Nghiên cứu việc dạy các yếu tố giao văn hóa trong giờ học nói tiếng anh cho sinh viên chuyên ngành việt nam học

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES **************** PHẠM THỊ HUYỀN TRANG A STUDY ON TEACHING CROSS-CULTURAL ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES TO VIETNAMESE STUDY-MAJORED STUDENTS AT SAO DO UNIVERSITY (Nghiên cứu việc dạy yếu tố giao văn hóa học nói tiếng Anh cho sinh viên chuyên ngành Việt Nam học, Đại học Sao Đỏ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11 Hanoi - 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES **************** PHẠM THỊ HUYỀN TRANG A STUDY ON TEACHING CROSS-CULTURAL ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES TO VIETNAMESE STUDY-MAJORED STUDENTS AT SAO DO UNIVERSITY (Nghiên cứu việc dạy yếu tố giao văn hóa học nói tiếng Anh cho sinh viên chuyên ngành Việt Nam học, Đại học Sao Đỏ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Văn Độ Hanoi - 2014 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled A STUDY ON TEACHING CROSS-CULTURAL ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES TO VIETNAMESE STUDY-MAJORED STUDENTS AT SAO DO UNIVERSITY is the result of my own research for the course of post-graduate education at ULIS, VNU I confirm that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees Student’s signature Phạm Thị Huyền Trang i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completion of this thesis, I would like to express my special thanks to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do (Thang Long University) for his invaluable guidance and instructive comments throughout my work I am thankful to all the staff at the post-graduate department for giving me assistance, the teachers who conducted the Master's course for providing me with valuable knowledge A further acknowledgement goes to my dear friends from the master's course and colleagues for their useful ideas, materials and encouragement I also wish to thank my students from Faculty of Tourism and Foreign languages (FTF), Sao Do University (SDU) for their valuable help The final credit must go to my family, who supported me with love and gentle pushing ii ABSTRACT In recent years, many language teachers are aware of the importance of culture in educational circles It is important for foreign language teachers to integrate culture in their classes so as to primarily raise the awareness of their students about the differences between cultures, then help them to be culturally competent and convey communication in the society of the target language The importance of gaining communicative competence and maintaining intercultural interaction has fostered the necessity of integrating cultural elements into language instruction Any language acquires value and meaning when it is integrated with cultural elements, thereby learning cultures may shed a light to communication/interaction with different cultures This paper discusses various research findings and opinions on the integration of cross-culture into the teaching of foreign language teaching The discussion aimed to highlight the important roles of cross-cultural elements, the problems during the education process integrating these elements into the English teaching speaking classes Furthermore, this study aims at suggesting some practical techniques for cross-culture teaching at FTF, SDU iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………… iv ABBREVIATION - TABLE LIST…………………………………………… vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale……………………………………………………………………….1 Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES 1.1 What is culture? 1.2 What is cross-culture? 1.3 The process of communication 1.4 Need for cross-culture teaching 1.5 Principles for cross-culture teaching 1.5.1 Approaches for cross-culture teaching 1.5.2 Practical techniques for teaching cross-culture in the EFL classroom 11 1.6 In summary 14 CHAPTER II: RESEARCH DESIGN 16 2.1 Context 16 2.2 Method and Procedure 16 2.2.1 Selection of participants 16 2.2.2 Data collection instruments 16 iv CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 19 3.1 Data collection from the survey questionnaires 19 3.2 Data collection from the quiz 25 3.3 Discussion of the findings 26 CHAPTER IV: FURTHER DISCUSSIONS 28 4.1 Suggested framework for cross-culture teaching in English speaking class 28 4.2 Suggested techniques for teaching cross-culture in the EFL classroom 32 4.3 Practical tips 35 PART C: CONCLUSION 38 In a nutshell 38 Limitations of the study 39 Recommendations for further research 39 REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX I APPENDIX III APPENDIX V APPENDIX VII APPENDIX VIII v ABBREVIATION SDU: Sao Do University FTF: Faculty of Tourism and Foreign languages TABLE LIST Table 1: Ferrando‟s definition of culture Table 2: Students‟ opinion of the importance of cross-culture knowledge to English learning Table 3: Students‟ self-evaluation of their cross-cultural knowledge Table 4: Students‟ difficulties in participation in cross-culture activities in conversation class Table 5: Students‟ opinion of resources to obtain cross-cultural knowledge Table 6: Students‟ opinions of cross-culture activities to motivate them Table 7: Students‟ opinion of cross-cultural elements taught in conversation class Table 8: Test scores interpretation – Measures of central tendency Table 9: Test scores interpretation – Measures of dispersion FIGURE LIST Figure 1: