Analyzing communicative and cultural features in the new 10th grade english textbook

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN ANALYZING COMMUNICATIVE AND CULTURAL FEATURES IN THE NEW 10TH GRADE ENGLISH TEXTBOOK MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghệ An, 2018 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN ANALYZING COMMUNICATIVE AND CULTURAL FEATURES IN THE NEW 10TH GRADE ENGLISH TEXTBOOK Major: Code: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) 8.14.01.11 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: Ngơ Đình Phương, Assoc Prof., Ph D Nghệ An, 2018 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the thesis entitled “Analyzing communicative and cultural features in the new 10th grade English textbook” is the result of my own work, and that the thesis or any part of the same has not been submitted to any university or institution Vinh, September 2018 Author’s signature Nguyễn Thị Ngân i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge with all my greatest attitude the support, guidance and invaluable critical feedback which I have received from my supervisor, Assoc Prof., Ph D Ngo Dinh Phuong I would also like to thank my thesis advisor Assoc Prof., Ph D Le Dinh Tuong of the Foreign Languages Department at Vinh University The door to Assoc Prof., Ph D Le Dinh Tuong office was always open whenever I had a question about my research or writing I am gratefully indebted to his for his very valuable comments on this thesis ii ABSTRACT Teaching culture and developing intercultural communicative competence have become the major focus of language educators who prepare learners to face the globalized world Therefore, the current cultural and communicative learning and contents in English textbooks are significant issues to be investigated This study analyzed cultural and communicative contents in the new 10th grade English textbook to answer the first and second research questions: (1) What categories of cultures are presented in the new 10th grade English textbook?; (2) What categories of communication are presented in the new 10th grade English textbook? The answers of these two questions lead to the third research question: (3) What type of supplementary activities should be used to improve Grade 10 students’ cross-cultural awareness and help them to achieve communicative purposes? The findings of the study can be summarized as follows: The study found a strong preference for world culture contents, particularly the cultures of ASEAN countries It is evident that the structure of cultural contents in Tieng Anh 10 was basically designed with the aim of enhancing students’ knowledge of ASEAN countries The authors of Tieng Anh 10 focused on society and lifestyle, business and economy contents A low percentage of other cultural aspects such as geography, fine arts, sports were observed The study also found a preference for interpretive mode of communication A lower percentage was for interpersonal and presentational modes It can be inferred that students are expected to comprehend main ideas and identify some supporting details before actively negotiating of meaning and presenting information by creating with language In order to support teachers in understanding the nature and design of cultural and communicative teaching activities, a list of supplement activities was given The details of steps/ procedures and advantages of these activities were described Pedagogical implications were discussed and trends for future research were recommended iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATION vi LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Methods of the study 1.6 Design of the study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Language and culture 2.2 Culture and culture learning 2.3 Target, source, and international cultures 2.4 Checklists for analyzing the cultural features in foreign language textbooks 2.5 Communication 11 2.6 Checklists for analyzing the communicative features in foreign language textbooks 13 2.7 The role of textbook in language teaching and learning 16 2.8 Related studies 18 2.8.1 Textbook analysis of culture contents 18 2.8.2 Textbook analysis of communication contents 19 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 24 3.1 Material for textbook analysis 24 3.2 Research questions 26 iv 3.3 Research methods 26 3.4 Data collection procedures 27 3.5 Checklists for the cultural analysis in the study 27 3.6 Checklist for the communicative analysis in the study 28 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 4.1 Research question 30 4.1.1 Categories of culture in the textbook 30 4.1.2 Types of culture in the textbook 32 4.2 Research question 33 4.3 Research question 35 4.3.1 Influence of factors on the choice of activities when teaching culture and communication 35 4.3.2 Supplementary activities to improve Grade 10 students’ cross-cultural awareness 36 4.3.3 Supplementary activities to help students achieve communicative purposes 48 4.3.3.1 Interpersonal mode 49 4.3.3.2 Interpretive mode 