4.2. Teachers’ utility of culture input to develop students’ intercultural competence
4.2.1. Teachers’ use of set teaching materials
The term “set” in the context of this study refers to the teaching materials that the group of EFL teachers at Ha Long high school for gifted students has agreed on to teach English for all students of the school: Grade 12 English Textbook. This textbook targets at developing students’ IC, which is shown by the structure of every unit sparing a section for culture and communication after the presentation of all the four skills, grammar and vocabulary is completed. This fact partly explained why the teachers made full use of the textbook in every lesson I observed.
a. Teachers’ dependence on set textbook
No How culture input used No. of teachers
1 Teachers’ use set teaching materials 5
2 Teachers’ use of supplementary culture input 3
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It was observed that all the teacher participants relied on the topic, and instructions provided in the set teaching materials. In other words, they strictly followed the content and steps required in the Grade 12 English Textbook, without or with little supplementary input from other sources such as the internet, extra handouts or teachers’ own knowledge. However, the level of dependence was decided by which classes they teach. For those who were in charge of English major classes (Trang and Linh), the students’ language proficiency and activeness in English learning allowed the teachers to provide more culture input outside textbook including a video, students’
presentation, a culture quiz, etc. Meanwhile, in Physics, Maths and Literature major classes, almost no other culture input was employed.
This fact was further confirmed by all the five teachers in the interviews that they used set teaching materials as the basis for their classroom EFL teaching practices, including cultural content. Further resources were provided only for strong students of English major classes.
Giang: I only use the core textbook and do not think of finding other resources for culture input as I need to complete the amount of work set by the school for each lesson. I mean, in each lesson, I have to cover one section including getting started, language, reading, speaking, writing, communication and culture, so I have no time for extra materials and activities…
Trang: I think the content provided in the textbook is OK for most of the time. And the time limit for each lesson, you know, only 45 minutes for each period, is usually not enough to expand the topic. There are times when the information in the book is not enough, or not interesting enough, I find other resources from the internet and struggle to balance the time for set input provided and extra one…
The teacher confessed that they were under pressure of following the subject syllabus and did not have an opportunity to use other materials for fear of being unable to complete the teaching workload per lesson. Their sharing was observed clearly in every lesson I attended. The teachers designed and organized their teaching activities based solely on the topic and content provided in the materials for an individual lesson.
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At the same time, they followed strictly all the teaching instructions provided in the materials, one by one. During the instruction, they might give further learning tasks like discussions and questions and answers and explained the points that they thought were important or difficult to their students to help them fully understand the content and learning tasks. The clearest evidence of their reliance on set teaching materials was that they covered all the sections and parts intended for a lesson, from page to page, without providing any further tasks or learning activities.
I also asked one teacher - Lan for a look at her lesson plan for Unit 5 – Cultural Identity. Interestingly, she agreed without any reluctance. Her lesson plan strengthened my observation of how much she depended on the set textbook, which was shown by her explicit use of all the content from the materials without further or additional activities or tasks. She admitted that what was important for her as a teacher was to finish a certain number of units in a pre-prescribed set of materials within, say, a semester. Other teachers in her school, teaching the same level and using the same set materials, would do the same. She explained that if she provided further cultural content or topics, it would take more time and thus would slow down the students’
learning process, and she could not finish the set teaching workload assigned to her.
b. Sufficiency of cultural content in the set textbook
Three out of five teachers agreed that the cultural content provided in their main teaching materials was enough to teach to their students and it was not necessary to supplement further cultural topics or content. These participants shared the idea that their teaching materials provided adequate cultural content, but culture teaching depended on individual teachers’ choice of cultural points to address.
Mai: Honestly, I have never tried using any other sources apart from the English textbook for grade 12 as I am satisfied with the topics and content of this book and I can fully exploit the input from it.
Giang: I think at this level, students need to acquire the most basic issues in culture, which are provided in the book. If they want to learn more about any cultural point, they can discover themselves by asking the teacher, searching for
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information in the internet. So it’s not necessary to add culture content to the textbook we are using.
The other two teachers of English major classes seemed to have a slightly different viewpoint. They both said that the culture input of the textbook is useful in developing students’ IC, and they could use it to the fullest; however, for English major students, it was necessary for the teacher to provide supplementary culture input, especially that of the students’ interest. Many of those students proposed a lot of questions about the topic or wanted to show others their knowledge of the topic. As a consequence, teachers believed it would be best if there were adequate provision of activities for the students to select appropriate language items such as words and expressions in a certain socio-cultural context, instead of just providing phrases for students to learn by heart. At the same time, Trang showed her dissatisfaction with the lack of opportunities for comparing cultures in the textbook she was using. She reported that she therefore supplemented her main teaching materials with further culture input and activities to integrate culture into her EFL teaching. Those materials and activities will be analyzed in detail in the following section.
c. Teacher’s presentation of culture in the set textbook
This section describes how the main teaching materials used by the teachers in the observed classes were supportive of the teaching of culture. From what I observed, the teacher usually followed the same template: providing culture input; supporting students’ target language acquisition and practice; and providing explicit instructions for culture teaching.
Firstly, the teaching materials the teachers used in the observed classes assisted the participants to provide culture input in one or more of the following ways;
introducing cultural topics, introducing aspects of language-cultural links, and introducing cultural facts.
Table 4.6. Culture input provided in set teaching materials Cultural
topics Language-culture links Cultural facts
34 Unit 1. Life
stories X The creator of Sherlock Holmes
Unit 2.
Urbanization Expression:sky trains
Urbanization in Bangkok and in Thailand
Unit 3. The green movement
Vocabulary: commuters
- The greenest countries and cities in the world (Sweden, Norway, Costa Rica, Germany, Denmark, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo) - Green lifestyle of Stockholm dwellers.
Unit 5. Cultural identity
- Names of ethnic groups:
The Rhade (Ede), The Cham, The Tay
- Vocabulary: Tay Nguyen Gong Chiang
Festivals that help ethnic groups in Viet Nam to maintain their cultural identity:
The elephant Racing festival; Forest worshipping.
Unit 6.
Endangered species
- Names of exotic animals:
saola, giant panda, sea turtle Sea turtle protection in Malaysia Unit 8. The world
of work Vocabulary: A levels The job seeking experiences of an English school leaver
Unit 9. Choosing
a career Vocabulary: gap year Taking a year out
The analysis of the collected teaching materials that were used by the participants in the total of 10 observed class hours indicates that materials in all of these class hours introduced or mentioned cultural topics. These materials covered various areas and aspects of culture such as life stories, urbanization, the green movement, cultural identity, the world of work, choosing a career, etc.
After introducing the topics, the teacher went on with introducing the relationships between language and culture, typically introducing culturally laden vocabulary items which appeared in the teaching materials used by the participants in 8 of the total 10 classes observed. These items were typically words inviting a cultural explanation from the teacher or related to cultures. For example, “commuter” which appeared in the teaching materials in Unit 3. The green movement describes a cultural
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practice of travelling that is uncommon in the Vietnamese culture but popular in foreign countries.
The textbook also introduced cultural facts. These facts included various cultural areas as listed below.
The creator of Sherlock Holmes
Urbanization in Bangkok and in Thailand
The greenest countries and cities in the world
Festivals that help ethnic groups in Viet Nam to maintain their cultural identity
Sea turtle protection in Malaysia
The job seeking experiences of an English school leaver
Taking a year out
These cultural facts all appeared in forms of information provided in reading passages. They also need to be compared to the Vietnamese culture for students to see the difference. Students can also develop their critical intercultural awareness.