Vietnam national university, hanoi University of languages and international studies Post graduate department TẠ NGỌC HIỀN MINH Using Supplementary Activities to Raise Cross-Cultural Awareness of Students in Hanoi University of Industry Sö dông c¸c ho¹t ®«ng bæ trî nh»m n©ng cao nhËn thøc giao thoa v¨n ho¸ cña sinh viªn Tr-êng §¹i häc C«ng nghiÖp Hµ Néi M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60 14 10 hµ néi – N¨m 2009 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vietnam national university, hanoi University of languages and international studies Post graduate department TẠ NGỌC HIỀN MINH Using Supplementary Activities to Raise Cross-Cultural Awareness of Students in Hanoi University of Industry Sö dông c¸c ho¹t ®«ng bæ trî nh»m n©ng cao nhËn thøc giao thoa v¨n ho¸ cña sinh viªn Tr-êng §¹i häc C«ng nghiÖp Hµ Néi M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Dr. Trần Xuân Điệp hµ néi – N¨m 2009 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page DECLARATION. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .2 Aims of the study .3 Scope of the study .5 Methods of the study .6 Design of the study.
3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Culture and foreign language learning .2 Culture and language learning .3 Cultural awareness and cross-cultural awareness.2 Cross-cultural awareness .2 Culture teaching in conversational classes .1 What aspect of culture should be taught .2 Task based approach to incorporating culture into teaching .3 Activities for raising students’ cultural awareness in conversational classes9 2.1 Goals for incorporating culture into English speaking class .2 Activities for raising students’ cultural awareness in conversational classes .1 The summary of Christine Elmore’s activities .10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.2 Elizabeth Peterson and Brownyn Coltrane’s activities .3 Deborah Peek’s activities. 16 CHAPTER 3: SITUATION ANALYSIS .1 Setting of the study .2 Participants and classroom context.2 Data collection instruments .1 Survey questionnaire for teachers .1 An overview of culture teaching in HaUI .2 Teachers’ opinions of the difficulties in delivering cross – cultural elements in speaking classes .3 Teachers’ opinions of the necessity of including cultural information in the lessons .4 Teachers’ opinions of the cross – cultural topics and activities for speaking lessons .5 Teachers’ difficulties in incorporating culture into speaking classes. 25 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.2 Activities applied for raising HaUI students’ cross-cultural awareness in speaking lessons .3 Students’ test results before and after the study .4 Survey Questionnaire for the students before the study and after the study .1 Students’ participation in the speaking lessons with cross – cultural activities .2 Students’ self – evaluation of their cultural knowledge.3 Students’ opinion of the importance of culture for English learning .4 Students’ anticipation of the culture learning .5 Students’ opinions of speaking lessons with cross – cultural activities after the study .6 Students’ difficulties in culture learning .4 Discussion of the findings .5 Implications for raising HaUI students’ cross – cultural awareness.1 Summary of the study .2 Limitations of the study .3 Suggestions for further study .Industry TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Industry vii ABBREVIATIONS HaUI: Hanoi University of Industry EFL: English as Foreign Language ELT: English language Teaching ELL: English Language Learning (LUAN.Industry TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Industry 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale English learning does not only include grammatical competence and language proficiency, it also includes culture learning. “Foreign 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.
For scholars and laymen alike, cultural competence, i., the knowledge of the conventions, customs, beliefs and systems of meaning of another country, is indisputably an integral part of foreign language learning, and many teachers have seen it as their goal to incorporate the teaching of culture into the foreign language curriculum.” (Dimitrios Thanasoulas, akasa74@hotmail.com) From the idea above, it can be inferred that foreign language teaching can‟t be complete without the transmission of cultural information in the lessons. However, it is still controversial among many language teachers about the appropriate teaching methods and cross – cultural activities used in speaking lessons in order that the target of raising students‟ cross – cultural awareness can be met. In HaUI, there has never been any study on raising students‟ cross – cultural awareness and teachers‟ attitudes towards these issues. From my 8 years‟ experience as a teacher at HaUI, I am aware that the teaching of culture has not been emphasized in this teaching context.
The curriculum in HaUI has not been designed to include culture teaching or developing additional teaching and learning materials that includes English speaking countries‟ cultural values. In speaking lessons, students are often asked to talk about the topic the teachers raise, taught some expressions and new words. Cultural elements are rarely mentioned. Therefore, students often ask me a lot of questions which are grammatically correct but culturally inappropriate.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Industry 2 These reasons have given rise to this study. It‟s the author‟s attempt to find out the effective activities to raise students‟ cross – cultural awareness. It is hoped that this study will help the situation in HaUI.2 Aims of the study The study is aimed at: 1. finding out the effective activities in raising students‟ cultural awareness 2.
finding out the difficulties in incorporating cultural elements into speaking lessons at HaUI 1. Scope of the study The participants in the study are first year English majored students. They are in their 2 nd semester. The textbook chosen for the course is Let’s talk 2.
