A cross cultural analysis of english textbook for grade 11 and suggestions of supplementary activities for students’ cross cultural awareness

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - TRẦN THỊ HẢI A CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH TEXTBOOK FOR GRADE 11 AND SUGGESTIONS OF SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS’ CROSS-CULTURAL AWARENESS PHÂN TÍCH SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH LỚP 11 TỪ KHÍA CẠNH GIAO VĂN HÓA VÀ ĐỀ XUẤT CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG BỔ TRỢ ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN NHẬN THỨC GIAO VĂN HÓA CỦA HỌC SINH M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111 HANOI – 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -TRẦN THỊ HẢI A CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH TEXTBOOK FOR GRADE 11 AND SUGGESTIONS OF SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS’ CROSS-CULTURAL AWARENESS PHÂN TÍCH SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH LỚP 11 TỪ KHÍA CẠNH GIAO VĂN HÓA VÀ ĐỀ XUẤT CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG BỔ TRỢ ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN NHẬN THỨC GIAO VĂN HÓA CỦA HỌC SINH M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111 Supervisor: Prof Nguyễn Quang, Ph.D HANOI - 2014 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled: “A cross-cultural analysis of English textbook for grade 11 and suggestions of supplementary activities for students’ cross-cultural awareness” is the result of my own work for the degree of Master of Arts in English Language Teaching Methodology at the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and this thesis is the total fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other university or institution wholly and partially Hanoi, 2014 Trần Thị Hải i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research paper would not have been completed without the help of many people to whom I would like to express my deep gratitude First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof Nguyen Quang, Ph.D my supervisor, for his wholehearted support, his precious knowledge, assistance, consideration and encouragement during the process of writing and completing the thesis I wish to take this opportunity to express my heart felt thanks to the lecturers of the Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies who help me a lot during the Master Course Last but not least, I owe my parents and my husband their continuous support Their patience and love have helped me go beyond what sometimes looks like an insurmountable task ii ABSTRACT This study was intended to examine the cultural content presented in English textbook for Grade 11 and suggest some activities for raising students’ crosscultural awareness To achieve the above mentioned objective, the research based on quantitative methods was conducted in order to give a brief account of how culture is treated according to the modified checklists designed by Cortazzi and Jin, Hirsch et al and Chastain The main findings of the research were as follows: (1) the textbook can be classified as an international target culture textbook in which students are exposed to various kinds of cultures such as world culture, international culture and Vietnamese culture (2) the textbook reveals elements of cross-cultural comparison that promote students’ cross-cultural awareness (3) the research suggests some supplementary activities among a number of activities used for culture teaching in classrooms that may be used to develop students’ cross-cultural awareness The author hopes that the findings of the research may support teachers to adjust their cultural teaching content and help textbook editors in the next reform of high school textbooks iii ABBREVIATIONS FLT: foreign language teaching SLT: second language teaching iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………… 1 Rationale of the study………………………………………………………… Objectives of the study…… ………………………………………………… Research questions…………………………………………………………… Scope of the study…………………………………………………………… Methods of the study………………………………………………………… Structure of the study………………………………………………………… PART B DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………… CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND………………………………… 1.1 Foreign language textbooks and treatment of cultural content………… 1.1.1 Classification of cultural content in foreign language textbooks……………… 1.1.2 Cultural topics and categories in foreign language textbooks………………… 1.1.3 Checklists for analyzing the cultural dimension in foreign language 1.2 textbooks………………………………………………………………………………… Culture teaching in foreign language teaching……………………………… 10 1.2.1 Principles for culture teaching………………………………………………… 10 1.2.2 Common approaches to the teaching of culture……………………………… 11 1.2.2.1 The mono-culture approach……………………………………………………… 11 1.2.2.2 Comparative approach…………………………………………………………… 11 1.2.2.3 Other approaches………………………………………………………………… 12 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY………………………………………………… 14 2.1 Material under analysis………………………………………………………… 14 2.2 Research questions……………………………………………………………… 16 2.3 