AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN MOTIVATING 11TH FORM ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON GIFTED h

ABSTRACT The importance of American culture is undeniable in English language Therefore, investigating new ways to motivate students to learn American culture is apparently necessary to gain effective English teaching and learning and using American movies in the process is not exception This minor thesis was carried out with an investigation into using American movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School - Thanh Hoa province to understand American culture The minor thesis is organized in parts: Part A: presents the rationale, aims and significance of the study, research questions, scope, method and design of the study Part B: consists of chapters The first chapter concentrates on the background of the study and the related literature reviews, on which the contents of the study are based The second chapter focuses on developing the research methodology, in which the two questionnaires for 11th form English gifted students and teachers of English at Lam Son Gifted High School are chosen as main instruments The third chapter is to present the data collected from the two questionnaires and to analyze the data The fourth chapter aims at discussing the findings on how to use American movies in English class as the best solutions in the hope to motivate 11 th form English gifted students to understand American culture Part C: summaries the study and offers some suggestions for further study i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LSGHS: Lam Son Gifted High School AE: Advanced English BA: Basic English ESL: English as a Second Language EFL: English as a foreign language ii LIST OF TABLES Figure 1: Students’ awareness of having an understanding of American Culture 20 Figure 2: Students’ awareness of the importance of American culture .21 Figure 3: Students’ awareness of learning American culture 21 Figure 4: How interesting? 22 Figure 5: How difficult ? 22 Figure 6: Students’ opinions on finding out more about American culture 23 Figure 7: Students’ opinions about the methods of using American movies 23 Figure 8: Students’ opinions about using American movies in English class 24 Figure 9: Students’ participation in American movies 25 Figure 10: Students’ feeling on American movies 25 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii LIST OF TABLES iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 2 Aims of the study Scope of the study Methodology Structure of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Culture and American culture 1.2 The role of the culture in language teaching and learning? 1.3 The role of movies in teaching and learning culture……………………………6 1.4 Previous studies on the use of movies in English teaching process 1.5 The use of cultural artifacts in teaching culture: Movies as cultural artifacts 1.6 What is motivation? 1.7 Relationships between teaching culture and students' motivation 10 1.8 Criteria to choose movies 11 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 13 2.1 The setting of the study 13 2.1.1 English teaching and learning situation at Lam Son Gifted High School 13 2.1.2 English teaching staff 13 2.1.3 English gifted students 13 iv 2.1.4 The 11th form English gifted students 13 2.2 Research methodology 14 2.2.1 Research questions 14 2.2.2 Research design 14 2.2.3 Participants 14 2.2.3.1 The subjects 14 2.2.3.2 The participants 15 2.3 Data collection instrument 15 2.3.1 Questionnaire 15 2.3.1.1 Questionnaire for the students 15 2.3.1.2 Questionnaire for the teachers 16 2.3.2 Classroom observations 16 2.4 Data collection procedures 16 2.5 Data analysis 17 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS 18 3.1 Results 18 3.1.1 The 11th form English gifted students' motivation to understand American culture 18 3.1.1.1 Students’ awareness of learning American culture 18 3.1.1.2 Students’ awareness of the necessity and importance of American culture19 3.1.2 Students’ perception of the use of American movies in English lessons 20 3.1.3 Challenges 23 3.2 Conclusion of the chapter 25 CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS ON USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN MOTIVATING 11TH ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO UNDERSTAND AMERICAN CULTURE 27 4.1 Providing students with a full awareness of the importance of American culture 27 v 4.2 Improving students’ background knowledge of American culture and Crosscultural Communication 28 4.3 How to use American movies in English lessons 30 4.4 How to motivate 11th English gifted students to understand American culture through American movies 32 4.5 Conclusion of the chapter 33 PART C: CONCLUSION 35 3.1 Conclusion 35 3.2 Limitations of the study 36 3.3 Suggestions for further study 36 REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES I vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Foreign language learning is comprised of several components, including grammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, as well as a change in attitudes towards one’s own or another culture For scholars and laymen alike, cultural competence, i.e., the knowledge of the conventions, customs, beliefs, and systems of meaning of another country, is indisputably an integral part of foreign language learning, and many teachers have seen it as their goal to incorporate the teaching of culture into the foreign language curriculum In Vietnam, in recent years, English as a foreign language has gained considerable attention It has become a compulsory subject in the syllabus of many schools, colleges and universities However, the fact is that the combination of culture and English teaching-learning process has not been effective yet, especially that in gifted high schools like Lam Son Gifted High School- Thanh Hoa province There are still many English gifted students who have low motivation in learning English and cannot understand English-American culture As a teacher of English at Lam Son Gifted High School, the researcher is concerned about the teaching methods to promote her students' motivation in learning English and understanding American culture She also realizes that movie is the product of a series of modern technology, containing elements of art, language and culture, so movies