an investigation of teachers beliefs and practices of culture integration into high school english classes in ben tre province

In addition, to my knowledge, there have not been any studies exclusively investigating language teachers‟ beliefs and practices of cultural integration into English classes in Ben Tre p

INTRODUCTION

Research background

English is believed to be an international language in the world today It is the most commonly preferred and learned second language and foreign language

It is estimated that the speakers of English as the second or a foreign language are more numerous than native English speakers (Crystal, 2004) According to Philipsen (2002), communication is culturally tied to individuals and communities That is why developing competence to communicate effectively and appropriately across cultures, which is known as intercultural competence, should be an integral objective of teaching English besides building learners‟ linguistic competence and communicative competence

In the context of increasing regional integration and globalization, teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Vietnam undertakes a fresh commission - to contribute to the interculturality for Vietnamese to become capable global citizens Intercultural objectives are more prominent in the new overall curriculum for teaching English in secondary education and higher To specify, the stated objectives of the mentioned curriculum are (1) raising comprehensive cultural awareness, (2) building positive intercultural attitudes towards the selfness and otherness, and (3) initially reflecting the values of the home culture in English (MOET, 2018) As a measure to achieve these objectives, a body of intercultural content of English speaking culture, Vietnamese culture, and other cultures has been added in the new textbook series of Tieng Anh 10, 11, and 12, which was still in piloting stage, known as pilot textbooks (developed by Vietnamese MOET, 2014) Besides the improvement of the course books, teachers should play an active role to contribute to the success of this educational reform because they are the main implementers, who know best their students‟ interests, motivations, aptitudes, or even their personal and cultural identity

According to Le (2007), most of EFL learners have developed good linguistic competence, they still face communicative difficulties arising from the lack of sociolinguistic competence In addition, they are not fully aware of the fact that language of each community of countries in the world has its own feelings, message expressing ways The ways that people in a community communicate is the performance of their culture It seems that they do not pay much attention to cultural or intercultural elements in their English learning Consequently, learners usually use the language they learn in the way of their native language expressing, which is inappropriate This unexpected result must be a part of EFL teachers‟ responsibility because language teachers undeniably play a vital role in helping language learners acquire a language effectively

Theoretically, culture holds an important role in foreign language acquisition process Marcal (2010) maintains that students need to learn foreign cultures to understand others‟ viewpoints, prepare for personal encounters with foreign cultures and use the language in context; and Thanasoulas (2001) discusses that culture can enhance and enrich learners‟ communicative competence as well as lead them to empathy and respect toward different cultures and promote objectivity and cultural perspicacity Also, culture is considered communicative competence (Hymes, 1972), or the 5th language skill Obviously, incorporating culture in language teaching and learning is essential

About English language teaching in Ben Tre high school context, two English textbook sets published by Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam are currently being used One is the pilot and the other is the standard version Regarding to the pilot English textbooks, the cultural contents named communication and culture appear one period every three weeks while it seems hard to find a real lesson about culture in the standard textbook Indeed, the portrayal of culture is clearer and more detailed in the pilot curriculum than the standard one (Chau & Truong, 2019) Besides, one of the aims of the standard textbooks, according to Hoang (2011), is to build the understanding of the cultures of English-speaking countries and Vietnam for learners through the familiarity of cultural input included in English lessons Also in the standard textbooks, the cultural contents are sometimes integrated within the lesson content solely The familiarity of the topics prepares students for relevant communicative situations, from which students could understand cultural differences (Hoang, 2011) In short, the outcome of teaching culture contents in the two textbook sets could be different because of cultural inputs.

Statement of the problem

From my observations, in the context of actual teaching and learning of target languages in high schools in Ben Tre province, there are some emerging notable issues The first one comes from the students Less interested in cultural elements contained in each lesson, less positive intercultural attitudes are obviously two common manifestations among students The causes of the problem can be the target cultural elements in the lessons designed in the form of comparisons among different countries, checking students‟ target cultural understanding through reading comprehension, lack of updating information related to the culture of the target language Another reason is that EFL teachers deal with cultural elements in language lessons with inappropriate instructions The second one that needs to be considered comes from EFL teachers Some of them still do not really consider intercultural communicative competence as an objective to be achieved in the outcome of English teaching The reasonable interpretation for this real situation is that there is a gap between the aim of the cultural lesson and the regular tests The aim of the lesson is to provide more profound understanding about culture for language learners whereas the tests tend to focus on testing students‟ linguistic knowledge instead of their target cultural knowledge Furthermore, EFL teachers have not been officially trained how to teach or integrate culture into language lessons and a number of them pay less attention to teaching target culture to students Finally, the objective factors can be considered as obstacles partly preventing EFL teachers from doing the job of culture integration in the English teaching context of high schools in Ben Tre province They are namely the shortage of time, the mixed- level of students, the large size classes and the real intercultural environment All these factors directly affect the effectiveness of cultural integration into language lessons and inevitably an expected outcome is difficult to achieve

Among the three issues related to the integration of culture into language lessons, the one arising from the EFL teachers are considerable That is because the teachers‟ performances as the driver of cultural integration into the English language lesson Harste and Burke (1977) argued that teachers plan their instruction in the light of the beliefs they have about learning and teaching The existence of the contextual factors mentioned earlier appeared to play a significant role in determining whether teachers are capable of implementing instructions congruent with their beliefs (Graden 1996; Gebel and Schrier 2002; Feryok, 2008) Therefore, determining how teachers‟ beliefs about culture integration are reflected in their practices, the examination of the constraints that prevent teachers from enacting their beliefs are important topics for further inquiries.

Rationale for the study

The study was conducted for the three reasons

Firstly, I started this study based on my own perception that EFL teachers play an important role in the development of learners‟ intercultural competence by integrating culture into language teaching Teachers‟ beliefs are considered as a key factor that most influences the teachers‟ practices and then the outcome of the teaching process The findings of the study can be useful and significant to the language teaching in terms of preparing students for successful intercultural communication and fulfill the needs of the country in the development of its international relations with many other countries in a multilingual and multicultural environment

The second reason was concerned with the current EFL education in Ben overall curriculum for teaching English in secondary education and higher in 2018, there has been a strong focus on aspects of language, such as grammar and vocabulary, rather than on the cultural dimension of language learning This context interests and lead me to conduct this study to find out the answers In addition, to my knowledge, there have not been any studies exclusively investigating language teachers‟ beliefs and practices of cultural integration into English classes in Ben Tre province

The third reason was that findings on teachers‟ beliefs about cultural integration could serve as persuasive evidence for local language teacher educators to take appropriate actions in Ben Tre language teaching context Based on the evidence, they also nationally propose reconsiderations of teacher training, curriculum design and materials development.

Research aims

This study (1) investigates EFL high school teachers‟ beliefs and their classroom practices of the culture integration and (2) examines the relationship between their beliefs and practices of culture integration in English classes.

Research questions

Research question 1: What are the EFL high school teachers‟ beliefs of the culture integration in English classes?

Research question 2: What are the EFL high school teachers‟ practices of the culture integration in English classes?

Research question 3: What is the relationship between the EFL high school teachers‟ beliefs and practices of culture integration in their teaching?

Research scope

There are different mental constructs related to the concept of teacher cognition but in this study, the notion of teachers‟ beliefs is used as a type of teacher cognition which means “what teachers think, know and believe” (Borg,

2003, p 81) Therefore, in this study, the term “teachers‟ beliefs” is used interchangeably with teachers‟ cognition Within this study, teachers‟ beliefs about different aspects relating to culture integration such as cultural contents, language functions, learning activities and teacher roles were investigated

Besides, regarding teachers‟ practices, this study mainly dealt with the investigation of teachers‟ instruction of culture integration in their classrooms including their teaching procedures, teaching foci and teaching approach Therefore, in this study, teachers‟ instructional behaviors, decisions and choices referred to their practices.

Research significance

The results of the study may provide further evidence for the insights on EFL teachers‟ beliefs, their practices and the relationship between the two about culture integration into English classes More specifically, the findings of the study can offer educational administrators and educational policy-makers information regarding the match and mismatch, the congruence and incongruence between the teachers‟ beliefs and their actual practices of culture integration The findings also have suggestions for educational policy-makers to revise their teacher education programs which can lead to teachers‟ developing conceptual understanding of management for successful teaching.

Definition of terms

This study will use the following terms as they have been defined in the literature Some definitions combine different parts from different authors Other definitions have also been adapted to suit this study:

Teachers‟ beliefs refer to a set of assumptions, values, knowledge, feelings, and attitudes that might be consciously held by EFL teachers, which are evaluative in nature and which can be expressed in the statement of what „should be done‟ and what „is preferable‟ in teaching culture (Pajares, 1992; Borg, 1999b, 2006; Basturkmen, Loewen and Ellis, 2004)

Teachers‟ practices refer to the actions that teachers take to organize what they know and to map out what is possible, which can also be affected by new beliefs and situations (Freeman, 1992)

Culture integration in English language teaching refers to the acts of integrating the four language skills within a context of meaningful cultural learning.