Research methods……………………………………………………………… 17 2.4 Data collection procedures……………………………………………………… 17 2.5 Checklists for the cross-cultural analysis in the study………………………… 17 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS…………………………………… 19 3.1 Research question 1……………………………………………………………… 19 v 3.2 Research question 2……………………………………………………………… 21 3.3 Research question 3……………………………………………………………… 23 3.3.1 Influence of factors the choice of activities when teaching culture to Grade 11 students in Vietnam……………………………………………………… 24 3.3.2 Supplementary activities for developing Grade 11 students’ cross-cultural awareness in Vietnam………………………………………………………… 3.3.2.1 Elmore’s 24 25 activities…………………………………………………………… 3.3.2.1 Peck’s activities……………………………………………………………… 27 PART C CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………… 30 Summary of main findings…………………………………………………… 30 Implications and recommendation………………………………………… 31 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research…………… 32 References……………………………………………………………………………… 33 vi PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Vietnam has been a member of World Trade Organization (WTO) since 2006 This integration is both opportunity and challenge Thanks to this decision, Vietnamese people are easy to seek a job and gain higher salary It, however, requires labour source with high level and effective communication in an international language In order to understand each other, people need to understand not only each other’s language, but also each other’s culture This can open the door to better international understanding and ensure peaceful relations between nations Language and culture are interdependent and interactional Language may reflect many factors of culture and culture affects the way language is used in turn As Bremberk (1977:14) states “to know another’s language and not his culture is a very good way to make a fluent fool of one’s self” Thus, learning culture is obviously a vital factor for Vietnamese students for success in communication because second language learning is second culture learning Without the study of culture, foreign language instruction is inaccurate and incomplete In modern FLT/SLT materials, textbook editors rightly emphasize the close relationship between learning a language and learning its culture It is suggested that just learning four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) may cause the improper understanding of the meanings of a language In 2006, a new curriculum which defines English as a compulsory subject, is “instrumental to the access of world science and technology as well as world cultures” was developed by Ministry of Education and Training (MOET, 2006) MOET designed new English textbooks for high schools to foster students’ four skills and provide students with overall knowledge of English-speaking countries, their people and cultures in 2002 One of the objectives of English teaching and learning is to enhance students’ cross-cultural awareness Since their nation-wide implementation in the school year 2007-2008, a great deal of research have been carried out to evaluate English textbook of grade 10 as well as to find out how the textbook are actually implemented or the difficulties that teachers and students have to face when teaching and learning by the new textbook However, most of these studies have dealt with the teaching and learning of the four language skills which are believed to be new for both teachers and students at grade 10 and grade 11 And one research on cross-cultural factors for grade 10 was conducted Hence, there is still a lack of research on cross-cultural factors in English textbook of grade 11 For the aforementioned reasons, the author has decided to conduct this study It is hoped that this study will help students and teachers realize crosscultural factors which may be implicit or explicit in the textbook, contribute some immediate activities to develop students' cross-cultural awareness Objectives of the study This research was carried out to serve the following objectives:  To identify cultural treatment and categories revealed in the textbook  To suggest supplementary activities for Grade 11 students’ cross-cultural awareness so that English learning and teaching become more interesting and effective Research questions In this research, the cross-cultural analysis of the textbook is carried out to answer the following questions: How are cultural and cross-cultural contents treated in Grade 11 English Textbook? Which cultures are represented in the nationally developed Grade 11 English textbook and to what extent? What type of cultural categories does Grade 11 English textbook introduce and to what extent? What type of supplementary activities should be used to improve Grade 11 students’ cross-cultural awareness? English textbook does not mention China and ASEAN countries, however, information about those nations, Iran, Portugal are included in Grade 11 English textbook One more difference is that in Grade 10 English textbook has a big difference between world culture (8%) and English-speaking culture (31%) In contrast, Grade 11 English textbook has nearly balance between world culture and English-speaking