Students‟ opinion of the importance of cross-culture knowledge to English learning Figure 2: Students‟ self-evaluation of their cross-cultural knowledge Figure 3: Students‟ difficulties in participation in cross-culture activities in conversation class Figure 4: Students‟ opinion of resources to obtain cross-cultural knowledge Figure 5: Students‟ opinions of cross-culture activities to motivate them Figure 6: Students‟ opinion of cross-cultural elements taught in conversation class vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale In our global world, where many people from a variety of cultures have to communicate in a way, understanding different cultures have become significantly important to convey the meaning in conversations Therefore, culture is considered as an essential field in education, especially in language education It can be said that foreign/ second 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 As a result, in recent years, many foreign/ second language teachers have been aware of the importance of teaching the culture of the target language Concerning this issue, Seelye (1993: 4) argues that “culture should be taught when we have students to teach” Moreover, day after day, more language teachers recognize that when the cultural aspects are included in the language teaching curriculum, students‟ communicative competence will be improved It means that in one form or another, culture has, even implicitly, been taught in the foreign/ second language classroom Kramsch‟s keen observation should not go unnoticed: Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and writing It is always in the background, right from day one, ready to unsettle the good language learners when they expect it least, making evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around them (Kramsch, 1993: 1) It is undeniable that culture plays an important role in language education Therefore, with an effort to improve the language teaching in my case, “A study on teaching cross-cultural elements in English speaking classes to Vietnamese studymajored students at Sao Do University” is chosen as the topic for my study Aims of the study The aims of the thesis are: - To investigate the attitudes of students towards the roles of cross-cultural knowledge in language speaking class - To analyze the problems facing by students in integrating cross-cultural issues in conversational activities - To suggest some practical methods and techniques to teach cross-cultural integrated speaking lessons Research questions 1- What are the attitudes of students towards the roles of cross-culture in language speaking class? 2- What are the problems facing by the students in integrating cross-cultural issues in conversational activities? 3- How can the teachers integrate cross-cultural elements in English speaking classes? Scope of the study With the globalization, it has became significantly important for language teachers to integrate culture in their classes so as to primarily raise the awareness of their students about the differences between cultures, then help them to be culturally competent and convey communication in the society of the target language In an attempt to improve the situation of teaching English speaking skill for students of Vietnamese-study major, SDU, the researcher emphasized the methods and techniques of integrating cross-cultural elements into the speaking classes The issues to be discussed are the most common and typical ones which are being concerned by most teachers in English teaching The attitudes of students who are at intermediate level towards the roles of cross-culture in language speaking class are investigated In addition, the problems that the students face in studying cross-culture in class are analyzed along with the cultural aspects in language APPENDIX SCORES OF STUDENTS WITH PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST PRE-TEST POST-TEST 6.0 28.0 6.0 22.0 4.0 24.0 4.0 18.0 4.0 28.0 6.0 28.0 4.0 28.0 12.0 28.0 6.0 28.0 10 2.0 28.0 11 10.0 20.0 12 6.0 22.0 13 8.0 22.0 14 6.0 26.0 15 8.0 22.0 16 6.0 24.0 17 4.0 28.0 18 6.0 20.0 19 4.0 18.0 20 8.0 28.0 21 10.0 28.0 22 10.0 28.0 23 4.0 18.0 24 6.0 28.0 25 6.0 26.0 26 8.0 24.0 27 4.0 22.0 28 6.0 22.0 29 6.0 24.0 30 12.0 28.0 VII APPENDIX STATISTICS FROM SPSS Frequency Table Pre-Test Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid 3.3 3.3 3.3 26.7 26.7 30.0 12 40.0 40.0 70.0 13.3 13.3 83.3 10 10.0 10.0 93.3 12 6.7 6.7 100.0 30 100.0 100.0 Total Post-Test Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid 18 10.0 10.0 10.0 20 6.7 6.7 16.7 22 20.0 20.0 36.7 24 13.3 13.3 50.0 26 6.7 6.7 56.7 28 13 43.3 43.3 100.0 Total 30 100.0 100.0 Statistics Pre-Test Post-Test N Valid Missing Mean Median Mode Std Deviation Sum 30 30 6.4000 6.0000 6.00 2.48582 192.00 24.6000 25.0000 28.00 3.56806 738.00 VIII ... SPEAKING CLASSES TO VIETNAMESE STUDY-MAJORED STUDENTS AT SAO DO UNIVERSITY (Nghiên cứu việc dạy yếu tố giao văn hóa học nói tiếng Anh cho sinh viên chuyên ngành Việt Nam học, Đại học Sao Đỏ) M.A MINOR... people may give you give you their name without a hello first Also if you wish to be on a first – name basis with someone you can indicate this by repeating your first name It is normal to ask an English... teaching cross-cultural elements in English speaking classes to Vietnamese studymajored students at Sao Do University” is chosen as the topic for my study Aims of the study The aims of the thesis