can be viewed as a useful tool for teaching and learning culture Language and culture are two factors that cannot be separated In order to learn a foreign language, we have to learn the culture along with perceiving the language Among English – speaking countries, American culture is more abundant than other cultures in England, Canada… Thus, the researcher decided to introduce American culture to 11th form English gifted students through the American movies presented in English class at Lam Son Gifted High School Also, among different teaching methods, using American movies into the lessons is considered a method that is worth trying and investigating Aims of the study The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of using American movies in lessons to promote 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School - Thanh Hoa province to learn and understand American culture Scope of the study Although there are many different ways to motivate students to learn English and to understand American culture, they cannot be fully covered in the scope of a thesis Due to the word limit and the time frame of the study, the researcher only focused on investigating the use of American movies as a way of motivating 11th form English gifted students to understand American culture at Lam Son Gifted High School Besides, the target subjects that the study investigated were 40 students from 02 classes of grade 11 at this school Methodology This study was intended to be conducted as an action research study In this action research, the researcher used some different methods based on study quantitative and qualitative approaches: a survey questionnaire for students, a survey questionnaire for teachers of English and classroom observations Structure of the thesis The thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the development, and the conclusion Part A: Introduction – presents the basic information including rationale, aims, significance, research methods, scope, and the structure of the thesis Part B: Development – consists of three chapters Chapter 1: Literature Review – provides the literature concerning motivation in second language learning, culture and the role of the culture in language teaching and learning, the relationship between teaching culture and students’ motivation Chapter 2: The study – reports the setting, the research hypothesis, participants, instruments, data collection procedure and analysis The detailed results of the surveys and a critical comprehensive analysis on the data collected are also presented in this chapter Chapter 3: Findings – shows major findings and discussions and offers recommendations for motivating students to understand American culture through using American movies in English lessons Chapter 4: Implications on using American movies in motivating 11th English gifted students at Lam Son gifted high school to understand American culture Part C: Conclusion – is a summary of the study in which conclusions of the study are presented Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also presented in this part PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Culture and American culture Why is incorporating culture in an ESL/EFL classroom inevitable? There are at least three fundamental reasons we can put forth to answer this question First, culture and language are inseparable Politzer, (as cited in Brooks, 1968) points out: As language teachers we must be interested in the study of culture not because we necessarily want to teach the culture of the other country, but because we have to teach it If we teach language without teaching at the same time the culture in which it operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols to which the student attaches the wrong meaning; for unless he is warned, unless he receives cultural instruction, he will associate American concepts or objects with the foreign symbols (p 8586) Concurrent with that, Brown (1994) emphasizes “… a language is a part of culture and a culture is a part of a language The two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture” (p 164) Hence, it is natural to talk about culture when we talk about language and language teaching American history began with waves of immigrants, bringing their own cultures and traditions to a vast new country The trend of American culture is toward multiculturalism, not assimilation because immigrant populations within the United States are not being blended together but rather they are transforming American Society into a truly multicultural mosaic Today, the American mosaic is communication abilities, cross-cultural communication in particular As an important element of the language, background knowledge of American culture is a vital factor that influences cross-cultural communication Without related cultural background knowledge, communication may end in misunderstanding, or even breakdown 4.3 How to use American movies in English lessons Not only to motivate students’ interest in learning American culture, using American movies in the lessons but also enhance students’ understanding about the target culture and target language As a culture educator, teachers of English play a vital role in choosing the appropriate movies and preparing class activities after students have watched the movies Not all the American movies are good and suitable for imparting cultural values of the target community The choice of movies should be based on some criterion that can serve the purposes of the teacher, as stated below: Firstly, the students’ language proficiency: for low level students, movies with Vietnamese subtitles are preferable; but for high level students, movies are presented only in English Secondly, the content of the movies; complicated movies are better used for higher module Thirdly, the usage of language; movies using colloquial language are more suitable for higher level modules Lastly, the location where the movies are made is also focused on Teachers can give students the movies what students can watch at home as an outside class activity, and then they had several in-class activities The teacher prepared questions about the movie such as who the main characters were, what happened to them, and what the story line was Besides that, there were some topics of discussion about culture, customs, behaviors, and exercises