54 4.3.3.3 Presentational mode 73 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 78 5.1 Summary of the main findings 78 5.2 Implication of the study 79 5.3 Recommendations for further studies 80 REFERENCES 82 APPENDICES 87 Appendix A 87 Appendix B 89 Appendix C 91 v LIST OF ABBREVIATION ACTFL: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language ELT: English Language Teaching vi LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES TABLES Table 2.1 Development of culture learning in language teaching Table 2.2 The communication continuum (Harmer, 1991: 50) 16 Table 2.3 Continuum of textbook activity communicativeness (adapted from Littlewood, 2004: 322) 16 Table 3.1 Units and topics in the textbook 25 Table 4.1 The frequency and types of references to Vietnamese and foreign cultures 31 Table 4.2 Distribution of frequency and percentage of cultural themes 33 Table 4.3 Distribution of frequency and percentage of communicative categories 35 Table 4.4 Quick summarizing strategies in the classroom 65 FIGURES Figure 2.1 Kachru’s categorization of countries in which English is used Figure 2.2 The communication process 12 Figure 2.3 Meaningful contexts given in each designed conservation (Tieng Anh 5, p.34) 22 Figure 2.4 Contextualized grammar activities applying the CLT approach (Tieng Anh 5, p 10) 23 vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study Vietnam has been integrating into the world by becoming the member of a number of international communities, especially World Trade Organization (WTO) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Along with numerous opportunities of jobs, Vietnamese labor force faces challenges, namely deeply understanding cultures and effectively communicating in the international language, English From the cultural perspectives, language and culture are interdependent and interactional Language reflects many factors of culture and culture affects the way language is used As Brembeck (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 apparently a key factor for Vietnamese learners for success in communication because second language learning is second culture learning Without the study of culture, foreign language instruction is impractical 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) without reflecting them in the cultural aspect may cause the improper understanding of the meanings of a language From the communicative perspective, along with the understanding of the culture, learners need to be provided practical communicative situations Firstly, they allow learners to refer what they have grasped about cultures with what is said Secondly, communicative competence is practiced via authentical materials This leads to the meaningfulness of learning cultures Thirdly, when learners communicate with foreigners, the understanding of cultures and knowing of communicative styles smooths the conversations and improves the relations amongst nations In 2018, a new curriculum which reconfirms English as a compulsory subject – “an instrumental that helps students establish and develop communicative competence in English as well as other skills” was developed by Ministry of Education and Training (MOET, 2018) 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 One of the objectives of English teaching and learning is to enhance students’ cross-cultural awareness and communication However, because of the new contents and CHAPTER CONCLUSION This chapter presents a summary of research findings, implications of the study and recommendations for further studies There are shown in the following sections: 5.1 Summary of the main findings 5.2 Implications of the study 5.3 Recommendations for further studies 5.1 Summary of the main findings Firstly, this study examined an in-use high school English textbook, entitled Tieng Anh 10 in Vietnam to investigate what categories of culture were introduced in terms of target, source, and international culture and what types of culture were focused on It was found that the world cultural contents gained significantly higher frequency than source and target culture Based on the significantly higher percentage of world culture, it is evident that the structure of cultural contents is basically designed with the aim of enhancing the students’ knowledge on non-English speaking countries’ cultures, especially these of ASEAN countries For example, in Volume of the textbook, every unit presents culture of ASEAN countries in terms of family life, traditional health beliefs and practices, traditional and popular music, and inventions The study also found that a preference for several cultural themes included learning with special reference to society and lifestyle, business and economy A low percentage of everyday cultural contents were observed These themes included sports, language and literature, festivals and holidays, geography and find arts It could be concluded that such a slight portion of these contents may be insufficient for the students to achieve an intercultural communicative competence purpose Secondly, the