Looking back

The oral history interview 'Looking back' provides a further source about the past.

An oral history interview is a primary source of information about the past. Watching and listening to personal accounts of experiences and events from the past can help build historical knowledge. It is important to note that oral histories depend on people's memories and experiences and can be inaccurate due to the passing of time and the interviewee's perspective.

An oral history interview is generally a narration that is guided by open-ended questions. An open-ended question usually begins with how, what, when, where or why. Phrases such as 'What do you think about ...?' and 'Tell me more about ...' are open-ended as they are asking for answers that require knowledge and opinions. The interviewer asks questions about the past and records the interviewee's responses through video, audio or written notes (with a scribe for young students). The interview can be analysed and inferences made to give a clearer picture of an event or period of time.

Familiarise yourself with the interview questions (.docx 21kB).

Tell students that they will be watching a video in which a child asks an older member of the community some questions to find out about how he got around when he was young.

Organise your students into small groups. Give each group an interview question and tell them that they will need to listen to the interview carefully because they will be posting a comment on a blog about the information gained from the answer to their group's question. Before the lesson you will need to set up a class blog if you do not already have one.

Give your students a sheet of paper that they can use to sketch ideas on or write key words to remind them of what they heard and help them write the comment that they will post to the blog.

At the end of the response to each question pause the video and talk about the information that was obtained. Allow students who have chosen the question some time to sketch or write keywords before continuing. You may need to play the video interview a second time.

At the end of the video students could write a sentence using the information they discovered ready for posting onto a blog.