Thesis organization

The thesis includes 5 chapters which are Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results and Discussion, and Conclusion and Implications chapter

Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter which indicates the background, problem statement and rationale of the study The chapter also presents the aims and research questions of the thesis regarding the beliefs and practices of EFL teachers at high schools in Ben Tre province towards the integration of culture in English classes The significance and the scope of the study are parts of the chapter The outline of the study is presented in the last section of the chapter

Chapter 2 is the literature review which defines key terms- “beliefs”,

“practices” and “culture” and presents a review of related literature consisting of the importance of studying beliefs and practices, the relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and their classroom practices, culture integration in language teaching The chapter also offers a review of previous studies in both foreign and domestic sources relevant to the study And the frameworks of the study are discussed in this chapter

Chapter 3 describes the research methods applied in the study It consists of research instruments including questionnaire and interview used to investigate the teachers‟ beliefs and practices of culture integration in English classes Research design, research setting, participants, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure are then explained

Chapter 4 reports the results collected from the questionnaires, interviews and analyzed critically through tables The findings were analyzed and discussed to clarify teachers‟ beliefs and practices in integrating culture into English classes and the relationship between the two

Chapter 5 summarizes of research findings relating to research questions Also, pedagogical implications, limitations and recommendations were presented.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Teachers‟ beliefs and practices

The term „belief‟ is one of the most complex concepts to be defined (Mansour, 2009) According to Pajares (1992), the difficulty in studying teachers‟ beliefs has occurred due to definitional problems, poor conceptualizations, and differing understandings of beliefs and belief structures When discussing conceptualizations, researchers used different terms to refer to the term „belief‟ While for some researchers, beliefs differ from knowledge (Calderhead, 1996; Roehler et al., 1988; Shavelson and Stern, 1981), for the majority (e.g Borg, 2006; Kagan, 1990; Meijer, Verloop and Beijaard, 2001; Pajares, 1992; Thompson, 1992; Woods, 1996;) knowledge and beliefs are closely intertwined One argument supporting the claim that beliefs differ from knowledge is that while beliefs remain the same in the teachers‟ minds, knowledge changes with the new experience (Roehler et al., 1988) It has further been argued that teachers rely on beliefs only when knowledge is not available (Shavelson and Stern, 1981) The distinction between beliefs and knowledge is rather vague However, according to Issa, (2011), knowledge and beliefs can be considered the same when the knowledge is personal and related to specific contexts

As well as the beliefs and knowledge controversy, researchers have used other terms to refer to beliefs such as „teacher perspectives‟ (e.g Thompson, 1992), „implicit theories‟, „implicit knowledge‟, „maxims‟ (Richards; 1996, 1998), and personal theories (Olson, 1980) However, Borg (1999b, 2006, 2003) has used the term „teacher cognition‟ as an overarching term that encompasses “teachers‟ beliefs, knowledge, theories, assumptions and attitudes”, stating that all these terms are just superficial artifacts producing more confusion than clarity, but which nonetheless reflect only the overlap in meanings Following Borg (2001,

2003, 2006), this study uses the term „belief‟ as the term „cognition‟

Green (1971, cited in Richardson, 2003) has defined the term belief “as a proposition that is accepted as true by the individual holding the belief” This psychological nature of beliefs makes them “neither easily defined nor studied” (Johnson, 1994) As a result, researchers defined this term differently depending on the purpose of each study Pajares (1992), for example, defined beliefs as

“attitudes and values about teaching, students, and the educational process” Moreover, Basturkmen et al (2004) argued that beliefs are “statements teachers made about their ideas, thoughts and knowledge that are expressed as evaluation of what should be done, should be the case and is preferable” In addition, Borg (2001) conceptualized the term as that of a “proposition which may be consciously held, is evaluative in that it is accepted as true by the individual, and is therefore imbued with emotive commitment; further it serves as a guide to thought and behaviour” The differences in these definitions are attributed to many reasons One reason is that definitions are context-specific; they differ from one researcher to another and from one study to another (Pajares, 1992) Another reason is related to whether the researcher considers beliefs to be different from knowledge

Teachers‟ beliefs, in this study, mean assumptions, values, knowledge, feelings, and attitudes that might be consciously held by language teachers, which are evaluative in nature and which can be expressed in the statement of what

„should be done‟, and what „is preferable‟ in teaching culture The reason for adopting this definition is that it covers all major terms (e.g thoughts, assumptions, feelings, knowledge, attitudes, values and ideas) used by researchers to define the term It also emphasizes the difference between „what should be done‟ (i.e teachers‟ beliefs) and what is really done (i.e teachers‟ practices), it considers beliefs as a guide to teacher practice, and also highlights the interrelationship between beliefs and practices

As the matter of fact, human cognition is built on different social and personal factors In order to depict the factors affecting teacher cognition, Borg (1997, 2003) used a framework illustrating “schematic conceptualization of teaching within which teacher cognition plays a pivotal role in teachers‟ lives” In the framework, he highlighted four main elements affecting teachers‟ cognition namely schooling, professional coursework, classroom practice and contextual factors Those are also the main influential factors identified in the literature

„Schooling‟ factor can refer to „prior language learning experiences‟ which were mentioned by scholars and researchers like Johnson (1994), Woods (1996), Peacock (2001) and Gursoy (2013) For instance, Johnson (1994) observed that when pre-service teachers enter teacher education programs, they bring with them an accumulation of prior experiences that manifest themselves in the form of beliefs that tend to be quite stable and rather resistant to change These early experiences were also called as “the apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975) Although it is argued that this factor only shows its impact on teachers‟ instructional behaviors to the point that the teachers themselves accept them (Bailey et al., 1996), it forms the basis of teacher beliefs about their teaching

Regarding the impact of „professional coursework‟ or teacher educational and training programs, a number of studies conducted in the contexts of pre- service and in-service training have produced different findings at different levels of impact Some researchers (e.g Lamb, 1995; Almarza, 1996; Richardson, 2003) found that short training programs only made little positive changes in teacher beliefs and in teachers‟ practices within a short period of time while the others (e.g Soldat, 2009; Debri, 2012) might see great impact of this factor on teacher beliefs In another attempt to find out which factor- education or experience is more effective in forming teacher beliefs, Gursoy (2013) did not come to conclusion of a single choice but agreed that both factors were influential Therefore, the effects of teacher education on the ways teachers think and believe might depend on different contexts and the types and length of the training programs

Besides these two factors mentioned above, „classroom practice‟ or teaching experience has been indicated to leave great impact on teacher cognition (Nunan, 1992; Breen et al., 2001; Larcote & Canabal, 2005) It is even considered as the most influential factor on teacher cognition which controls their instruction performance (Phipps & Borg, 2009)

To mention contextual factors, Feiman-Nemser and Floden (1986) postulated the term „culture of teaching‟ with reference to social and institutional context As for them, there was a wide range of factors regarding teaching environment that should be taken into consideration, for instance, teachers‟ interactions with their students, other teachers, administrators, students‟ parents, and the rewards for teaching career, the intrinsic value of teaching profession and the working environment This point of view, in fact, drew attention from some scholars and researchers (Richards &Lockhart, 1994; Burns, 1996; Bailey, 1996) However, Borg (2003) critically claimed about the glaring absence of research exploring the impact of contextual factors on teachers‟ decisions Such weak point of traditional research on teacher cognition was identified as follows:

[…] the shortcoming of existing research on teaching cognition lies in their tendency to isolate teachers from the wider context of teaching which not only involves the relationship between teachers and their students but also includes their relationship within the community of teaching practice and other relevant elements within the context (Li, 2008, p 1)

In response to such gap, in a study on a group of Vietnamese teachers‟ beliefs and practices of form-focused instruction, Le (2011) drew out a number of important factors shaping teachers‟ beliefs, namely professional training, experience as language learners, institutional factors and learner variables, instructional materials, teachers‟ personal experience and the experience of others in the professional community In another study in Vietnam, Nguyen (2013) identified a list of factors hindering teachers‟ implementation of task-based teaching approach including teachers‟ core beliefs, subjective norms, lack of theoretical understanding, public examinations, perceptions of students‟ proficiency and motivation and other institutional factors such as discipline, physical setting and textbook content However, the number of similar studies considering contextual factors is still limited in the field of teacher cognition in both global and Vietnamese contexts Therefore, it is necessary to address this gap in the literature with more studies exploring teacher cognition with a broader consideration of contextual factors

Furthermore, since teacher cognition is contextually situated (Borg, 2006) and develops through a social construction process (Pajares, 1992), it is hard to separate different types of influencing factors Given the lack of attention to this research area, there is a need to continuously explore how such types of factors are interrelated As Le (2011) argued that since teachers‟ beliefs are both intrapersonal and interpersonal, they partly originate from the public theories, and partly from their life experiences, and are modified through their practical environments In this regard, it is suggested that researchers take a wider view on factors affecting the inner part of teaching in order to see deeply inside the correlation between the ways teachers think and behave

Section 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 gave literature review on beliefs, teachers’ beliefs and factors influencing teachers’ beliefs The following section will examine teachers’ practices and factors influencing teachers’ practices

Although teacher practices are more and more researched, not many definitions are given about this construct According to Fives, Lacatena and Gerald (2015), teacher practices might be involved in all activities associated with the practice of teaching, including but not limited to lesson planning, assessment activities, instruction, and interactions with students, parents, and colleagues Specifically, Isac, Dinis da Costa, Araujo, Calvo and Albergaria-Almeida (2015) categorized teachers practices into two main areas, namely teacher instructional practices and teacher collaborative practices, in which the former one refers to the instructional strategies that the teachers use in the classroom; and the later is involved in collaboration with peers outside the classroom As for them, those two types of activities are different but yet interconnected Depending on different purposes of each study, the concept of teachers practices might be generally understood as what teachers do in the classroom (Borg, 2003) or with a wider range of activities

Culture in English language teaching

Definition of culture is quite complicated; and various researchers viewed and divided culture on their own ways For example, Thanasoulas (2001) divided culture into Culture with a Capital C (art, music, literature, politics) and Culture with a Small C (the behavioral patterns and lifestyles of everyday people)