The study only focuses on supplementary activities in raising students‟ cross – cultural awareness. Teaching „culture” in this thesis refers to British and American culture in language use and in communication contexts.4 Research questions The study is carried out to find the answers to the following research questions: 1. What are the effective activities for improving HaUI students‟ cross-cultural awareness? 2. What are the difficulties in incorporating cultural elements into speaking lessons at HaUI? 1.5 Methods of the study In this study, action research is employed.
The author makes comments, remarks, comparisons and conclusions from observations, survey questionnaires, discussions and experience. Survey questionnaires are utilized to survey the situation of teaching and learning culture at the beginning of the study. They are also used to collect teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about culture teaching and learning after the study. 2 tests are administered before and after the study TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Industry 3 to figure out the differences in students‟ cultural knowledge.
Observations and formal discussions are also effectively combined in the study.6 Design of the study The study is divided into 4 chapters Chapter I is an introduction to the research in which rationale, methods of the study and research questions are discussed. Chapter II reviews the literature of culture in foreign language teaching, the relationship between culture and language learning. The study also looks at some influential theories of activities used for teaching culture. Chapter III discusses the context of the study, data collection methods and activities for raising cross cultural awareness in HaUI.
The author also analyzes the data collected to answer the research questions. Changes in the results of the culture achievement tests are assessed based on both quantitative and qualitative data collected through the test results, interviews, informal discussions, observations and survey questionnaires. Chapter IV includes the findings of the study and suggests further research. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Industry 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Culture and foreign language learning 2.1 Culture defined Culture can be defined in many ways from many different perspectives.
On a general level, anthropologists define culture as “…the whole way of life of people or group. In this context, culture includes all the social practices that bond a group of people together and distinguish them from them” (Montgometry and Reid-Thomas, 1994:5). In Nguyen Quang‟s view, “Culture is the whole complex of tangible and intangible expressions that are created and adapted by a society or a social group as well as the ways it functions and reacts in given situations; this helps distinguish one society or social group from another not only in terms of the availability of those expressions and behaviors, but also in terms of their proportionality and manifestability”. (Nguyen Quang, 2006:24) According to Brown (1994: 170) culture is a deeply ingrained part of the very fiber of our being, but language - the means for communication among members of a culture – is the most visible and available expression of that culture.
And so a person‟s worldview, self – identity, and system of thinking, acting, feeling, and communicating can be disrupted by a change from one culture to another. From these points of view, it can be inferred that language and culture are inextricably linked. Therefore, language teaching can not be separated from culture teaching.2 Culture and language learning Language and cultures are closely related in many ways. According to Claire Kramsch, language is the principal means whereby we conduct our social lives (Claire Kramsch, 1998:3).
When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Industry 5 To begin with, the words people utter relate to common experience. They express facts, ideas or events that are communicable because they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other people share. Words also reflect their authors‟ attitudes and belief, their point of view that are also attitudes, belief and point of views of others.
In both cases, language expresses cultural reality. But members of a community or social group do not only express experience; they also create experience through language. According to Claire Kramsch (Claire Kramsch, 1998:3) “They give meaning to it through the medium they choose to communicate with one another, for example on the telephone or face – to – face, writing a letter or sending an e-mail message, reading the newspaper or interpreting a graph or chart. The way in which people use the spoken, written, or visual medium itself to create meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to, for example, through a speaker‟s tone of voice, accent, conventional style, gestures and facial expressions.” Through all its verbal and non-verbal aspects, language embodies cultural reality.
According to Nguyen Van Do (Nguyen Van Do, 2006), language and culture can be seen as the faces of paper. Language cannot exist “outside the social context; language is a social institution; both shaping and shaped by society at large. This relationship can be illustrated in the following trio relation diagram: Language Culture Society 2.3 Cultural awareness and cross – cultural awareness 2.1 Cultural awareness Cultural awareness is a term we have used to describe sensitivity to the impact of culturally – induced behavior on language use and communication (Barry Tomalin and Susan Templeski, 1993: 5). TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Industry 6 As presented in the previous section, the forms and uses of a given language reflect the cultural values of the society in which the language is spoken.
Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language (Krasner, 1999). Therefore, cultural awareness should be viewed as a significant component in communicative competence. It is essential that language learners should be aware of the culturally appropriate ways to express attitudes, address people, make requests, and express agreements or disagreement .2 Cross – cultural awareness There exist differences between cultures in the way people communicate, behave and act. People use various terms to refer to communication between people from different nationality, social or ethnic origin, gender, occupation and sexual preference.
„Cross – culture‟ refers to the meeting of two cultures or two languages across the political boundaries of nation – states (Claire Kramsch, 1998:81).