Linguists have realized the importance of teaching cultures. Stern (1992) points out, ―It is nowadays a common place in language pedagogy to stress the importance of culture teaching and to say that language and culture are interweaved, that it is not possible to teach a language without culture, and that culture is the necessary context for language use.‖ Language and culture are closely related to each other. The former expresses and transmits the latter and the latter includes and enriches the former. Judging from the close relationship, Valdes (1986) concludes, ―There is no way to avoid teaching culture when teaching a language‖. So for successful communication, shared knowledge of the target culture is essential. Awareness of the various perspectives of the target culture on a deep level can certainly lessen misinterpretations and avoid communication conflict. In order to fulfill this goal, teachers should take the following measures:
4.3.1.1. Enforcing the teaching of British and American cultural background
There are great differences between eastern and western cultures. Therefore, students‘ awareness of cultures is the guarantee of correct understanding and proper use of English, and teachers should try their best to let students know the eastern and western cultures regarding greeting, introducing, thanking and responding, inviting, etc. For example, when teaching the speech act of greeting, teachers should introduce cultural aspects related to this speech act and point out cultural differences between Vietnamese and the target language such as: how to greet a person for the first time, how to greet a friend, ways of greetings, etc.
4.3.1.2. Creating culture-rich learning environment
Learners in a foreign language setting lack opportunities to engage in communicative situations in which they need to use the target language. Moreover, the chances they have to directly observe native speakers‘ interactions are also very scare or
even non-existent in this particular setting, so they do not have access to appropriate models to imitate. According to Bardovi-Harlig (1998), the longer the learner interacts with native speakers or is immersed in a community of speakers of the foreign language, the more pragmatically aware the learner becomes. As VUC students do not engage much in interactions in English, their pragmatic awareness cannot be guaranteed and thus leads to their dificulty or even failure in communication.
Though it is almost impossible to provide students with an authentic learning environment where they can have direct communication with native English speakers, it does not mean that teachers cannot try to create a culture-rich environment for them. In addition to introducing linguistic and cultural knowledge to learners, teachers should exert more effort to help their students to apply what they have learnt in practice.
Teachers can create real situations for students to participate in. For instance, the teacher first lets the students read a passage named ―Dining Customs‖, and then asks the students to act as waiters and customers at a restaurant in the US. Students are required to talk with each other independently. This provides a great opportunity for them to think and speak in accordance with foreign social conventions and at the same time they have to understand what other people say so as to make the conversation continue smoothly and properly.
This role-play activity increases students‘ awareness of the appropriate application of cultural information learnt in class and prepares them for real communication with native English speakers. Besides, in order to make sure that students fulfill the activities successfully, teachers should convey enough information about the foreign culture to students beforehand.
4.3.2. Designing a cultural syllabus
The syllabus is used as the guide of the whole process of English teaching. In order to integrate cultural teaching with English teaching, specific requirements about the contents and methods of cultural teaching should be added to the syllabus. In Vietnam‘s examination-oriented education system, the English teaching syllabus is actually designed to develop the students‘ ability to fulfill all kinds of tests and examinations in which culture aspects are ignored. Consequently, considering the guiding position a syllabus holds in English teaching, adding culture into it can better guarantee this integrating process.
4.3.3. Providing more authentic teaching materials
Making students aware of the use of the target language naturally implies that the target language they come into contact with should be real and authentic. In view of foreign language teaching, ―authentic language‖ means that it is actually used in real communicative situations, as opposed to language that is artificially made up for purposes other than communication. It is beyond doubt that students can learn to use English well only when they are exposed to authentic learning materials, especially when learning English in Vietnam, where they do not have many opportunities to have direct communication with English native speakers and they cannot learn the target language by means of communicating with foreigners. So it is teachers‘ task to provide plausible language materials to students so that they can have more opportunities to come into contact with real target language. In a certain sense, authentic materials give students a taste of ―real‖ language in use, and provide them with valid linguistic data for their natural acquisition process to work on. Once they get people into contact with plenty of authentic materials, they can imitate the manners of native use the language in the way of native speakers, and gradually, their sense of appropriateness will be formed thus pragmatic awareness will be developed.
Textbooks are the major media for students to learn a foreign language. Therefore, they should take all the factors influencing students‘ acquisition ability into full consideration. These ―authentic materials" must involve the social factors, culture, social norms and customs of the target language in relation to Vietnamese reality so that comparisons can be made and interactions stimulated. It is believed that these materials can help students to learn about how native speakers communicate and how they behave, and they can help them to think in the way native speakers think and behave like native speakers when communicating in classes. So if students are exposed to more native-1ike materials, their native-like competence will be improved. By trying to think and act like English native speakers, English learners can use English in a more natural and native way in cross-cultural communication.
Apart from textbooks, there are a lot of other sources from which students can further broaden their horizon towards the target language countries and these materials can be used as supplements to the textbook. Literature works which contain the most vivid and abundant information of one nation‘s complexion, psychology, culture peculiarity, customs and social relationships should be introduced to the learners as
extensive reading materials. English novels, magazines, newspapers, movies and TV serials can all be made good use of.
Cultivation of pragmatic competence depends largely on practice of those knowledge of pragmatics in real communication. Therefore, teachers should adopt different kinds of modern teaching aids and methods in order to strengthen the leading-in of culture, to make students have an immersed sense and learn English naturally. For instance, they can let students see English original movies, and be associated with language training program and making multimedia courseware. They can invite some foreign teachers to give a lecture and some experts to give a report, which widens the students‘ outlook about culture and access a great deal of real English in order to intensify the understanding of cultural differences between Vietnam and western countries.
4.4. Improving the pragmatic teaching in the way of holding tests and exams
Tests and exams have a great effect on helping both teachers and students move forward. Teachers can find students‘ insufficient parts through holding pragmatic tests and evaluations. Then they can revise the teaching structure and do some promotion.
Some forms of tests and exams such as unit-tests, mid-term exams and final exams can be used. Teachers can hold a test to check whether the students have mastered learnt pragmatic aspects or not.
4.5. Developing teachers’ competence
According to Eslami-Rasekh (2005), the responsibility for teaching the pragmatic aspects of language use falls on teachers. Teachers are accountable for transmitting linguistic and cultural knowledge of the target language to the learners. Thus it is absolutely essential that English teachers meet the needs of their students. To develop their language and teaching competence, they should be encouraged and required by the university authorities to attend professional training programs, where they can update their knowledge about English and learn new teaching techniques. In addition, they have to broaden their linguistic and cultural knowledge of the target language through self- study and make good use of all the available resources, which include all kinds of academic journals and books both published in Vietnam and abroad, academic conferences, research projects, and short-term courses abroad and thus improve their language proficiency. In order to be qualified, teachers must keep on studying to keep up with changes in the English language, its culture and society. Since many teachers are not
confident in their own knowledge of pragmatics, they should actively try to seek and read some books or materials related to pragmatics to develop their English competence.
Finally, Kasper's (2001, p. 522) observation on what is required of teachers themselves is worth noting: Teachers must be sufficiently socialized to English pragmatic practices, so that they can comfortably draw on those practices as part of their communicative and cultural repertoire, and so that their pragmatic awareness enables them to support students' learning of foreign language pragmatics effectively. This is a challenging requirement to fulfill, given that much of our pragmatic knowledge is implicit and only becomes available to us through careful observation and conscious practice in distinguishing between expressed and implied meanings.
PART C: CONCLUSION