Adaskou, Britten and Fahsi (1990, cited in Lessard-Clouston, 1997) defined culture to the four senses including the aesthetic sense (cinema, literature, music and media), the sociological sense (the organization of family, interpersonal relations, customs, material conditions, and so on), the semantic sense (perceptions thoughts processes), and the pragmatic and sociolinguistic sense (the background knowledge, social and paralinguistic skills, and language code) Goodenough (1963, cited in Thanasoulas, 2001) considered culture as standards for deciding what can be, how one feels about it, what to do about it and how to go about doing it; and Shah and Bilal (2012) defined culture as a set of values Bourdieu (1986, cited in Brown, 2000) considered culture term as Cultural Capital (values, tastes, behaviors, and thought) and Cultural Identities (language, dialect, and ethnicity) Similar to Bourdieu (1986), Nieto (2002) thought that culture consists of not only language, ethnicity, and race but also social class and gender Salzmann (1993) separated culture into Verbal culture (the corresponding language) and Nonverbal culture that includes mental culture (world view or value orientations), behavioral culture and material culture Scarino & Liddcoat (2009) viewed culture as a body of knowledge (knowledge about cultural artefacts or works of arts; places and institutions; events or symbols and ways of livings) Similarly, Rajabi & Ketabi (2012) also defined culture as the system of knowledge which include values, beliefs, and attitudes, notions of appropriate behavior, statuses, role expectations and world view, material objects and knowledge of their purpose and use

Since there are so many different definitions of culture, in this study culture is just understood to the extent of language teaching Based on the field of anthropology, Moran (2001) defined “culture as an evolving way of life consisting of shared products, practices, and perspectives of persons within specific social setting and communities” (p.9) In order words, according to Moran (2001), five dimensions of culture are Cultural Products (artifacts, places, institutions and art forms), Cultural Practices (cultural and linguistic behaviors as operations, acts, scenarios and lives), Cultural Perspectives (perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes as well as etic (outsider) and emic (insider) view), Cultural Communities (the national community, coexisting communities and relationships) and Cultural Persons (concepts of identity and life histories) Generally, this research has employed the five dimensions of culture (cultural products, cultural practices, cultural perspectives, cultural community and cultural persons)

2.2.2 Culture integration in language teaching

In discussing the integration of culture to the four language skills, which are reading, writing, listening and speaking, Al-Mahrooqi et al (2014) highlights its significance in English language teaching They argued that incorporating cultural aspects provides a solid foundation for initiating motivating activities that cover the four language skills, the culture of the target language, and the students‟ own backgrounds According to them, EFL teachers should be advised to vigilantly decide on resources and course books that not only support integrating the four language skills, but also add to it the integration of cultural aspects which will eventually enhance students communicative competence Language learning should entail culture learning and whenever a language is being taught, a simultaneous teaching of cultural customs and aspects, ways of thinking, norms, and feelings is taking place EFL teaching should integrate the four language skills within a context of meaningful cultural learning (Kramsch, 1993; Damen, 1997; Brown, 2000; all cited in Al-Mahrooqi et al., 2014)

2.2.2.1 Cultural contents in Culture teaching

Fiorito (2000 cited in Moran, 2001) stated that according to James Hammers- a German instructor at Interlochen Arts Academy- learners should learn four cultural aspects, and they are the physics (geography and climate), the society (family, friends, and people around us), the history and the genetic heritage of the culture Using an experiential approach to teaching and learning culture, Moran (2001) developed the „cultural experience‟ based on the experiential learning cycle proposed by Kurt Lewin (in Kolb, 1984) The cultural experience consists of four kinds of cultural learning, or cultural knowings namely knowing about (acquiring cultural information or cultural experiences), knowing how (developing cultural behaviors or cultural descriptions), knowing why (discovering cultural explanations or cultural interpretation), and knowing oneself (articulating personal responses to what they are learning or articulation of personal responses)

2.2.2.2 Language functions in Culture teaching

The present study has employed language functions discussed by Moran (2001) to investigate the EFL teachers‟ practices of culture integration in their teaching Particularly learners use the language functions to (1) participate in the cultural experience including socializing, establishing/maintaining relationships, influencing people, giving and responding to feedback, (2) describe the cultural experience including knowledge, comprehension, descriptions and cognitive functions, (3) identify, explain, and justify cultural perspective and compare and contrast these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures including rational inquiry and exposition, analysis and cognitive functions and (4) express their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience including evaluation, expressing emotions, and expressing/inquiring about

2.2.2.3 Learning activities in Culture teaching

Regarding learning activities for teaching culture, Thanasoulous (2001) searched and cited many learning activities mentioned by different authors For example, teachers should use culture comparisons in teaching culture (Ertelt-Vieth,

1990, 1991 cited in Byram and Morgan et al., 1994, all cited in Thanasoulous, 2001); cultural capsules known as culturegrams and cultural problem solving (Singhal, 1998, cited in Thanosoulous, 2001); cultural assimilators and cultoons (Henrichsen, 1998, cited in Thanosoulous, 2001) In the same way, Brown (2000) also mentioned simulation games, culture assimilators, cultural capsules and culturegrams are the learning activities that teachers should use in their cultural classes Moran (2001) mentioned a variety of techniques teachers can employ, and they are “critical incidents, cultural assimilators, culturegrams, role-plays, cultural simulations, field experiences, ethnography, experiential activities, cross-cultural training techniques, values clarification, film, video, literature, realia, authentic materials, and many more

Besides, teachers can bring to class posters, pictures, maps and other learning activities teachers can use to help learners develop a mental image (Peck, 1998); or books and other visual aids and cultural clusters (Peck, 1998) In a similar way, regarding learning activities, Celik and Turkan (2007) suggested using movies, lectures and audio-taped interviews of native speakers and video- taped observations of the target language community and authentic reading and realia Besides these learning activities, Celik and Turkan (2007) proposed the use of personalization activities and discussion activities (surveys, and questions and answer tasks a mean of teaching culture) Similarly, cultural islands (posters, pictures, maps, signs and many kinds) were recommended to use in teaching culture by Nadera, (2012); or readings, films were advised by Fantini, 1997; Ramirez, 1995; Levine et al, 1987; Mc Groarty and Galvan 1985, Kohls, 1984, all cited in Brown, 2000

Thanasoulous (2001) himself also advocated that teachers should offer learners opportunities to take part in and become a part of their own tradition such as national sports, social festivals or songs; and teachers should also help learners familiar with various non-verbal communication forms and help learners expose literacy works Nadera (2012) shared the same idea with Thansoulous (2001) about offering learners opportunities and using non-verbal communication and literacy works in teaching culture when he said that teachers should celebrate festivals, use literacy works (literature) and kinetics and body language (non-verbal communication and gesture) More particularly, Donahue and Pasons (1982, cited in Brown, 2000) discussed that to enhance learners‟ oral communication, teachers should use role-play in their classes and according to Brown (2000), teachers should explore the dialogue between students and between teaches and students

As mentioned above this research emphasized on the EFL teachers‟ practices in the integration of cultural elements in English classes to enhance students‟ cultural behaviors, cultural understandings, cultural interpretations and students‟ self-awareness, so the Moran‟s (2001) discussions on learning activities were applied in this research to investigate EFL teachers‟ practices Particularly, according to Moran (2001), in English classrooms, (1) to improve students‟ cultural behaviors, teachers use operations (use of tools, artifacts, or other products of the culture), rituals (brief exchanges enacted in the classroom that reflect the everyday tasks of teaching and learning, done in the manner of the target culture), dialogues, role-plays, performance, drama, simulations and field experiences; (2) to improve students‟ cultural understandings, teachers use authentic material, pedagogical material, experiences and personal accounts; (3) to improve students‟ cultural interpretations, teachers use cultural analyses, research, research projects and field experiences; and to develop students‟ self-awareness teachers use reflection, focused talking and focused writing

2.2.2.4 Teachers‟ role in Culture teaching

When integrating cultures in language learning, teacher role is to facilitate students‟ own inquiry Teachers‟ effective demonstrations and instructions help students grasp quickly Therefore, this study has additionally investigated teachers‟ beliefs and practices of teacher roles in integrating culture into English classes According to Moran (2001), teacher roles in teaching culture cover (1) a model and a coach in helping learners acquire cultural behaviors, (2) a source, a resource, an arbiter and an elicitor in helping learners acquire cultural information, (3) a guide, and a co-researcher in helping learners acquire cultural explanation, (4) and a listener, a witness and a co-learner in helping learners develop their self- awareness These propositions can cover nearly all the potential teacher‟s roles when teachers embed cultures in language learning.

Previous research on teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding culture integration

During the past decade, a number of studies have been conducted on the language teachers‟ perceptions and practices of (inter)cultural language teaching (ICLT) in different contexts (e.g Guilherme, 2000; Long, 2014; Oranje & Smith, 2017; Sercu et al., 2005; Young & Sachdev, 2011; Zhou, 2011) These studies mainly sought to shed light on the instructional knowledge of foreign language teachers regarding the main elements of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and their appreciation of its objectives Generally speaking, it is argued that teachers need to be familiar with the target language culture to be able to assist learners to cope with similarities and differences among L1, L2, and other cultures The majority of these studies indicate that teachers mostly have some vague understanding of ICC and fail to translate ICC theories into practice

In foreign context, Gonen and Saglam (2012) investigated 60 Turkish EFL teachers of different educational backgrounds rather than cultural backgrounds in terms of what they think about various aspects of culture and integrating it into their classes The results gathered through a comprehensive questionnaire and interviews have yielded that although there are some differences between teachers of different backgrounds about which aspects of the target culture to give priority, they were generally aware of the importance of teaching and integrating culture in the foreign language classroom It is also revealed that all teachers have knowledge about the aspects of the target culture to some extent, but how they deal with the target culture is affected highly by the curricular considerations and limitations Based on the results, several implications are derived from the study for the integration of culture in the foreign language class and suggestions are made for future studies

