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The PhD candidate's status...
Student...?
Researcher...?
Choosing a topic...
Chapter one:
History and Definition...
of the PhD.
Have you already been to South America?
Yes, well, Central America. I lived in Mexico for a year.
I'm Laura Nicolas. I'm in my third year of a PhD in linguistics at the University of Paris III.
But I'm not from Paris. Poor little me, I arrived in the big city three years ago to start my thesis.
It's about teaching French as a foreign language to foreign immigrant students.
I concentrate my research on the French class,
focusing on every word and every expression that helps the students understand French.
Traditionally, teachers are supposed to do that.
That's why they're there.
But I decided to take another approach to mediation, which I call "hidden mediation".
Basically, it's all about the spontaneous questions and comments of the students during the class.
The objective of the first and most important of these classes was to establish a discussion about cinema,...
...Italian cinema, in particular, with all the stereotypes that it contains: the mafia, the godfather, etc.
The students were very enthusiastic, and there's one Italian in the class.
It's interesting to see how this student takes over the debate, because he is now the reference on the subject.
-Coppola made this movie, Francis Ford Coppola, a great film director, who died a few...
-No, no. -He's not dead? -Nope.
-I always want to kill everybody... (laughing)
-Francis Ford Coppola with two P's? -Right. -Two P's, O, L, A. -Yes.
-What about Robert de Niro? -He's in the second part. -Ah, right. -Is he?
-Yes, Robert Duval, as well. -Duval is in the second part, too? -In the first and the second one,
Then Andy Garcia is in the third... And Al Pacino.
The teacher would tend to use everything in the class,
acknowledging the student and gladly giving him the floor at some point if he's the specialist—
he's Italian and, besides, he's doing film studies.
But -- there's always a "but" -- here comes the counterbalance of the thesis:
the teacher has to be careful and keep being the reference, the one who decides and the one who teaches the students.
Damn, it was recording?
Here comes the coffee!
This is the camera you work with the most?
-Yup, this is the most important one.
That's where I store my data and it has the best quality.
So, everything is recorded on these tapes?
-Yup, that's how it works.
You have to switch back and forth between the initial theory, the methodology you're using...
and the first results in practice.
You're constantly going back and forth between the transcription, the video, the books, the theory, the practical tools, etc.
And do you think, after your thesis, it's going to be a shock, or that things will go smoothly?
The idea of finishing my PhD terrifies me.
For me, the relationship between a person and a thesis is kind of a love/hate relationship.
You can't do without it. You think about it all the time. It wakes you up at night.
Anyway, you must be comfortable here. Is this where you relax?
Oh, well, I could, but actually, not at all! Look at this...
...it's my thesis plan! I write it down, modify it, write it down again...
Laura confirms my impression that a lot of thesis subjects keep evolving over the first years of a PhD.
She manages to capture real life moments and exceptional exchanges,
and then analyzes the resulting data on her tiny desk.
When I listen to her, I realize the wealth and potential of her subject, which should take her a few more years.
This transformation of the sense of time will be an important point...
in my own thesis!