on the usage of colloquial words used in the movie In this way, not only students’ understanding of the target culture and the listening skills were enhanced, but also their speaking skills; how the students expressed their opinion orally in the target language in the discussion The use of colloquial words which were introduced in the movie 30 enriched their vocabulary and understanding of the use of the language differently from the formal language they usually learnt in class An American movie can also be used in different ways used as an effective tool in the classroom There are different ways to use a movie in a teaching course e.g showing the movie before the discussion or after the discussion, showing scenes repeatedly in the classroom or showing two different movies on the same story to generate different perspectives In view of the author, a movie can be used in several different ways as given below: The first, the instructor can show some selected scenes from a selected movie in one or more sessions in a course and generate discussions on specific theories, models and issues The second, the teacher can show the entire movie before theoretical sessions Selected scenes can be repeated in the classroom, if required during discussions The third, the teacher can give introductory lecture on relevant theories before the movie show and later starts discussion on American culture conducted in the movie and relevant theories related to American culture The fourth, the teacher may use few selected movies as cases in the entire teaching course of 11th form English gifted students and show selected scenes from different movies in different theoretical sessions as per pre-decided session plan The fifth, the teacher may assign some selected movies to groups of students as project assignment on different parts of American culture and ask them to movie analysis on the basis of relevant theories related to American culture Students will get CD/DVD of the movie from video libraries, library or internet research and submit the project report to the teacher By using the movies, many related activities could also be developed to support students’ understanding of culture The movies introduce the different parts of American culture Therefore, students can compare the pilot contents presented 31 in the different movies so that students are better able to understand the target culture 4.4 How to motivate 11th English gifted students to understand American culture through American movies It is believed that 11th form English gifted students’ increased cultural awareness in relation to the target language helps develop their communicative competence in which linguistic knowledge, interactional skills, and cultural knowledge are involved In considering movies as cultural texts, students are required to express themselves and communicate in activities such as asking questions, giving answers, or discussing what happened in the movies which were watched Classroom-based activities can be designed according to the curriculum, students’ background and knowledge of American culture, their level of proficiency, and other related factors to incorporate language learning related to American culture knowledge At another stage of the cultural experience, students can be encouraged to use the target language to develop American cultural interpretations The interpretations are based on cultural information elicited or presented during the introduction stage as mentioned above At this junction, the topics shift from the concrete of description to the abstract of interpretation, from visible culture to invisible culture, from products and practices to perspectives These functions thus involve inference, hypotheses, substantiation, justification, comparison and contrast, and other forms of langue that link concrete to abstract At this stage of learning, students can be asked questions like; ‘what cultural attitudes, values, beliefs, or perceptions are explicitly and implicitly portrayed in the shown movie excerpt?’; ‘how might participants in the given scene differ in their perceptions of this event?’; ‘how distinct communities within the culture differ in their perspectives on certain issues?’; ‘and how these attitudes, values, beliefs, or perceptions contrast with those of other cultures that you know?’ Students can be asked to provide information about these other cultures to substantiate their comparisons 32 Apart from the suggested teaching implications mentioned above, last but not least, it is suggested that learners could be engaged in knowing oneself and selfawareness In line with the emphasis of this stage, the topic of discussion shifted from the culture to students themselves The students’ own world became the subject matter Their responses included feelings, opinions, values, beliefs questions, concerns, awareness, intentions, strategies, decisions, or plans that students may formulate as they anticipate further involvement in the cultural phenomenon To put this approach into practice, students might be asked to respond to the questions, for instance: ‘What thoughts, feelings, or opinions you have about this cultural phenomenon?’; ‘Describe any personal experiences you have had with this cultural phenomenon.’; ‘Do you share the cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, or perceptions of this cultural phenomenon?’; ‘What more would you like to know or in regard to this phenomenon?’ The language of response also involved the language used to illuminate the process of crossing culture, whether this be naming and managing cultural stereotypes, contrasting cultural values, or examining the applicability of models of cultural adaptation to students’ experiences This could engage students in selfexploration of emotions, beliefs, or values 4.5 Conclusion of the chapter In conclusion, this chapter argued that movies played a vital role in furnishing students with great awareness of the importance of American culture in English learning process, provided strong motivation for students to learn American culture, deepen their understanding of moral values of American culture and in addition to enhancing the students’ language skills Therefore, in order to promote students’ motivation in learning American culture through American movies, students needed to be aware of the importance of American culture in English Teachers of English found the ways to use American movies in English class and to motivate students to learn American culture These solutions had to be done to deal 33 with 11th form English gifted students’ problems of learning American culture in English class 34 PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusion Learning American culture at Lam Son Gifted High School is considered problematic to 11th form English gifted students In this study with the title “An investigation into using American movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School-Thanh Hoa province to understand American culture”, the author refers to an understanding of the inseparable relationship between culture and language as well as some literature reviews related to using American movies in English class as a good teaching method for promoting 11th form English gifted students’ motivation in learning American culture The results gained from the study showed some problems as follows: Firstly, a large number of 11 th form English gifted students had poor awareness of understanding American culture Thus, they did not want to learn American culture Secondly, American culture presented in the movie “Friend-Season 1” was a difficult and challenging subject to students Many of them were not enthusiastic enough to take part in the English lessons Students expected teacher would provide them with the movies that suited their English communication level In order to help 11th form English gifted students overcome the difficulties of learning American culture, the thesis also suggested the following flexible teaching methods as solutions: Firstly, teacher provided students with a full awareness of the importance of American culture Secondly, teacher improved students’ background knowledge of American culture and cross-cultural communication Thirdly, teacher provided the effective usage of using American movies in English lessons 35 In short, 11th form English gifted students in Lam Son Gifted High school were not motivated to understand American culture And the research believed that the usage of American movies in English class was the best solution to this problem Last but not least, it is hoped that the research on the matter can be improved in the near future and that this study would be useful for teachers of English and English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School Limitations of the study In spite of the fact that the study has offered some insightful findings, like many other studies, there are some following limitations Within the limitation of time and this paper, the study can only assume the role of using American movies in English class as a motivating factor in learning American culture and stops at providing the ability of this technique in improving motivation for 11thd English gift students in the author’s context Another limitation is that the study was mainly related to the perception of 11 th form English gifted students and teachers of English, not other experienced people Suggestions for further study If possible, further research on the topic would be as follows: With the above limitations, it is a good idea to carry out the research among students of other classes or other forms such as form 10 and 12 Also the author would like to recommend further study on other useful techniques to motivate students at Lam Son Gifted High School to learn American culture and improve the quality of teaching and learning American culture 36 REFERENCES Ausubel, D (1968) Educational psychology – A cognitive view New York: Holt Reinhart Brooks, N (1983) Teaching culture in the foreign language classroom Foreign Language Annals, 16 New York: ACTEFL, Inc Brown, H D (1994) Principles of language learning and teaching (2nd ed.) New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc Bryam, M., Morgan, C., & Colleagues (1994) Teaching and learning language and culture Great Britain: WBC Bryam, M (1989) Culture studies in foreign language education Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters Gardner, R.C (1985) Psychology and second language learning: The roles of attitudes and motivation Gardner, R.C and Lambert, E (1972) Attitudes and motivation in second language learning Rowley, MA: Newbury House Good, T.L & Brophy, J.E (1990) Educational psychology: A realistic approach, White Plains, New York: Long man 10 Groves, P.D (1996) Film in higher education and research Proceedings of a Conference Held at the College of Advanced Technology, Birmingham in September 1964 Birmingham: Pergamon Press 11 Harmer, J (1991) The practice of English language teaching: Motivational differences London: Long man 12 Hammerly, H (1982) Synthesis in language teaching Blaine, WA: Second Language Publications 13 Heron and Seay (1991) The effect of authentic oral text on student listening comprehension in the foreign language classroom Foreign Language Annals, 24(6), 487-495 14 Hoover, D S (2006) Popular culture in the classroom: Using audio and video clips to enhance survey classes History Teacher, 39(4), 467-478 15 Kramsch, C (1993) Context and culture in language teaching London: Oxford University Press 37 16 Krasner, I (1999) The role of culture in language teaching Dialog on Language Instruction 13 (1–2): 79–88 17 Kusumarasdyati (2004) Movies in EFL classes 2nd International Conference on Imagination and Education Vancouver, Canada, July 14-17, 2004 18 Lafayette, R C (1998) Culture in second language learning and teaching In D.L Lange & R.M Paige (Eds.), Culture as the Core, 161-171 Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing 19 Lumsden, L S (1994) Student motivation to learn ERIC Digest, No 92 Retrieved on April 14, 2001 from www.naeareston.org 20 Luo, J J (2004) Using DVD movies to enhance college freshmen’s English listening comprehension and motivation Unpublished Master thesis, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu Taiwan, R.O.C 21 Marshall, J (2002) What would Buffy do? The use of popular culture examples in undergraduate library instruction Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No ED468217) 22 Mc William, E (2008) Unlearning how to teach Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 45, 263-269 23 Petracca, M & Sorapure, M (2009) Common culture: Reading and writing about American popular culture 24 Politzer, R (1959) Developing