In Vietnam context, Nguyen (2014) addressed Vietnamese English teachers‟ practices in the integration of culture into their language classes and development of the learners‟ ICC level The participants were 15 Vietnamese EFL teachers from a university in Northern Vietnam and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews and class observations The results indicated that there was a gap between the language education policies and the teachers‟ actual practices in the classrooms Chau (2019) conducted a research focusing on teachers‟ perceptions and practices of intercultural teaching and applicability of the Intercultural Language Learning Teaching model to integrate culture in EFL teaching in upper- secondary schools of Tra Vinh province, Vietnam The research was an action one designed with instruments of teacher questionnaires, classroom observation, teacher interviews and students‟ evaluations sheets In term of teachers‟ perceptions and practices of intercultural teaching, the research findings showed that EFL teachers of upper secondary schools in Tra Vinh province were willing to incorporate culture in teaching English to facilitate students‟ language learning and build their intercultural knowledge, but not yet to target their intercultural culture The teachers‟ practices were described as teacher-centered, knowledge-based, and coursebook-driven It was necessary to verify the applicability of an intercultural approach to integrate culture into teaching EFL lessons to empower the teachers with intercultural integration practice in their own curricula (Chau, 2019) However, until recently, to the best of my knowledge, most research on the cultural teaching has examined teachers‟ beliefs, teachers‟ practices and little is known about the relationship between the two The present study, in parallel with the investigation of teachers‟ beliefs and practices, aims at filling this gap, by examining the complex relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding culture integration

Table 2.1 Summary of previous studies

60 Turkish EFL teachers of different educational

EFL teachers were generally aware of the importance of teaching and integrating culture in the foreign language classroom They have knowledge about the aspects backgrounds of the target culture to some extent, their practices are affected highly by the curricular considerations and limitations Nguyen

15 Vietnamese EFL teachers from a university in

Semi-structured interviews and class observations

There was a gap between the language education policies and the teachers‟ actual practices in the classrooms

- 101 EFL teachers in upper-secondary schools in Tra Vinh province, Vietnam

Grade 10 (using the pilot and standard

Teacher questionnaires, Class observations, Teacher interviews and Students‟ evaluations sheets

EFL teachers were willing to incorporate culture in teaching English to facilitate students‟ language learning and build their intercultural knowledge, but not yet to target their intercultural culture The teachers‟ practices were described as teacher-centered, knowledge-based, and coursebook-driven.

Theoretical framework for the study

The research aims determined in this study include the exploration of teachers‟ beliefs and their classroom practices of the culture integration in English classes To construct the framework for the study, as discussed above, the three concepts involving teachers‟ beliefs, teachers‟ practices and culture integration in language teaching were defined

To address the first and the second research question, based on the culture experience proposed by Moran (2001), this study concentrated investigating the English teachers‟ beliefs and practices in culture integration including cultural content (knowing about, knowing how, knowing oneself, knowing why), language function (participating, describing, interpreting, responding) and cultural learning activities (developing skills, gathering information, discovering explanations, reflection) For the study, culture integration in language teaching indicates the embedment of culture into English language classes, which is the culture of English- speaking countries, namely target culture (Clandfield, 2008) and the culture of other countries (Devrim & Bayyurt, 2010; Lai, 2013)

As can be seen from Figure 2.1, the framework shows the relationship between these concepts and different factors which can affect teachers‟ beliefs and their classroom practices For the study, the definition of „beliefs‟ can be expressed in the statement of what „should be done‟, and what „is preferable‟ in teaching integration in their language teaching and this can be a one-way relationship Regarding to the relation between teachers‟s beliefs and teachers‟ practices as discussed in Section 2.1.1, beliefs are considered to be as a guide to teachers‟ practices, this could be an interrelationship However, the question is still open as to whether beliefs guide practice, practices- and particularly the results of practice- guide beliefs, or that they interact such that beliefs or practice may be dominant and affect the other depending on many factors Quite recently, Tillema (2000) conducted a study with teacher candidates, and examined the relationship between beliefs and classroom performance, he concluded that beliefs are concomitant to behavior or intermingled with it This is not to say that performance or action in teaching can do without beliefs… But one cannot contend that they guide action

Figure 2.1 A model of teachers‟s cultural integration beliefs and practices

Lesson planning, pedagogical instructions, interactions with students

Culture integration in language teaching

- Cultural contents, Language functions, Learning activities

Working environment, interactions with students, learner variables, instructional materials, personal experiences, …

Classroom and school layout School policies

Assumptions, values, knowledge, feelings, attitudes

Teachers‟ teaching experiences, learning, curricula, materials, instructional activities,…

Standardized tests, curriculum mandates and availabilities of resources

Chapter summary

This literature review chapter has addressed two major topics The first topic tackled the theoretical framework of teachers‟ beliefs and practices, by highlighting the importance and usefulness of studying the teachers‟ professed beliefs through their observed practices This could provide a better understanding about the relations between what teachers do (i.e., realities) and what they believe they should do (i.e., ideals) The second topic presented the culture integration and the teacher roles in language teaching Additionally, a number of studies about teachers‟ beliefs, their practices in culture integration have been also reviewed The chapter ends by presenting the theoretical framework for the study The methodological procedures that were employed to find out the answers to research questions will be described in the following chapter.

METHODOLOGY

Research design

This study aims to focus on identifying and exploring the facts regarding to teachers‟ beliefs and practices of culture integration into language teaching, so a descriptive, analysed research can be appropriate The mixed methods which combine elements of quantitative research and qualitative research was adopted to the study to strengthen and supplement the conclusions of the study For the mixed methods approach with type of an embedded design, the researcher collects and analyzes both types of data at the same time, but within a larger quantitative design The qualitative data is secondary to the quantitative one Following the design, a questionnaire and interviews were used to collect data The questionnaire is designed based on the theories in the literature review to find out the information about the EFL teachers‟ beliefs towards the integration of cultures into English classes The interviews follow the questionnaire to gather in-depth insights into the data collected from the questionnaire The combination of the two instruments enable the researcher to gain a more comprehensive understanding of different perspectives, to give more reliable reports on the investigating issues.

Research Setting

The study was conducted at a number of high schools of Ben Tre province in the academic year of 2021-2022, the high time of implementing The National Foreign Language Project 2020, the period of 2017 to 2025 The Project was believed to bring a renovation of language in education policy from macro to micro levels (Hoang, 2016) As a part of it, a new English curriculum, from Grade 3-12, was introduced into teaching EFL in general education To be ready for the change in curriculum, two textbook versions were used simultaneously: the standard and the pilot one

The presence of culture can be traced in both curricula According to Hoang (2011), one of the objectives of the standard curriculum is to build students' understanding of the peoples and cultures of English-speaking countries and to raise awareness and pride of Vietnamese language and culture For him, three focal constituents the textbooks are (1) themes, (2) communicative competence, and (3) language focus and each unit was divided according to language skills and areas: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language focus Common topics about daily, academic, and social communications in Vietnam and foreign countries are focused across the sections in each unit The familiarity of the topics prepares students for relevant communicative situations, from which students could understand cultural differences and regulate their own communicative strategies

Compared to the standard curriculum, the flexibility of teaching programs and integration of cultural content are two main improvements of the new overall EFL (the pilot) curriculum First, the updated curriculum is open to the use of different textbooks That means, at the time of this research implementation, the pilot textbook in this research was neither the official nor the only textbook used nationally as the standard one Second, the new curriculum aims to bring cultural diversity with great focus on English speaking cultures to develop learners‟ communicative competence and approach to comprehensive intercultural competence (Hoang, 2016) Exploring the intercultural content in Grade-10 pilot textbook (volume 1), Lai (2016) proved that the proportion of home, target, and international culture was 51%, 31%, and 18% respectively and the representation of cultural content could be seen throughout each unit

In fact, the pilot textbooks are incorporated with specific cultural input and explicit intercultural integrating activities, the presence of which is most obviously seen in the Communication and Culture section As described in Teacher's book of Grade 10, the Communication and Culture section is divided into two subsections: (1) Communication and (2) Culture Communication subsection aims to give further practice and consolidate language and skills previously studied in the unit

It is the integration of skills focusing on speaking, followed by either reading or listening With the aim to bring cultural knowledge of diverse cultures, namely Vietnam, ASEAN, and English-speaking cultures, The Culture subsection involves reading as the main channel to bring cultural input to students In this part, comparisons between Vietnamese and other cultures are encouraged to deepen their background knowledge about home culture and broaden their views to other cultures

As what has been discussed, the Communication and Culture sections in the pilot textbook invoke freer and more meaningful interactions among students about common issues and provide them with more intercultural knowledge of diverse cultures and through reading passages Typical communicative language teaching integrated skill lessons with a focus on one main skill and followed by the others are the common framework of the Communication and Culture sections

In Ben Tre province, the table below shows the high school English learning and teaching context (source: Department of Education and Training of Ben Tre province, 2021)

Table 3.1 Descriptive statistics of the high school English learning and teaching in

Textbook Number of high schools

Research Participants

The subjects of the study were 201 EFL teachers working at various high schools in Ben Tre province These teachers with different backgrounds (qualifications, novice, experienced, seniority, age, gender, the kind of English textbooks they are using) were involved so that views from a sample representing a wide spectrum of the profession could be collected The questionnaire was written on Google Form and shared to 201 high school teachers via Zalo group

The online survey randomly got 154 returns According to Krejcie and Morgan (1970)‟ s simple random sampling Table (see Appendix 6), the population size of

200 and 210, the sample size are 132 and 136 respectively Additionally, based on Yamane (1967)‟s simplified formula proportions, the sample size determined from a given population of 201 was calculated with the result of n= 133.7 (e= 5%) Therefore, the research chosen sample size of 154, which is larger than 133.7, is representative The participants were clustered into four groups on ten-year intervals of teaching experience Table 3.2 demonstrates the demographic information of the participants

Yamane (1967)‟s simplified formula for proportions n= sample size

N= population size e= sample limit error (

95% reliable interval and statistically significant results p=0.5 are assumed

Table 3.2 Demographic of the study participants (questionnaire)

In terms of education degree, there were 154 participants in this study (as showed in Table 3.2), including 74 bachelors, accounting for 48.1%, 44 masters degrees 28.6%, 04 doctorates accounting for 2.6% and 32 other degrees, accounting for 20.8% The 32 participants with other degrees could have an English proficiency at level C and a certificate of teaching English This is because in the past, there was a shortage of English teachers in Ben Tre province, and they were recruited