culture (16% and 15% respectively) Therefore, it can be concluded that textbook authors draw attentions to other nations used English language as international language This helps students to gain knowledge of other societies and have more and closer ties in many areas between Vietnam and those countries In terms of cultural treatment, according to Cortazzi and Jin’s classification (1999:204) the textbook may be classified as “international target culture textbook”, which helps to develop students’ cross-cultural awareness as it employs a variety of cultures where the target language is used as an international language It is guessed that in Grade 12 English textbook, the authors would widen student’s knowledge of other English-speaking countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand 3.2 Research question What type of cultural categories does Grade 11 English textbook introduce and to what extent? Based on the list of cultural categories developed by Hirsch et al (1988) and Chastain (1988), the distribution of frequency and percentage of specific cultural categories in Grade 11 English textbook is summarized Cultural categories Frequency % Geography 0% History 11 14% Language and Literature 5% Society and lifestyle 19 23% Nature 11% 21 Fine Arts 0% Hobbies 10 12% Festivals and Holidays 7% Science and Technology 7% Business and Economy 0% Politics 0% Sports 9% Education 11% Health 1% 82 100% Total Table 2: Distribution of frequency and percentage of cultural categories according to Checklist Two From the table above, we can see that Society and Lifestyle is revealed the most frequently with the highest rate, 23% The detailed contents of this theme belong to the topics such as Friendship, Personal Experience, and Party and they subjected under both Vietnamese culture and foreign culture After Society and Lifestyle it is History, Nature, Hobbies and Education which are revealed with high percentages of 14%, 11%, 12%, and 11% respectively For History category, it is observed through the introduction of people (Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, Mark Twain) or famous places (Cat Ba National Park, the Great Pyramid of Giza, The Great Wall of China, Ponagar Cham Towers) Nature category is presented through the topic Nature in Danger and Sources of Energy Hobbies and Education are identified in the topics of Hobbies and Recreation; Volunteer work and Illiteracy Besides these categories, the attention is paid to Languages and Literature, Festivals and Holidays, Science and Technology, Sports with more or less than 7% The least frequency is Health, Geography, Fine Arts, Business and Economy and Politics are not mentioned in the textbook It is obvious that the cultural categories in the textbook are quite broad A quick look in the Grade 10 English textbook shows that cultural categories 22 appearing in Grade 10 English textbook is less or even are ignored in Grade 11 English textbook, for example, Geography accounts for 18% in Grade 10 English textbook but it is eradicated in Grade 11 English textbook It is believed that issues neglected in grade 10 and grade 11 would be added in grade 12 Surely, contents decided to teach at each grade at high school is considered carefully Society and Lifestyle ranked first in Table Two implies their belief that Grade 11 students should learn more about the specific area The textbook’s authors thought the students’ age or development, and limited amount of time at Grade 11 to allocate cultural categories 3.3 Research question What types of supplementary activities should be used to improve Grade 11 students’ cross-cultural awareness? When students learn a foreign language, their ultimate aim should be directed towards the understanding of the way people things and why they them Clearly handling this goal, the textbook authors have paid more attention to the cultural content in foreign language textbook Indeed, any listening to the utterances of native speakers, any reading passages, any examination of pictures of natives speakers engaged in natural activities will introduce cultural element into students Learning to understand a foreign culture helps students of another language to use words and expressions more skillfully and authentically; to understand situationally appropriate; to act naturally with people of the other culture, while recognizing and accepting their different reactions and to help students of other tongues feel at home in their own culture Although cultural teaching and learning are not stated in the high school English syllabus, fundamental information about culture, cross-cultural comparison is surely contained in foreign language textbooks Ministry of Training and Education is planning to replace textbooks in 2015 It is believed that the goal to develop students’ cross-cultural awareness have installed by English syllabus designers 23 3.3.1 Influence of factors on the choice of activities when teaching culture to Grade 11 students in Vietnam Although nowadays, students plays the centered role and the learners have a great role in the management of their learning, it does not mean that students can decide everything, teachers have to be good leaders to find out the suitable