 what culture(s) they identify with?

 similarities or difference between the Arabic culture and American culture (with regards

to a certain topic)

 the possibility of conserving their culture in the US (changes, if any)

 what languages (language varieties) they used at various stages of their life

 the attitudes towards languages (e.g. Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, and

Colloquial Arabic)

 the attitudes that they and others had/have toward a cultural topic/language

 the various domains in which they speak various languages and whether that is typical for

someone of their age/ethnicity/class/educational background/etc.

The goal of the interview is twofold: 1) to practice interviewing so you can see if/how

interviewing might be one of the methods you employ in research. 2) to gain information about a

topic that you can include in your final project (i.e. conduct preliminary research).

Your interview should take 20- 30 minutes. As soon as possible afterwards, write down your

field notes noting when the interview took place and anything else relevant. You should create a

typed log that indicates a timed summary of the topics covered in the interview. For example:

0:00 introductions

0:10 family background

0:20 significant cultural story/notes

Your write up should take the form of an essay that summarizes the interview and contextualizes

it in terms of a specific theme. You will submit the essay as well as the interview questions. I

suggest the following format:

Introduction (1 paragraph): Begin with the context of your interview (based on your field notes),

why you selected this person, and give an overall summary of the topics covered in the

interview (e.g. select the ones that were the most important).

Body: Then spend 2 paragraphs on a specific topic, explaining what you learned, how it relates

to your research and our readings and discussion, and quoting where relevant. All

quotations should be analyzed and commented upon. While you might not address

cultural issues directly in your interview questions, you should use what you have learned

so far about Arabic culture to contextualize your interview data.

Conclusion: (1 paragraph) What have you learned overall from the experience and what do you

want the reader of your essay to have learned from reading your essay? What

questions/gaps remain and how do you hope to address them?

Appendices: If you refer to secondary sources, cite them appropriately in the text and include a

list of works cited at the end (not included in the page count). Also attach your interview

questions (also not included in the page count).