To gain interview data for the study, 04 EFL teachers from those who answered the questionnaire were chosen All of them had been teaching English for at least 10 years continuously The selection was purposive and based on three main criteria; the first was that they had teaching experiences; and the second was that their education degree was different and the third criteria was their English textbooks they were applying Additionally, two of them have worked for high school situated in rural area and the other two for high school in urban area

Table 3.3 Demographic of the study participants (interview)

Research instruments

The research instruments of the study include questionnaire, and semi- structured interview which were conducted in the 2021- 2022 academic year

The first instrument used in this study was a questionnaire on teachers‟ beliefs, their practices and their role in integrating culture into their English classes with 32 items divided into two parts The questionnaire was designed in Likert five- point scale (see Appendix 1) Teachers‟ beliefs are opinion-based scale, ranked from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and their practices are frequency- based scale, ranked from very low to very high In order to design the questionnaire, the literature on cultural language teaching and related topics was reviewed (see section 2.2.2.1, 2.2.2.2, 2.2.2.3 and 2.2.2.4) Adapting to Moran (2001)‟s „cultural experience‟ in cultural learning or cultural knowings, which consist of four kinds such as knowing about, knowing how, knowing why and knowing oneself and based on the use of language function, the use of learning activities in the cultural learning process proposed by Moran (2001), the questionnaire items were developed The questionnaire includes two parts Part one was designed to record the participants‟ basic demographic information: gender, age, year of teaching experience, kind of textbooks they were using and highest qualification Part two, more importantly, with two parts, contains the items that collected the data on teachers‟ beliefs and practices Part one included

16 items for collecting data on teachers‟ beliefs about cultural contents (item 1, 2,

3, 4), language function (item 5, 6, 7, 8), learning activities (item 9, 10, 11, 12) and teacher roles (item 13, 14, 15, 16) Part two also comprises 16 items paralleling with the ones in part one, which investigated teachers‟ practices

The interview was carried out after the questionnaire phase to obtain more insights into the data collected from the questionnaire This method allows researchers to get in-depth information from the participants, such as beliefs, attitudes, and evaluations Besides, semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions enable researchers and participants more freedom to make natural conversation on a narrow topic (Alshenqeeti, 2014) As Ho (2011) and Sercu et al (2005a) recommend, teacher interview is an effective way to explore teachers‟ beliefs about cultural integration In order to plan the interviews, the seven stages of an interview investigation (thematizing, designing, interviewing, transcribing, analyzing, verifying, and reporting) proposed by Kvale (1996) were taken into account The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese so that participants easily expressed their ideas and the researcher could avoid misunderstanding caused by differences of English abilities Basically, besides participant profiles, for example, teachers‟ level of education, teaching experiences…, the interviews were conducted based on eight core questions regarding their beliefs and practices in integrating culture into English classes as well as in playing teacher roles (see Appendix 2) Interview questions were sorted by four topics, two questions for a topic, the one for teachers‟ beliefs about a topic, the one for teachers‟ practices of the topic Each interview, which lasted approximately 30 minutes, was recorded and later transcribed to ease the process of data analysis.

Data collection procedure

The questionnaire was carefully prepared to ensure the reliability It was first written in English and then was reviewed by two EFL teachers experiencing in English language studies Following this, the questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese and sent to 08 participants for trial purposes Once the reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was accepted, the revised questionnaire was delivered to the participants To obtain reliable data, before the participants began to fill in the questionnaire, instructions, explanations and demonstrations were given to these participants and 154 of them returned their answers Data gained from the questionnaire were subjected to SPSS software for analyzing The five- point scale was coded from 1 for strongly disagree to 5 for strongly agree SPSS shows reliability of the research with Cronbach‟s alpha of all parts 817, 726, .632, 765, 766, 844, 802 and 839 (see Appendix 4) All were above 60, which was the acceptable coefficient alpha value as Nunnally (1978) asserted It means that the questionnaire used for participants were reliable and the result was guaranteed to report for the research Also, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy of factors in the teachers‟ beliefs section and teachers‟s practices section were 763, 894 (above 5), (see Appendix 5), qualifying the commonly recommended value Bartlett‟s test of sphericity of all factors was significant (Sig = 000, < 05) The meaningful values of Cronbach‟s alpha, KMO, and Bartlett‟s test of sphericity proved the internal consistency, validity, and suitability of the responses collected to the issues addressed

In order to have qualitative data on the participants‟ beliefs and practices of the integration of culture into English classes, a semi-structured in-depth interview was carried out after the questionnaire phase The participants of the interview are who had more than 5 years of teaching experience because the researcher hoped to get in-depth information from the interview To conduct the interview, the researcher used the interview structure which included eight questions as described in Appendix 2 To get the in-depth information, the researcher had sent the interview questions to four participants one week before the interview occurred so that these participants prepared what they would talk about The researcher expected that delivering the interview questions to the participants in advance would help the teacher participants have some ideas so that they could provide profound responses During the interview, although the researcher based on the interview form which included eight questions sent to the participants as discussed above, the researcher did not always follow the order of these eight questions He created a friendly atmosphere when interviewing and each interview was conducted about 30 minutes During the interview, the researcher encouraged the participants to share their ideas, took notes the participants‟ answers, and commented the participants‟ responds The researcher also frequently checked the participants‟ answers by repeating their responses The interviews were conducted online via the Google meet app.

Data analysis procedure

Quantitative data from the questionnaire was tabulated and screened for subjected to descriptive analysis and simple inferential analysis by One way between-subject ANOVA, post Hoc tests for mean comparing across group and degree of effect, and possible correlation between the teachers‟ beliefs and practices Particularly, the items of the questionnaire were classified by subject: (1) the teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding cultural contents, (2) the teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding language functions, (3) teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding learning activities (4) teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding teacher roles in the integration of culture into English classes The Descriptive Statistics Test was used to evaluate the total mean scores of each category of cultural integration by the participants To determine the minimum and the maximum length of the 5-point Likert type scale, the range is calculated by (5 − 1

= 4) then divided by five as it is the greatest value of the scale (4 ÷ 5 = 0.80) Afterwards, number one which is the least value in the scale was added in order to identify the maximum of this cell The length of the cells is determined, for teachers‟ beliefs: M= 1.00- 1.80: strongly disagree; M= 1.81- 2.60: disagree; M 2.61- 3.40: neutral, M= 3.41- 4.20: agree; M= 4.21- 5.00: strongly agree and for teachers‟ practices: M= 1.00- 1.80: never; M= 1.81- 2.60: rarely; M= 2.61- 3.40: sometimes, M= 3.41- 4.20: often, M= 4.21- 5.00: always After the participants‟ beliefs and practices of integration of culture into English classes were analyzed with Descriptive Statistics Test, a One way between-subject ANOVA was run to evaluate the impacts of teachers‟ professional backgrounds, ages, teaching experiences and kind of textbooks they use on their beliefs and teaching practices Further details about quantitative data analysis were presented with statistic findings in Chapter 4

All 4 interviews were transcribed verbatim by research assistants The data were analysed in response to the research questions following the phases of thematic analysis proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006) First, I familiarised myself with the transcripts by reading them iteratively and identified initial themes based on the informants‟ key utterances Even though this study is exploratory rather than hypothesis-testing in nature, my initial identification of themes was helpfully informed by, but not confined to, the theoretical constructs developed in similar studies reported in the literature review For example, the informants‟ definitions of culture were mapped against Adaskou et al.‟s (1990) four dimensions of culture, while their pedagogical practices were viewed against Larzen-Ostermark‟s (2008) three orientations in culture-integrated language teaching The semantic content of the initial coded data was then analysed at what Braun and Clarke (2006) called the „latent‟ level, which is a kind of thematic analysis that involves interpretative work A latent thematic analysis aims to,

„identify or examine the underlying ideas, assumptions, and conceptualisations – and ideologies – that are theorised as shaping or informing the semantic content of the data‟ Through this analytical orientation, I identified a eager feeling prevailing in the informants‟ reported practices of cultural integration in language teaching

To enhance the validity of my coding and interpretation, I invited a critical peer to review my analysis to ensure that my analytic narrative and the illustrative extracts were balanced and convincing.

Reliability and Validity

Validity and reliability of the instruments are believed to add credibility to any research A means of achieving validity depended on the richness and accuracy of the data, rather than the amount of the gathered data This required the principle of triangulation in order to reduce the effect of researcher bias This study achieved both data and methodological triangulation by employing questionnaire and interviews Moreover, the Vietnamese version of the questionnaire and interview in this thesis were checked by two experienced EFL teachers The pilot questionnaire in English version was delivered to a group of 8 teachers in a high school to test reliability, this group was independent from the participants of the study The pilot questionnaire showed a good level of reliability with Cronbach‟s alpha of 592, 694, 777, 743, 905, 853, 678, and 744 respectively (see Appendix 3) Finally, the questionnaires were sent to all high school English teachers and 154 returns were recorded The Cronbach‟s alpha of 8 sections were acceptable (see section 3.5)

Reliability ensures the consistency of the findings and the possibility of the study being repeated This requires documenting the study procedure in a detailed manner to allow an external researcher to repeat the inquiry and obtain similar findings This study ensures reliability as it provides a detailed description of the participants involved in the study, the context of the study, and the procedures taken to conduct the study.