cultural understanding through foreign language study Report of the Fifth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Teaching, pp 99-105 Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press 25 Stoller, F 1988 Movies and videotapes in the ESL/EFL classroom 26 Turner, G (1999) Movie as social practice, London: Routledge 27 Watson (1990) Movie and television in education London: Oxford University Press 38 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS This survey questionnaire is designed to investigate the use of American movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students to learn about American culture in English classroom Your assistance in completing the questionnaire is greatly appreciated Please provide some information about you by ticking the relevant box or write the relevant information in the gaps Your gender: Male Your age: ………… years old Female Years of learning English: …………… years Please answer the following questions by circling one letter of your choice: How necessary is an understanding of American culture in your English class? How did you find the aspects of American culture presented in the video “Tom and Jerry”? A Very interesting B Interesting C Somewhat interesting D Boring A Very necessary B Necessary C Somewhat necessary D Not necessary at all To what degree you like learning about American culture? A Very much B Much C Not much D Not at all How hard was it for you to watch the video in “Tom and Jerry”? A Very difficult B Difficult C Not difficult D Easy How important is American culture to you? A Very important B Important To what degree you like to find out more about American culture? A Very much 39 C Somewhat important D Not important at all B Much C Not much D Not at all In order to use of American movies into How often should the teacher the lessons to motivate students to use American movies to motivate understand American culture more students to understand American effective, what you think your teacher culture? should do? A sometimes B never C always D usually A Teacher should exploit American movies that suit students’ level B Teacher should exploit a variety of American movies in different lessons What you while 10 How you feel after watching American movies? watching American movies? A Actively take part in the movies A relaxed and B Join the movies only when being asked motivated B normal by the teacher C uncomfortable C Join the movies only when feeling interested D Do not watch the movies 40 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH This survey questionnaire is designed for my study “Using American movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students to understand American culture” Your assistance in fulfilling the following items is greatly appreciated Please provide some information about you by ticking the relevant box or write the relevant information in the gaps Your gender: Male Your age: ………… years old Female Years of learning English: …………… years Please answer the following questions by circling one letter of your choice: How often you want to use What are your student’s attitudes American movies? to American culture while watching A Often American movies? B Occasionally A Very bored C Rarely B Bored D Never C Neutral D Very interested E Interested Are your students willing to take part in What difficulty you think met the lessons? by the students while studying A Yes, they are American culture through the B It depends on the lessons and movies movies? given A The movie is difficult to C No, they look unmotivated and understand reluctant to understand American culture B American culture introduced in the movies is not interesting C Both A and B What you to motivate students to 41 take part in American movies? A What you to provide Always ask them to answer the students with interesting lessons questions while watching movie of American culture? A Choosing American movies that B Ask them to work in group to find out suit the lessons and students level information of the film B Presenting the interesting C Ask students to play the roles like the movies movie C Both A and B Thank you very much for taking time to complete this questionnaire 42 APPENDIX CLASSROOM OBSERVATION CHECKLIST Teaching Participant……………… Date:………………… Class:…………………… Lesson:………… This instrument is designed to help you indentify and record the efficiency of using American movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students to learn American culture in English classroom Respond to each statement using the following scale: 1= Good 2= Normal 3= Bad Class activities Participant’s assessment 1/ Teacher’s activities Teacher introduces the movie “Tom and Jerry” with the episode related to cultural Comments 3 3 topics of the lesson Teacher uses specific cultural words or technique to focus or regain the student’s attention during the movie, Teacher repeats important point several times during the movie, each time varying the cultural words or materials used Teacher links information covered in previous episodes of “Tom and Jerry” with the new information being presented Teacher discusses and demonstrates how the American cultural characteristics might be used in real life I 2/ Student’s activities Students are provided with adequate time during the movie to watch and understand the new American cultural characteristics in 3 3 “Tom and Jerry” Students are provided with a designated period of purposeful discussion Students are required to answer the questions about the contents of the movie “Tom and Jerry” Students are required to play the roles like the movie “Tom and Jerry” Students are enthusiastic to take part in the lesson presented through the movie “Tom and Jerry” Thank you very much for taking time to complete this checklist! II ... problematic to 11th form English gifted students In this study with the title ? ?An investigation into using American movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School-Thanh... understand American culture through using American movies in English lessons Chapter 4: Implications on using American movies in motivating 11th English gifted students at Lam Son gifted high school... American movies in lessons to promote 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School - Thanh Hoa province to learn and understand American culture Scope of the study Although there