study investigated what categories of communication were designed in the textbook The communicative framework of ACTFL was conducted to examine three modes of communications: interpersonal mode, interpretative mode, and presentational mode It was found that interpretative mode gained remarkably higher than the other two modes Students were believed to make the appropriate cultural interpretation of meanings that occur in written and spoken form by themselves where there is no recourse to the active negotiation of meaning with the writer/ speaker In other words, students are expected to activate and practice internal 78 skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and self-studying Ranked at the second place was interpersonal mode Students get involved in active negotiation of meaning among individuals Finally, the presentational mode stood at the third place This mode refers to the creation of messages in a manner that facilitates interpretation of members of the other culture where no direct opportunity for the active negotiation of meaning exists Thirdly, the study suggested the supplementary activities that can be applied to boost students’ cross-cultural awareness as well as develop their communicative competence The suggestion was based on the following points: (1) the objectives of teaching English in Vietnamese high schools, which include providing cultural knowledge of foreign countries, developing students’ cross-cultural awareness, and developing students’ communicative competence; (2) the findings from the first and second research questions; and (3) the practical teaching and learning of English in Vietnamese high schools Among a variety of activities used for culture teaching in the classroom, some were selected to integrate the development of students’ crosscultural awareness into the language teaching The activities were of linguistic scholars such as Stern, Chastain, Henrichsen, and Seelye Communicative activities were presented in terms of three modes of communication They were hoped to require teachers’ consideration the reason behind a classroom activity or approach that is language learning activities in the classroom need to mirror real world and authentic communication In conclusion, it would be hopeful that with this study, the 10th graders could develop their cross-cultural awareness and communicative competence Besides, the textbook writers can select and design better sections to supplement and renew for the next reformation of high school English textbooks 5.2 Implications of the study The results of the current study can, to a certain degree, provide some useful information for language classroom teaching and learning and for designing instruction materials This section suggests pedagogical implication as follows Firstly, the findings of the current study show the small portion of Vietnamese culture and universal culture The authors of instruction materials should consider presenting more Vietnamese cultural knowledge in the textbooks in order to facilitate learners’ ability to convey Vietnamese culture In addition, more universal culture 79 contents should be added to provide students with knowledge of international issues Therefore, they are able to tackle these problems as global citizens Furthermore, the guidance and instructional explanations to indicate how the teachers should teach cultural contents should be provided by the textbooks As a result, teachers can be more aware of the important role of cultural contents and student will have opportunity to be exposed to the cultural knowledge conveyed Secondly, as there was a small percentage of a number of cultural themes such as fine arts, sports, holidays and festivals, the authors of instruction materials should reconsider the portion and balance of types of culture with emphasis on fostering learners’ communicative competence Thirdly, three modes of communication presented in the textbook were not balanced in portion Therefore, the textbook writers should take into account the percentage and balance of modes of communication with highlights on improving students’ communicative competence and assisting them to achieve communicative purposes Fourthly, teachers should pay attention to their teaching methods to transfer cultural knowledge to their students It is very necessary that teachers make a conscious effort to encourage students to learn about and raise their awareness of their own culture Thus, students would be able to develop a self-awareness of their own culture in order to use source culture as a reference for comparing the differences and diversity that exist within all cultures Also, teachers should understand the nature and approach of communication to design suitable communicative activities basing on three modes Therefore, students are able to understand the objectives of communicative activities and fairly develop three modes of communication 5.3 Recommendations for further studies Firstly, the present study investigated the new 10th grade English textbook for high school students Although the