Chapter summary

This chapter has presented the instruments and approaches for data collection and analysis used in the research With available resources, data collection and analysis methods selected in this research enabled the researcher to reach a balance of a variety of approaches, the versatility of data sources, reliability, and validity of the research instruments.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Data analysis from the questionnaire

4.1.1 Teachers‟ beliefs of culture integration

4.1.1.1 Teachers‟ beliefs about cultural contents of culture integration

Table 4.1 Teachers‟ beliefs about cultural contents

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

A1 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing about‟ 154 4

A2 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing how‟ 154 2

A3 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing why‟ 154 2

A4 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing oneself' 154 2

Table 4.1 shows the teachers‟ beliefs about cultural contents of culture integration in language teaching The mean scores of the four items, which varied from 3.91 to 3.95, were not significantly different With the average mean score of 3.94, it indicates that EFL teachers agreed with the cultural contents stated in the questionnaire about cultural contents of culture integration in English classes

4.1.1.2 Teachers‟ beliefs about language functions of culture integration

Table 4.2 Teachers‟ beliefs about language functions

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Mean Std Dev B1 Beliefs about language functions: participating in the cultural experience

B2 Beliefs about language functions: describing the cultural experience

B3 Beliefs about language functions: identifying, explaining, and justifying cultural perspective and comparing and contrasting these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures

B4 Beliefs about language functions: expressing their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience

Similarly, Table 4.2 shows that the mean scores of the items regarding to teachers‟ beliefs about language functions in integrating culture into English classes were M B1= 4.01, M B2= 3.94, M B3= 3.95, and M B4= 4.12 respectively Interestingly, the teachers had the highest approval for item B4 (M= 4.12) This infers that the teachers held strong beliefs about the language students use to express their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience Concerning the language students use to participate in the cultural experience, teachers showed the agreement with M B1= 4.01 Beliefs about the language students use to identify, explain, and justify cultural perspective and comparing and contrast these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures were emphasized (M B3= 3.95) but the students‟ language use to describe the cultural experience was less highlighted (M B2= 3.94) In general, it points out that EFL teachers agreed with the statements about language functions in culture integration in English classes

4.1.1.3 Teachers‟ beliefs about learning activities of culture integration

Table 4.3 Teachers‟ beliefs about learning activities

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

C1 Beliefs about learning activities: operations, dialogues, role-play, performance, drama

C2 Beliefs about learning activities: authentic material, pedagogical material, experiences and personal accounts

C3 Beliefs about learning activities: cultural analyses, research, research projects and field experiences

C4 Beliefs about learning activities: cultural reflection, focused talking and focused writing

With mean scores were M C1= 3.94, M C2= 4.04, M C3= 3.99, and M C43.97, Table 4.5 showed teachers thought that they have used all the learning activities listed in the questionnaire Particularly, these learning activities include operations, rituals, dialogues, role-plays, performance, drama, simulations, and field experiences, authentic materials, pedagogical materials, experiences, personal accounts, cultural analyses, research and research projects, reflection, focused talking and writing

4.1.1.4 Teachers‟ beliefs about teacher roles in culture teaching

Table 4.4 Teachers‟ beliefs about teacher roles

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Mean Std Dev D1 Beliefs about teacher roles: a model and a coach 154 8

16 10.4% 3.77 703 D2 Beliefs about teacher roles: a source, a resource, an arbiter and an elicitor

D3 Beliefs about teacher roles: a guide and a co-researcher 154 4

30 19.5% 3.95 703 D4 Beliefs about teacher roles: a listener, a witness and a co-learner 154 28

Descriptive statistics of teachers‟ beliefs about teacher roles are reported in Table 4.6 With mean scores were M D1= 3.77, M D2= 3.82, M D3= 3.95, and M D4= 4.00, Table 4.4 showed that the teachers thought they played many different roles such as a model a coach, a source, a resource, an arbiter, an elicitor, a guide, a co-researcher, a listener, a witness and a co-worker when integrating cultural elements into English classes

This section presents the findings about teachers‟ beliefs (research question 1) based on the questionnaire analysis Generally, with the average mean score of 3.97, it reveals the teachers‟ consensus in that culture integration in language teaching includes cultural contents (A M= 3.94), language functions (B M= 4.01) and learning activities (C M= 3.99) The teacher roles were also examined to uncover the teachers‟ thoughts about their roles in culture integration With these average mean scores shown in Table 4.1, 4.2 4.3 and 4.4, it can be interpreted that the majority of teachers advocated the culture integration in language teaching

4.1.2.1 Teachers‟ practices regarding cultural contents

Table 4.5 Teachers‟ practices regarding cultural contents

Dev AA1 Practices in cultural contents: cultural information, cultural experiences

AA2 Practices in cultural contents: cultural behaviors 154 22

22 14.3% 3.97 582 AA3 Practices in cultural contents: doing things and behaving in different social interactions

AA4 Practices in cultural contents: cultural interpretations, cultural comparisons

The results in Table 4.5 reveals that teachers‟ practices in treating cultural contents when integrating culture into English classes were at a good level It can be seen that the mean scores varying from 3.83 to 4.08 were not very much different That shows the teachers agreed with the statements in the questionnaire

4.1.2.2 Teachers‟ practices regarding language functions

Table 4.6 Teachers‟ practices in using language functions

Dev BB1 Practices in language functions: participating in the cultural experience 154 22

26 16.9% 4.03 560 BB2 Practices in language functions: describing the cultural experience 154 2

18 11.7% 3.92 578 BB3 Practices in language functions: identifying, explaining, and justifying cultural perspective and comparing and contrasting these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures

BB4 Practices in language functions: expressing their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan 154 30

From the data descriptive statistics in table 4.6, it is apparent that teachers‟ practices in using language functions for integrating culture into English classes were relatively high The use of language to participate in the cultural experience had the highest mean score (4.03) while the lowest mean score (3.92) was the use of language to describe the cultural experience The use of language to identify, explain, and justify cultural perspective and compare and contrast these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures (3.99) and the use of language to express thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience (3.94) ranked the second and the third mean score respectively

4.1.2.3 Teachers‟ practices regarding learning activities in culture teaching

Table 4.7 Teachers‟ practices regarding learning activities

Often Always Mean Std Dev

CC1 Practices in learning activities: operations, dialogues, role-play, performance, drama

CC2 Practices in learning activities: authentic material, pedagogical material, experiences and personal accounts

CC3 Practices in learning activities: cultural analyses, research, research projects and field experiences

CC4 Practices in learning activities: cultural reflection, focused talking and focused writing

Teachers‟ practices in using learning activities for integrating culture into English classes are presented in Table 4.7 From the data descriptive statistics in Table 4.7, it is apparent that teachers‟ practices were relatively at high level As this table shows, the data gained from each measured item were not much different The mean score varies from 3.97 to 4.01 This result reflects teachers‟ interest in using learning activities for integrating culture into English classes

4.1.2.4 Teachers‟ practices regarding teacher roles in teaching culture

Table 4.8 Teachers‟ practices regarding teacher roles

Often Always Mean Std Dev

DD1 Practices in teacher roles: a model and a coach 154 2

20 13% 3.83 712 DD2 Practices in teacher roles: a source, a resource, an arbiter and an elicitor

DD3 Practices in teacher roles: a guide and a co-researcher 154 2

18 11.7% 3.91 650 DD4 Practices in teacher roles: a listener, a witness and a co-learner 154 2

Table 4.8 shows the results of teachers‟ practices in playing teacher roles when integrating culture into English classes Overall, the results obtained were very positive with the mean score varying from 3.82 to 3.91 That indicates the teachers‟ agreements with the four view points on teacher roles, which were stated in the questionnaire

This section presents the findings as well as the detailed description regarding teachers‟ practices in integrating culture into English classes As the descriptive statistic showed, the average mean score of the four parts varied slightly from 3.87 to 3.97, which were at the level of „often‟ It can be inferred from the results that, in their reality teaching, teachers practice it regularly.

Data analysis from the interview

4.2.1 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding cultural contents

As the interview data reveals, teachers‟ beliefs about culture contents they focused on were not much different All of them confirmed they followed the cultural contents included in each unit of the textbooks Some of cultural contents that teachers frequently focus on include acquiring cultural information and cultural experiences, developing cultural behaviors, discovering cultural explanations Most of them said they familiarized students with culture information about different topics, sometimes developed students‟ cultural behaviors and cultural interpretations, and seldom developed students‟ worldview All of the teachers‟ answers to the interview question 1 and 2 point out four teachers‟ beliefs were congruent with their practices regarding the cultural contents In line with their beliefs, they reported that they had followed the cultural features included in every unit in the English textbooks Dialogues, role-plays, and drama were their favorite activities when dealing with cultural elements in each lesson Specially, English clubs with the taking part of native speakers and making video clips were the ways one of the teachers used to activate, motivate students acquire target culture In brief, teachers‟ beliefs and practices were totally congruent regarding cultural contents In other words, their beliefs match their practices

Teacher 1: “I focus on cultural behaviors in public places, such as the way students dress, their appearance when entering class to match the Vietnamese culture I often compare Eastern and Western cultures in terms of dressing, greetings Particularly, Vietnamese people often dress modestly, greet the elderly first and then the young while Westerners dress more casually and they may greet the young first, then the elderly”

Teacher 2: “When introducing festivals or events mentioned in English lessons, I often focus on the similarities and differences between Vietnamese culture and the cultures of English-speaking countries”

Teacher 3: “When integrating culture into the language classroom, teachers must base on the proposed contents of each unit in the textbook in which cultural aspects are introduced For example, in the pilot 10th grade English textbook, foreign cultural elements appear very clearly in Unit 1: Family life, Unit 3:

Music, Unit 4: For a Better Community, Unit 5: Inventions, Unit 6: Gender Equality, especially Unit 7: Cultural Diversity

Teacher 4: “I focus more on knowing oneself: articulating personal responses to what they are learning or articulation of personal responses I have students practice the cultural features contained in each unit by using dialogues, role- plays, drama, performance.”

