Interview process

I am one of those people who love to know more about cultures. The class is full of students from different countries, which helps me to know more about their own culture. There are lots of questions I would like to have their answers from sources other than Google, from real person who is in front of me. Because that person is originally from a certain country he or she will be a very reliable source for the information I want.

Another reason that I am doing the interviews is that I get to improve my speaking skills. This reason might not be surprising for my other international classmates because we always seek to have a long talk to other people in English. I personally would benefit from this experience from my international classmates and especially from Americans classmates. I always try to catch how americans answer questions, joke and say other things that I did not know before.

Hopefully by the end of interviewing my classmates I get to achieve those goals and learn from mistakes I might do in the interview to be a better interviewer in the future.

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Interview steps: 

1. I will decide with whom am I interviewing.

2. find three people from other cultures (same country)

3. Give them a background on what are they going to be asked

4. Make an appointment 

5. Reserve a room in the library most likely 

6. Prioritize and edit the questions

7. Find a recorder 

8. Practice the questions with a friend and try out the recorder

9. Will meet with the student and asks him/her if they have any questions before we start

10. We will start with a small talk before asking the actual questions.

11. Starting with the first important question.

12. Try to get more information by asking one more question that related to the first

13.  Ask them if they want to add more information that I did not ask them about

14.  Explain to them how am I going to reorganize the interview

15. At the end of the interview I will ask him/her if they want something in the interview to be removed

16. I will listen to the interview and take notes

17. Try to narrow the notes into a paragraph 

18. I will listen to the interview again and right the dialog 

19. Read the dialog again and see if there is something missing from the interview

20. Post the dialog on my blog

Library Research [ Research Basics ]

Because of a health issue I was not able to attend the class. From the description and your posts I chose to look for “Research Basic” because I personally used it before. It is really helpful cite and easy to look up.

Hot Topic: This cite leads you to full texts from high school students. The texts are clear and easy to read especially for international students because it has been written by high school students. You will find the source for information in the text at the bottom. There is an abstract also so you can read it before reading the whole text and decide whither you like it or not.

You can easily find what you are looking just by typing headlines or key words like “Population in the United States”. The cite will show you texts prioritized from the date, author, or the title.

Research Basics

Prioritize the interview questions ..

1.Can you describe a typical day for a child in your country? 


2.What are the typical greetings in your culture and what do they mean? 


3.How would you describe famous sports in your country? 


4.What religious holidays or other cultural events do you or others celebrate; can you explain your traditions for each? 


5.Do you have any daily rituals in regards to your religious beliefs? 


6. At what age do you start school? Are you under a lot of stress in school?? 


7.What different modes of transportation are used in your country? 


8. Which country`s food do you like the most? What are the similarities and differences between it and your own 
culture`s food? 


9.What kind of government is in charge of your home country, how did it affect your life and how has democracy in America been a change? 


-using transaction and talking about school life and little about his/her personality-



10.What could SCSU do to make your stay on campus better? 


11.Could you tell me a secret about yourself that very few people here know about and that shows us well, who you are and what you stand for? 

Core Questions and Answers

1.    What could SCSU do to make your stay on campus better?

I like staying at SCSU. Although there is this one thing I wish they could change. Parking lots are so expensive for students who have long hours to attend. I suggest to give the student an offer per semester. Like $50 for the whole semester. By that we can go to our classes without worrying to pay $6 or so on parking each day.

2.    Could you tell me a secret about yourself that very few people here know about and that shows us well, who you are and what you stand for?

There is a secret that no one might know about me, I hate high places. I cannot go to very high building and look down. I got that from an accident that happened to me when I was a little kid. I was on the roof of my house playing soccer with my cosine. The ball stocked in the edge of the roof, I tried to pull it out of there and I almost fall! Luckily my older brother was coming up and he pulled me out of there. I got punished of course but I believe I deserved it!! 

3.    Which country`s food do you like the most? What are the similarities and differences between it and your own culture`s food?

I personally love restaurants foods more than homemade. Italian food is my favorite of all times. I love all kinds of pastas not that much with pizzas though. Italia foods are very different from my culture food. We in Saudi Arabia idolize the rise. We do all kind of meals with rise. I think the only similarity between the Italian and the Saudi food is that they are both delightful.

4.    What are the typical greetings in your culture and what do they mean?

We usually shake hands to the stranger or even to a close person just to say hi. We kiss on cheeks to those who are really close to us, or the ones that we haven’t see them in a while. It kind of means that you really miss them. We also do hug the people that has a special place in our hearts. For example, my mother, father, brother, sister, and a really close friend.

5.    What kind of government is in charge of your home country, how did it affect your life and how has democracy in America been a change?

