Interviews with Bilingual pupils- part II

This interview was conducted by Agie:

On 29^h May 2012, we interviewed, with the class, some people from our high school. These people were different but they had a common point: they were bilingual.

The first student that I interviewed was Eva S.. Born on 13^th November 1996 in Bourges, she has always lived in France. However she speaks English and French; not since she was born but almost: she learnt these two languages at the same time. Indeed, all her father's side of family comes from England. As a result, as her brothers and sisters, she has a dual nationality: English and French.

So, I asked her some questions to know more about her feelings.

Let's see what she answered:

The first thing that I wanted to know was if she sometimes mistook English and French when she was speaking; and she told me that it didn't happen often but it could sometimes when she was speaking English. She also said to me that she was proud to speak English and that she didn't feel different from other pupils. Then, I took the opportunity to ask her if she had plans to use English in her studies and future job: she thought three seconds and replied « probably ».

 Moreover, she explained to  me that she would like to live there and that the things that she would like to find in France were... the English sweets! To finish, I was wondering too if there were any drawbacks of speaking English and she said « they aren't really any apart... maybe from the English class! » but she didn't give me more precision.

Finally, I wanted to compare some of her answers with these of another student, Julie. Both of them were of English origin thanks to their father's family, were born in France and spoke English and French since they had learnt to speak.

They didn't have the same point of view though. About the question on the missing thing from England, Julie agreed with Eva: laughing, she answered « real jelly beans! ».

On the other side, countrary to the final « no » of Eva's answer after the question « did you suffer during your childhood speaking English? », Julie told me « yes , other people always said that I couldn't speak English when I didn't know a word ».

To finish, they one more time agreed when I said « do you also think that the teachers ask you more than the others? »; both answers were « yes ».

[that's true, but we have good reasons- a teacher]

I think this interview was a good idea. I discovered that even if there were both bilingual, they could feel different and have different thoughts. It was really interesting to hear them talking about it.

Thank you Eva for your cooperation.