study presented some results regarding cultural and communicative contents, the conclusions about cultural orientation and communicative activities were based on only one section, Communication and Culture Thus, other sections in each unit should be investigated to get a better and fuller picture 80 Secondly, there should be research into the analysis of the new 11th and 12th English textbooks in the future in order to provide the whole picture of teaching culture and communication in English language teaching in Vietnamese high schools Thirdly, the supplementary activities presented in the study are mainly employed inside the classroom Therefore, activities outside school hours, learning experiences, homework, group work, etc need further researching as they are also significant in teaching towards competent development Fourthly, in order to provide and help students accumulate the cultural knowledge of Vietnam and other countries, it is not only the mission of English subject or English teachers but also of other subjects Therefore, further studies on integrated and interdisciplinary teaching should be carried out Finally, another aspect to be explored is other types of textbook including local and commercial textbooks It would be interesting to compare the cultural and communicative contents presented in commercial and local textbooks The results could be beneficial to the area of textbook editing on cultural teaching and learning 81 REFERENCES American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (2012) ACTFL Performance 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comparison) World cultures 87 Universal culture (The ideas of success in Vietnam) (Gender equality in the UK) (The ideas of success in the US) (The ideas of success in Vietnam and the US comparison) (New ways to learn in the US) 10 (Problems with ecotourism in Vietnam) Frequency Percentage Total 100% 20% (Problems with ecotourism in Africa) 12% 10 40% 88 (Problems with ecotourism in Vietnam and Africa comparison) 20% (The World Wide Fund for Nature) (Ecotourism) 8% Appendix B Distribution of frequency and percentage of cultural themes Cultural theme Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit x (Life of Gandhi – India) History 3.85% 7.69% 3.85% x (Eco tour about culture) 15.38% x (Ecotourism) 11.54% 3.85% x (The World Wide Fund for Nature – WWF) x (The use of electronic devices in language learning) Language and Literature x (Family life in Singapore and in Vietnam) x (Gender equality in the UK) x (Domestic violence) x (Pollution) Nature Fine Arts Percentage x (Eco tours in Vietnam and Africa) Geography Society and Lifestyle Frequency Unit 10 x (Ideas of success in the US and in Vietnam) x (Preserve environment) x (Folk music of Indonesia 89 and Vietnam) Hobbies Festivals and Holidays x (Eco tours) x (Invent -tions) Science and Technology x (Agriculture) Business and Economy x (The use of electronic devices) x (Workforce) x (Wage) x (Earning, high positions) x (Financial benefits) Politics Sports Education Health Other x (Educating children in Vietnam and Singapore) x (Boys’ and girls’ perform -ance at schools) x (Health practices in Indonesia and in Vietnam) x (Learn with electronic devices in the US) x (Games) x (Learn about local culture) 0% 3.85% 7.69% 15.38% 0% 3.85% 11.54% 7.69% 3.85% 26 100% X (Medical incubator) x (Food) Total 90 Appendix C Distribution of frequency and percentage of communicative categories Unit Task Unit Standard Interpersonal x (work in pairs) x (works in groups) Unit 2 x (work in pairs/ groups) x (work in pairs/ groups) Unit 3 x (work in pairs/ groups) x (describe pictures) x (listen) x (answer questions) x (view, analyze pictures) x (discuss) x (work in groups) x (work in groups) Unit x (match, discuss) x (read and complete sentences) x (listen) x (give opinions) x (vote for the best invention) x (report, explain) x (work in pairs) Unit Unit x (report) x (make a list, report, write) Standard Presentational x (view) Unit Standard Interpretative x (work in pairs) x (work in pairs) x (work in pairs) x (add more information) x x (view other sources) (report) x (read) x (rearrange words) 91 Unit Unit Unit 10 x (work in pairs) x (work in pairs) x (work in groups) x (work in pairs) Frequency Percentage x (exchange opinions) x (share opinions) x (use visual support) x (listen) x (work in groups) x (read) x (read) x (refer) x (work in pairs) 17 36.96% 19 41.3% 92 x (suggest) x (use graphic organizer) x (state opinion) 10 21.74% ...MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN ANALYZING COMMUNICATIVE AND CULTURAL FEATURES IN THE NEW 10TH GRADE ENGLISH TEXTBOOK Major: Code: Teaching English to... cross -cultural treatment, communicative and cultural content, communicative and cultural categories, communicative and cultural teaching; Investigation in the new 10th grade English textbook developed... only the culture teaching content in the new 10th grade English textbook is examined Therefore, the reference to different cultural categories in the the textbook is a quantitative account The