4.2.2 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding language functions

Data gained from the interviews indicate that teachers have focused more on sentence structures that support students to describe the cultural experience, to participate in the cultural experience, to establish/maintain relationships, to influence people, to give and respond to feedback They also emphasised on language patterns that can be useful for students to express their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience They believed that these language patterns facilitate the cultural integration The beliefs were in line with their practices that the teachers‟ jobs are not to focus on sentence structures but rather highlight the specific situations in which the sentences are used For example, when asked how to develop language functions associated with culture participation, description, explanation and expression for student, teacher 3 explained:

“When developing language functions related to cultural aspects for students, teachers should put them into specific situations (e.g what should response when receiving gifts, thanks or apologies)”

Teacher 1: “I usually hold English clubs for students with activities such as drawing pictures, designing slogans related to aspects of foreign cultural that students were introduced in English lessons”

Teacher 2: “I usually use role-plays, drama, dialogues when holding activities related to foreign cultures”

Teacher 4: I focus on the language that students use to participate in the cultural experience: socializing, establishing/maintaining relationships, influencing people, giving and responding to feedback I also focus on the language that students use to express their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience including evaluation, expressing emotions, and expressing/inquiring about I often have students act out the cultural behavior, cultural practices of foreign countries they have learned from English textbooks

4.2.3 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding learning activities

In the interviews, teachers agreed with the idea that learning activities including operations, dialogues, role-plays, performance, drama, cultural reflection, focused talking cultural analyses, research, research projects, authentic material, pedagogical material,… support cultural integration effectively Teachers believed in the importance of engaging students in various learning activities in order to improve their cultural behaviors, their cultural interpretations, their cultural understandings…In their actual practices, teachers admitted that they use operations, dialogues, role-plays, performance, drama very often Especially, one of the teachers held English speaking clubs with the participation of native speakers Teacher 3 said that:

“I assigned students tasks of producing video clips on certain issues or topics such as family, friends, cultural diversity Especially, in the academic year 2020-2021,

I held two English club with the participation of foreigners, one with an American and one with a New Zealand Students were very excited because it is the best opportunity that they have ever experienced.”

Teacher 1: “When integrating culture into English class, I often use role- plays and drama I also took the advantage of Zalo to post interesting issues related to culture so that students could comment, give opinions, and criticize freely, because some students feel afraid to present the issues directly in class”

Teacher 2: “Every year, I often hold festivals such as Halloween, carnival These activities help students practice speaking English, communicating in English They also make students have experiences and impressions on foreign culture Therefore, students will have a deep understanding of cultural features of English- speaking countries.”

Teacher 4: I focus more on activities improving students‟ cultural behaviors (operations, dialogues, role-plays, performance, drama, simulations and field experiences) and developing students‟ self-awareness (reflection, focused talking and focused writing) Regarding authentic materials, I collect and show them to students Since the past 2 years, the percentage of students using the internet and social networks has increased, students were assigned to work in groups every quarter or semester Methodically, each group was asked to present to other groups for comments and feedback At that time, I focused on the language students use to express their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience including evaluation, expressing emotions, and expressing/inquiring about To improve students‟ cultural interpretations, I focused on cultural analyses and cultural research, but for research projects and field experiences due to funding and time constraints 4.2.4 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding teacher roles

All teachers interviewed said that teachers play a very important role in integrating culture into the English classes Their answers showed that they strongly believe in the roles as model, coach, source, resource, co-researcher and co-learner In accordance with the beliefs, their practices revealed that they give demonstrations to help students acquire culture behaviors, they provide and show students where to find the cultural information, they engage in the cultural exploration alongside students, offering alternative explanations, information, responses and they share their own process of culture learning Teacher 1 stated that:

“I make a plan when integrating a particular cultural aspect, in which I give instructions to students and propose a scale of marks Students choose a topic and build it by producing video clips, drawing posters ”

Teacher 2: “… I play the role as coach and model with reason that if teachers describe something in words or ask students to do it, it is very difficult for them

In some cases, I perform a task as co-researcher, because some students have been abroad or lived abroad, so they had more experiences in foreign culture than

Teacher 3: : “I often look for and use the talks of famous people, scientists on YouTube [as resource] to illustrate my teaching practices, which makes students be excited In my opinion, when dealing with the tasks in Culture and communication section in the English textbooks and when preparing students of grade 12 for their exam, teachers play the role as a coach.”

Teacher 4: “ I agree that teacher roles in culture integration include a model, a coach, a elicitor, a co-researcher, a co-learner,… Additionally, I think that co- operation is also another teacher role For example, when cultural points raising, my students and I work together to learn the cultural points However, teachers with their own life experiences and better critical thinking ability will be supportive during the process.”

Relationship between teachers‟s beliefs and teachers‟ practices

This section aims to analyse the relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and practices to address the second research question: What is the relationship between their beliefs and practices of culture integration in their teaching? Four topics are discussed in this section: the in/congruence between teachers‟s beliefs and practices regarding cultural contents, language functions, leaning activities and teacher roles

Since the analysis reveals a more complex picture than a complete congruence or incongruence between teachers‟ beliefs and practices, three categories of congruence are introduced to provide a more fine-grained presentation of the findings: (a) congruence where most teachers‟ beliefs match their practices with the score mean from 3.41 to 5.00, (b) incongruence where most teachers‟ beliefs do not match their practices with the score mean under 2.60, and (c) partial in/congruence where some teachers‟ beliefs match their practices while others do not with the score mean from 2.61 to 3.40

Table 4.9 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices of culture integration in comparison

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

Table 4.10 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices of teacher roles in comparison

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

Pair correlations between teachers‟ beliefs and practices of culture integration, and between teachers‟ beliefs and practices of teacher roles are shown in Table 4.9 and 4.10 Referred to the guide for interpreting correlation strength suggested by Evans (1996), the correlation between teachers „beliefs and practices of culture integration is moderate (r = 574); those between teachers‟ beliefs and practices of teacher roles is strong (r = 658) Also, as showed in Table 4.9 and Table 4.10, the average mean score of teachers‟ beliefs and practices of culture integration were 3.97 and 3.95 respectively, those of teachers‟ beliefs and practices of teachers‟ role were 3.88 and 3.87 It can be inferred from the results that there was a congruence between teachers‟ beliefs and practices of culture integration Following more details of teachers‟ beliefs and practices are presented

4.3.1 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding cultural contents

Table 4.11 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices in comparison regarding cultural contents

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

A1 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing about‟ 154 4

24 15.6% 3.94 729 AA1 Practices in cultural contents: cultural information, cultural experiences

A2 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing how‟ 154 2

18 11.7% 3.94 633 AA2 Practices in cultural contents: cultural behaviors 154 22

22 14.3% 3.97 582 A3 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing why‟ 154 2

18 11.7% 3.95 603 AA3 Practices in cultural contents: doing things and behaving in different social interactions

A4 Beliefs about cultural contents, „knowing oneself' 154 2

20 13% 3.91 650 AA4 Practices in cultural contents: cultural interpretations, cultural comparisons

The questionnaire findings reveal that teachers‟ beliefs were congruent with their practices regarding cultural contents As shown in Table 4.11, teachers‟ practices (the average mean score of 3.94) were in line with their beliefs (the average mean score of 3.94) The mean scores of the items in each pair were nearly equal and at level showing teachers‟ agreements

4.3.2 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding language functions

Table 4.12 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices in comparison regarding language functions

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

B1 Beliefs about language functions: participating in the cultural experience 154 2

BB1 Practices in language functions: participating in the cultural experience 154 22

B2 Beliefs about language functions: describing the cultural experience 154 2

BB2 Practices in language functions: describing the cultural experience 154 2

B3 Beliefs about language functions: identifying, explaining, and justifying cultural perspective and comparing and contrasting these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures

BB3 Practices in language functions: identifying, explaining, and justifying cultural perspective and comparing and contrasting these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures

B4 Beliefs about language functions: expressing their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience

BB4 Practices in language functions: expressing their thoughts, feelings, questions, decisions, strategies and plan regarding the cultural experience

It was generally found that the relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and practices was completely congruent regarding using language functions The average mean scores items BB was 3.97 and the ones of B was 4.01 that proved teachers‟ practices were consistent with their beliefs

4.3.3 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding leaning activities

Table 4.13 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices in comparison regarding leaning activities

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Mean Std Dev C1 Beliefs about learning activities: operations, dialogues, role-play, performance, drama

CC1 Practices in learning activities: operations, dialogues, role-play, performance, drama

C2 Beliefs about learning activities: authentic material, pedagogical material, experiences and personal accounts

CC2 Practices in learning activities: authentic material, pedagogical material, experiences and personal accounts

C3 Beliefs about learning activities: cultural analyses, research, research projects and field experiences

CC3 Practices in learning activities: cultural analyses, research, research projects and field experiences

C4 Beliefs about learning activities: cultural reflection, focused talking and focused writing

CC4 Practices in learning activities: cultural reflection, focused talking and focused writing

As can be seen from the two tables above, teachers‟ beliefs regarding leaning activities when integrating culture matched their classroom practices The average mean scores demonstrated the teachers‟ agreements on what they believed and acted in their English classes

4.3.4 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding teacher roles

Table 4.14 Teachers‟ beliefs and practices in comparison regarding teacher roles

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Mean Std Dev D1 Beliefs about teacher roles: a model and a coach 154 8

16 10.4% 3.77 703 DD1 Practices in teacher roles: a model and a coach 154 2

20 13% 3.83 712 D2 Beliefs about teacher roles: a source, a resource, an arbiter and an elicitor 154 44

DD2 Practices in teacher roles: a source, a resource, an arbiter and an elicitor 154 4

14 9.1% 3.82 621 D3 Beliefs about teacher roles: a guide and a co-researcher 154 4

30 19.5% 3.95 703 DD3 Practices in teacher roles: a guide and a co-researcher 154 2

18 11.7% 3.91 650 D4 Beliefs about teacher roles: a listener, a witness and a co-learner 154 28

28 18.2% 4.00 605 DD4 Practices in teacher roles: a listener, a witness and a co-learner 154 2

The above table illustrates teachers‟ beliefs and their practices in integrating culture into their English classes As can see from Table 4.14, teachers did not differ in their beliefs regarding the issue of performing their tasks related to teacher roles Noticeably, teachers appreciated the role as a listener, a witness and a co-learner, the average mean score of 3.96 while they less appreciated the role as a model and a coach, the average mean score of 3.80 On the whole, teachers‟ beliefs and their practices appear to be congruent with the total average mean scores 3.89 and 3.87 that showed the teachers‟ agreements