teaching methods and combine different approaches in a context Therefore, factors having influences on the choice of activities includes three main items as follows: For teachers, the attitudes toward culture in teaching are very important They must upgrade cross-cultural knowledge by themselves No matter what methodologies teachers use, they must encourage learners’ active role in studying In Vietnam, as a consequence of preparation for endless examinations, teachers seems to pay more attention to improving students’ four communicative skills and there may be little time left for culture teaching For learners, to learn English successfully, they should raise their awareness of the importance of cultures They have to learn the difference between cultures by themselves rather than wait for the knowledge provided by teachers In Vietnam, students live in various places from urban, rural to remote, mountainous areas With maturity, different level of knowledge, it is very hard to propose activities to teach culture For context, Vietnam is the same as number of other nations, the context to teaching culture apparently shows problems That is students are physically and often psychologically removed from the reality of the target culture In this case culture teaching provides background to boost students to visualize the reality 3.3.2 Supplementary activities for developing Grade 11 students’ crosscultural awareness in Vietnam Teaching culture requires a lot of efforts from teachers in order that students can enrich their cultural awareness with enthusiasm In this paper, the author proposes some practical activities summarized by Christine Elmore, contributed by Deborah Peck As can be seen, teaching culture is not the primary objective in 24 English classes in Vietnam, the activities selected in this study are supposed to help integrate culture into language teaching From the result of question 1, and the factors influencing the choice of culture teaching activities, supplementary activities for culture teaching in Grade 11 include the following ones: 3.3.2.1 Elmore’s activities:  Cultural Islands From the first days of class, teachers should prepare a cultural island in their classrooms Posters, pictures, maps and realia of many kinds are essential in helping students develop a mental image Start students off by making them aware of the influence of various foreign cultures in this country, introducing students to the borrowed words in their native language or place-names of our country This helps students to realize they already know many words in the target language A good introductory activity is to send students on cultural scavenger hunts to supermarkets and department stores and have those makes lists of imported goods For examples: - Posters or pictures about party, volunteer work, celebration may correspond with the topics in Unit3, Unit 4, Unit - Famous people, football, sports may be used to teach in topics “The Asian games”, “Space Conquest” in Unit 12 and Unit 15 - Famous places including buildings, sightseeing, that may be related to the topics “Nature in Danger” Unit 10, “The wonders of the world” Unit 16  Culture Capsules Culture Capsules are generally prepared out of the class by students but presented during class time in or 10 minutes A Cultural capsule consists of a paragraph or so of explanation of minimal difference between the native culture and the target culture Essentially a culture capsule is a brief description of some aspect of the target language culture followed by or incorporated with contrasting information from students’ native language culture The contrasting information can be provided 25 by the teacher, but it is usually more effective to have the students themselves point out contrasts Culture capsules are usually done orally with the teacher giving a brief lecture on the chosen cultural point and then leading a discussion about the differences between cultures For example: The activity of “the cultural capsule” may be designed for the teaching of the topic “Tet in Vietnam” (Unit 8) Students are asked to read the reading passage in advance at home and prepare some information which should contain some contrastive features between their own everyday life routine and that of the people in an English-speaking country Or contrasts may be presented about the traditional model of a Vietnamese Tet and New Year holiday of an English-speaking country  Culture Assimilators The culture assimilator provides the student with 70 to 100 episodes of target cultural behavior Culture assimilators consist of short (usually written) descriptions of an incident or situation where interaction takes place between at least one person from the target culture and persons from other cultures (usually the native culture of the students being taught) The description is followed by four possible choices about the meaning of the behavior, action, or words of the participants in the interaction with emphasis on the behavior, actions or words of the target language individuals Students read the description in the assimilator and then choose which of the four options they feel the correct interpretation of the interaction Once all students have made their