It is a kingdome system. The son take the leadership after his father. We do not have the same democracy like the US. Thing do not get done just by voting, the government decides everything and hopefully for the best.

6.    What different modes of transportation are used in your country?

We only have one train in the whole country. It sounded funny while I’m writing it. He use buses for the long distance traveling. The main transportation is the car. Only a small persantage of people do not have car, so you will not see that much of taxi drivers.

7.    At what age do you start school? Are you under a lot of stress in school??

We start at age 5 or 6. It depends on the parents when do they want to assigne their children. Some of them go to school early and take the class twice just to get a better education in it. I do not remember that I had lots of stress in the beginning. However, as the years pass by the classes get more difficult. My favorite period in the school life was high school, I can’t forget those beautiful memories with my best friends.

8.    What religious holidays or other cultural events do you or others celebrate; can you explain your traditions for each? 

We do have to main celebration in our culture. We have what called “Eid Al Futer” which comes after fasting the month “Ramadan” We eat food in the early morning because we were fasting the whole month, so it is kind of award for us from Allah “God”.

The other celebration called “ Eid Al Adh’ha”. We celebrate that after we go to the Holy mosque and do “Al Haj” Muslims do that every year. But it is only required ones in your life. What we do in that celebration is we kill cheeps and donate the food for poor people.

9.    Do you have any daily rituals in regards to your religious beliefs?

Not other than praying 5 times a day. We pray at the early morning before the sun rises, at noon, after noon, at the sunset, and ngiht.

10.How would you describe famous sports in your country?

The only sport in my country is Soccer. You will not see a lot of people loving basketball or so. I personally love basketball, not a big fan of Soccer. When a soccer event comes, everybody will go and watch it.

11 .Can you describe a typical day for a child in your country?

If you were a middle class childe, like I was. I get up in the morning. Go to school, and come back home. The fun starts when my friends call to play soccer out in the street. We play for hours and after that we go to be a normal kid who watch kids shows. I was a big fan of kid shows. I stay in front of the TV for hours without feeling that. 

Priority List

Priority List

Background/Upbringing/Family

1. Where did you grow up?
2. Were your parents strict to you since you were a child? 
3. Did you have pets growing up? Were they considered part of your family?
4. What was your favorite thing to do as a child?
5. What is a typical day like?
6. What is the typical family size in your country?
7. Who is the decision maker in the family?
8. How many people lived in your household? Who were they all; immediate, extended?
9. Who is the responsible for the family income? Is it the father, mother, or every own on their own?
10. Do your parents still give you economic support when you are over 18?
11. Do adults live with their parents after they get married?
12. What is the average age a person gets married?

How to get a better vocabulary ..

To have a verity of vocabulary is one important thing to be
a better writer and speaker.



One method that I learned to improve my vocabulary skills is " Sunshine Vocabulary "


The way it works is: take one simple word and write it down
then draw lines out of it and search for its synonyms. 


Instead of repeating the same word in one paragraph, you 
will be able to have more words describing one meaning.




The second method is to pick any major topic and write down words that you are not sure of their meaning. For instance, history, science, and sport are different topics you might be missing some of their important words.

After you know the meaning of the words, try to create sentences to make sure that you know how to use them.

The three questions for the interview ..

Family/backgroud information

1.       How many people lived in your household? Who were they all; immediate, extended?

2.       Who is the responsible for the family income? Is it the father, mother, or every own on their own?

3.       Do your parents still give you economic support when you are over 18?

Interview Questions

Topic 1: Behaviors 

Q1: How many major celebration do you have in your culture? Can you name them?
Q2: Are there some kind of gifts you shouldn't be giving in certain occasions? 
Q3: What is the typical type of greeting in your culture? And if someone from another culture greets you in their own way like hugging, what would your reaction be?

Topic 2: Industry and historical areas 

Q1: How would you describe the industry improvement in your country since 1995 until 2012?
Q2: Are there some historical places that visitors come to your country just to see them? if yes, what and where are they?
Q3: Are the labor in your country foreign people? if not, how do you feel that your country was built by native hands?
Q4: If you can estimate the number of visitors to those places every year, how many would you say?

Topic 3: Family

Q1: How would you describe most of the families in your culture, are they extended or nuclear families?
Q2: Do the families in your culture gather in a particular day in the week or only in the occasions? 
Q3: Who is the responsible for the family income? Is it the father, mother, or every own on their own?

Topic 4: Appearance 

Q1: Is there any typical wearing for certain occasions like weddings, job interview, and so on?
Q2: In the schools, do students have to wear a uniform?
Q3: many cultures have their on appearance for the groom and the bride, how do they appear in the wedding?