4.3.5 Differences between the groups analysis

Generally, reports from teacher questionnaires and interviews showed that integrating culture into teaching EFL was common However, teachers‟ self- reported practices demonstrate that their practices of culture integration were almost based on English textbooks In fact, their teaching practices were coursebook-driven, and the balance of language and culture in their instruction was mostly dependent on the textbooks Teachers, using different textbooks, intentionally added cultural and linguistic knowledge to support language and culture learning While the teachers using the standard textbooks struggled to

“interculturalize” the textbooks by adding intercultural facts, the teachers using the pilot textbooks had fewer problems because a great deal of intercultural content was already included with an obvious part in each unit Therefore, in an interview, teacher 3 said the cultural features found in the pilot textbooks were more obvious than the ones in the standard textbook but there was no evidence proving that the teachers using the pilot textbooks were more skillful in dealing with cultural integration in comparison to those of the other group That is why the impacts of teachers‟ professional backgrounds, teaching experiences and kind of textbooks on their beliefs and their teaching practices should be further explored quantitatively by ANOVA

Three supposed contributing factors to teachers‟ beliefs and teachers‟ practices of cultural integration were teaching experience, professional qualification, and kind of English textbook The mean difference between the groups and factor analysis was measured by One way between-subject ANOVA and post hoc tests The results are presented in Table 4.17

Table 4.15 Factors contributing to teachers‟ beliefs about integrating culture into EFL teaching

Contributing Factors Mean Square F df Sig

Table 4.15 confirmed that the impact of teachers‟ professional qualification, teaching experiences and textbook types on their beliefs about cultural integration is not meaningful (F= 431, p= 731; F= 731, p= 774 and F= 074, p = 929) In other words, there was no difference in the teachers‟ beliefs among teachers who have different professional qualifications, teaching experience, different type textbooks

Table 4.16 Factors contributing to teachers‟ practices in integrating culture into EFL teaching

Contributing Factors Mean Square F df Sig

Similarly, as Table 4.16 shows (F= 1.187, p= 147; F= 591, p= 622; F 2.645, p= 074), there was no difference between groups of teachers with different professional qualifications, teaching experience, and textbook types on their practices of cultural integration

Table 4.17 Factors contributing to teachers‟ beliefs about teacher roles

Contributing Factors Mean Square F df Sig

Regarding teachers‟ beliefs about the teacher's role, as can be seen in Table 4.17, there was no difference between groups of teachers with different professional qualifications and their type of textbooks (F= 421, p= 739; F= 848, p= 430) while their teaching experiences had an impact on their beliefs about the teacher roles (F= 3.447, p= 018) Therefore, it was necessary to compute a Post hoc test to analyze the degree of effects It can be seen from the Table 4.18 that the teachers who had under 10 years of teaching experiences hold beliefs about teacher roles differing from those who had 10- 20 and 21- 30 years of teaching experiences because the sig values of teachers of 10 to 20, 21 to 30 and over 30 years teaching experiences were 009, 022 and 007 respectively, which were under 05 Based on mean difference, it can be referred from the result that teachers of under 10 years of teaching experiences hold stronger beliefs about teacher roles than those of 10- 20, 21- 30 and over 30 years of teaching experiences

* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level

Table 4.19 Factors contributing to teachers‟ practices of teacher roles

Contributing Factors Mean Square F df Sig

Statistically, the Table 4.21 proves that the teachers who have different professional qualifications, teaching experiences or using different English textbooks had no difference in the teachers‟ practices of teacher roles (F= 2.045, p= 110; F= 979, p= 404; F= 738, p= 480)

In brief, from the teachers‟ questionnaires and interviews, it was proven that the teachers had good beliefs and practices of the culture integration in their English classes (the average mean scores of all items vary from 3.87 to 4.01) And there was almost no difference between groups of teachers with different professional qualifications and their type of textbooks regarding teachers‟ beliefs, teachers‟ practices of cultural integration and teacher roles

This section tackles the teachers‟ beliefs and practices in integrating culture into their English classes as well as teacher roles The findings showed that most teachers hold positive beliefs about culture integration in language teaching The average mean score of teachers‟ beliefs was 3.96 indicating their agreements and teachers‟ practices was 3.93 showing their frequencies Remarkably, the mean scores of teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding teacher roles were the lowest with 3.89 and 3.87 while the ones regarding language functions were the highest with 3.97 and 4.01.

Discussion

This section introduces the discussions of the research domain concentrating on teachers‟ beliefs about culture integration, teachers‟ practices of culture integration and the comparison of teachers‟ practices with their beliefs

4.4.1 Teachers‟ beliefs about culture integration

As discussed in the data analysis above, teachers‟ beliefs about culture integration in this study include cultural contents, language functions, learning activities and teacher roles The questionnaire and interview findings reveal that the teachers had a rather high level of agreement on the culture integration in language teaching There are similarities between the results found in this study and that explored by Chau (2019) Specifically, in the study of Chau (2019), the researcher found that EFL teachers were willing to incorporate culture in teaching English to facilitate students‟ language learning and build their intercultural knowledge This outcome was predictable and there are several possible explanations for this result The first explanation, in terms of professional coursework, may be that the majority of teachers teaching with the new textbooks were quite experienced teachers and they were found to have a passion for English teaching In addition, teachers were regularly trained in English teaching methods, including cultural integration methods in the language classes

Other potential reasons explaining for teachers‟ aware of culture integration in their teaching include the factors related to the professional coursework It was found from the study that teachers might be influenced by the types of the training programs in which they had taken part Some who were interviewed revealed that they found it useful and applicable Some had chances to work or practice English with foreigner for a period of time Thus, they learned themselves the intercultural experiences which are supported to be available for the culture integration For the reasons related to schooling factors, this study found no meaningful teachers‟ educational backgrounds as the evidence contributing to their beliefs about culture integration in their teaching.

In term of cultural contents mentioned in the questionnaire, the teachers expressed their agreements and that means they provided students with cultural information, developed students‟ cultural behaviors and their worldview and personal competence, and improved students‟ cultural interpretations Additionally, in the interview, the teachers shared that they can analyze language and culture interconnected relationship in both students‟ mother-tongue and target language, free students from cultural prejudices and ethnocentrism, and develop students‟ sociocultural perspectives

Similar to the results of culture content, all the teachers agreed with the view points on language functions suggested in the questionnaire- students‟ use of language functions enable them to participate in the cultural experience, to describe the cultural experience, to identify, explain and justify cultural perspectives and to compare and contrast these with perspectives from the individual‟s own culture and other cultures, and to express their thoughts Regarding language functions, in the interview, besides the language functions mentioned in the questionnaire, the teachers clarified that they enlarged language patterns for students to apply appropriately in specific situations For example, the language patterns are used in the situation of responding to thanks, compliments, proposals, refusals or sharing their feelings, encouraging someone, offering helps

The findings from the questionnaire showed the English teachers assumed that different kinds of learning activities such as operations, rituals, dialogues, role-plays, performance, drama, simulation and field experience; authentic materials, pedagogical materials, experiences and personal accounts; cultural analyses, research, research projects; and reflection, focused talking and focused writing are helpful for culture integration Moreover, in the interview, the English teachers also showed that teachers often elicit students‟ cultural experiences and knowledge; and they can use all kinds of learning activities that contain the value of cultural perspectives For example,they focused on dialogues, used authentic materials, cultural items and guest speakers More importantly, all of them thought that role-play is a very effective tool for teachers in the culture integration process The interview also indicated that they did not use some of the learning activities listed in the questionnaire such as operations (tools, artifacts, or other product of the culture), pedagogical materials, research, research projects

The teachers in this research agreed with the teacher roles as listed in the questionnaire They thought that when integrating culture in English classes, teachers play roles as a model, a coach, a source, a resource, an arbiter, an elicitor, a guide, a co-researcher, a listener, a witness and a co-learner Besides, in the interview, the they added that teachers should play a role as a supporter, and they should be a facilitator rather than a controller All of them thought that to integrate culture in the English classes, teachers should play a role as a source, a guide, an elicitor and a facilitator Inferably, it can be a match between the teachers‟ beliefs and their teaching practices regarding teacher roles

4.4.2 Teachers‟ practices of culture integration

The questionnaire findings reveal teachers‟ consensus on the cultural contents in practicing integrating culture into English classes, including knowing about, knowing how, knowing why and knowing oneself with the mean scores 3.83,

3.97, 4.08 and 3.87 respectively (see section 4.1.2.1) However, the interview findings show that teachers most focused on knowing about, knowing how, knowing oneself in their practices (see section 4.2.1) This finding supports Chau‟s

(2019) study which indicated that teachers‟ practices were described as knowledge-based, and coursebook-driven These practices could be interpreted as their concerns to cover the curriculum and to prepare students for exams rather than aimed at developing intercultural communication competence for students

In responses to the questions of giving examples about their practices of cultural integration, the teachers showed their implicit and explicit ways On the one trend, one teacher reported that they related cultural content in the textbooks to his own cultural knowing and experience to enrich his language classes, or he further explored and presented it to his students On the other trend, three teachers organized some fun activities like cultural quizzes, guessing the pictures, and drama Appreciably, all of them favoured in conducting role-play activities to integrate cultural features To conclude, from teachers‟ reports, it can be inferred that they integrated cultures into their teaching by different ways, which depended on the textbook content, students‟ interests, and teachers‟ intercultural knowledge

4.4.3 Relationship between teachers‟ beliefs and teaches‟ practices

As shown in Table 4.2, the correlations between teachers‟ beliefs and teachers‟ practices of cultural integration were positive That means that teachers who held stronger beliefs in the importance of cultural integration were more likely to approve the practices of cultural teaching (r = 574; p