individual choices, the teacher leads a discussion about why particular options are correct or incorrect in interpretation The following examples may be used when teaching Unit A party or Unit Celebrations Situation You are a student at a high school in London You are invited to take part in a 32th birthday party of a woman A wish you’d better not say: Happy birthday to you! 26 Happy 32th birthday to you! Best wishes Situation You are a Vietnamese student studying in an English-speaking country You are invited to New Year party What gifts shouldn’t you bring? Money Champagne Flowers  Critical Incidents/problem Solving Critical incidents are another method for teaching culture Critical incidents are descriptions of incidents or situations which demand that a participant in the interaction make some kind of decision Most of the situations could happen to any individual Generally, the procedures with a critical incident are to have students read the incident independently and make individual decisions about what they would Then the students are grouped into small groups to discuss their decisions and why they made them the way they did Then all the groups discuss their decisions and the reasons behind them Finally, students have to be given the opportunity to see how their decision and reasoning compare and contrast with the decisions and reasoning of native members of the target culture This example may be used when teaching Unit A party Situation: John is an exchange student studying in Vietnam He was invited to join his host-Mom’s birthday party He wanted to give his host-Mom a present, but he hesitated to ask her about what present he should give her Discuss in groups about what John should in this situation 3.3.2.2 Peck’s activities Deborah Peck (1998) introduced some other activities, which can be used in the foreign language class  Quizzes Quizzes are one of the most successful activity types Quizzes can be used to test materials that the teachers have previously taught, but they are also used in learning 27 new information The teacher can ask the students to answer true or false to each of the questions in pairs or groups They will share their existing knowledge and common sense to give answers It is not important whether students get the right answer or not, but by predicting, students will become more interested in finding out the right answer The right answer can be given by the teacher, through a reading, listening, or video At this point, extra information can be provided Quizzes offer a high-interest activity that keeps students involved in learning The following example of “the quiz” can be suitable for the teaching of the topic “The Asian Games” (Unit 12) The Asian Games is held a every year b every two years c every four years The first Asian Games is held in a 1950 b 1951 c 1952 Gold medals won by Vietnam at 14th Asian Games held in Busan, Korean a b c Who won one gold medal with 80kg in bodybuilding at 14th Asian Games? a Pham Van Mach b Ly Duc c Nguyen Hong Son The purpose of the Asian Games are to a develop competition among Asian countries 28 b develop sport spirit within Asian nations c develop intercultural knowledge and friendship with Asia  Student research Student research is one of the most powerful tools that we can use with students because it combines their interests with the classroom For example, after the first class, the teachers ask students to search the internet or library and find information on any aspect of the target-culture that interest them In the following class, students explain to their group what they have learned and answer any questions about it This can lead to poster-sessions or longer projects For some students, it can even lead to a long-term interest in the target-culture Activities are varied for raising students’ cross-cultural awareness Howerver, some certain activities are better selected in certain classroom contexts with different students at different English level Under any circumstances, it is undeniable that students can only be successful in language learning if cultural issues are an indispensable part in foreign language teaching curriculum There are many topics in the textbook that may be used for student research In order to some research into cross-cultural comparison, students may be organized in groups of five-ten and choose their favorite topic, for example: - Gifts for parties in Vietnam and an English-speaking country - Vietnamese and American young people’s attitudes towards volunteer work - Hobbies in Vietnamese people and an English-speaking country - The ways to welcome Tet in Vietnam and New Year in an English-speaking country 29 PART C CONCLUSIONS Summary of main findings The author’s study aims at at examining the cultural content of Grade 11 English textbook presented in the textbook and suggesting some supplementary activities for developing students’ cross-cultural awareness With the content of the passages used to teach the four macro skills in focus, the study gives a brief account of how culture is treated according to the modified checklists designed by Cortazzi and Jin, Hirsch et al and Chastain The crosscultural analysis of the textbook reveals that the textbook can be classified as an international target culture textbook in which students are exposed to more than one culture English-speaking cultures are apparently dominant nearly equal to world cultures (15% and 16% respectively) Some elements of cross-cultural comparison (8%) presented in the textbook confirm that the textbook, to various degrees, helps promote students’ cross-cultural awareness along with improving their four language skills The analysis gives answers to the questions “what cultural categories are presented in the textbook and to what extent?” The statistics show that Grade 11 textbook authors pay the most attention to Society and lifestyle (23%) Other aspects of culture such as History (14%), Hobbies (12%), Nature (11%), Education (11%), Sports (9%) are also rank the next place in the textbook The last place belongs to Language and Literature (5%), Festival and Holiday (7%), Science and Technology (7%) In the textbook, very little or no information is given to Health, Business and Economy, Politics and Geography Another important part of the study is suggestion of supplementary activities that may be used to develop students’ cross-cultural awareness The suggestion is based on the following points: - The objectives of teaching English in Vietnamese high schools, which include providing cultural knowledge of foreign countries and developing students’ crosscultural awareness 30 - The findings from research questions and of the study - The practical teaching of English in Vietnamese high schools Among a variety of activities used for culture teaching in the classroom, some are selected to integrate the development of students’ cross-cultural awareness into language teaching The activities are included some Christine Elmore’s activities and Deborah Peck’s activities It would be hopeful that with the author’s study, Grade 11 students could both learn English and develop cross-cultural awareness and the authors of the textbook can select and gain the better sections to supplement and renew for the next reformation of high school English textbooks Implications and recommendation Teaching English cannot be separated from teaching its culture In order to help master English effectively via the textbook, cultural elements should be highlighted by the teachers during the language lessons Also, it should be noted gradually that it is necessary to teach culture to the students so that they can overcome all difficulties or culture shock in real-life communication The author hopes that this study would provide an effective method for investigating the cultural content of a foreign language textbook It is quite common practice that cultural topics are included in a textbook mainly for studying the language and not for teaching specific cultural knowledge With the analysis results, it is the Grade 11 English teachers’ responsibility to find practical solutions to this problem to integrate culture teaching into their language teaching in one way or another Teachers who are interested in the target culture might plan their own extensive teaching program on culture, especially for extra-curricular activities Or they can make some changes when teaching the four skills so that cross-cultural activities may be integrated into the classroom timetable Besides, the textbook writers should realize which cultural knowledge is underrepresented in Grade 11 textbook, so that they will give more presentation to them when compiling new English textbooks for high school students 31 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research This research has only presented and analyzed the cultural content of Grade 11 English textbook Despite the author’s great efforts, the study has shown many inevitable shortcomings and weaknesses due to the author’s incomplete knowledge of the field as well as limited ability of doing scientific work and some other objective factors such as constraints of time and reference materials relating to subject-matter under investigation It is hoped that the findings of the following work may help teachers adjust their culture teaching content and assist textbook compilers in the future Therefore, the further research should be done in the future Firstly, it should be done by other tools such as survey, questionnaires 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Taylor, H D & Sorensen, J L (1961), Culture Capsules, The Modern language Journal, 45 (8), 350-354 27 Tomalin, B & Stempleski, S (1993), Cultural Awareness, Oxford: Oxford University Press Tiếng Việt 28 Hoàng Văn Vân (chủ biên), (2007), Tiếng Anh 11, Nhà Xuất Giáo dục Hà Nội 35 ... entitled: ? ?A cross- cultural analysis of English textbook for grade 11 and suggestions of supplementary activities for students’ cross- cultural awareness? ?? is the result of my own work for the degree of. .. teaching and learning of the four language skills which are believed to be new for both teachers and students at grade 10 and grade 11 And one research on cross- cultural factors for grade 10 was... a small-scale crosscultural analysis of the Grade 11 textbook It does not provide a general assessment of the whole set of Grade 10, Grade 11 and Grade 12 English textbooks for Vietnamese high