VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF IMPLEMENTING CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING AT BINH HOA SCHOOL IN HO CHI MINH CITY A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By NGUYEN THI HUYNH YEN Supervised by DUONG MY THAM, Ph. Ho Chi Minh City, February 2023 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled: EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF IMPLEMENTING CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING AT BINH HOA SCHOOL IN HO CHI MINH CITY In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s programs issued by Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature Ho Chi Minh, August 2022 NGUYEN THI HUYNH YEN i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, NGUYEN THI HUYNH YEN, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL), accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for study and research purposes, in accordance with the standard conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction of the thesis. Ho Chi Minh, August 2022 NGUYEN THI HUYNH YEN ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and great appreciation to my supervisor, Dr.
Duong My Tham, for her patience, kindness, professional leadership, insightful suggestions, and unwavering encouragement throughout the whole study process. Without her enthusiastic encouragement and professional supervision, this thesis would not have been completed. Beside my supervisor, I would like to thank my colleagues at Binh Hoa primary school. They provided me with excellent collaboration and assistance with the data collection and pilot study.
It can be said that I would not have been able to complete all of my tasks on time during the learning process without their help. My gratitude goes out to my loving, warm-hearted classmates who took me out, phoned me, shared experiences, sent materials, and wished me well on my research path. Last but not least, my gratitude is especially extended to my family, my husband. Without their encourage and support I could not complete my thesis.
Thank you again and again from the bottom of my heart for everything I have. iii ABSTRACT Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) which is considered one of the innovative foreign language teaching methodologies brings many benefits. CLIL has become a prevalent pedagogical approach within education systems across the world. However, research on CLIL conducted in Vietnamese primary schools is scarce.
Therefore, this study aims to explore teachers’ perceptions of the benefits of the CLIL implementation as well as the constraints they have encountered regarding the implementation of CLIL. The qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews and the observation was analyzed using content analysis. The semi-structured interviews with five teachers of English in Binh Hoa public primary school, Ho Chi Minh City were carried out. Moreover, the observation fieldnotes also were taken for in-depth information.
The findings, in general, revealed that the participants had positive perceptions of the CLIL implementation. It provides EFL learners with advantages such as increasing linguistic opportunities, improving English vocabulary and competency, strengthening cooperation, enhancing students’ problem-solving skills and language skills, developing English content knowledge and cognition, and connecting the content to the real world and their own needs and interests. However, EFL teachers encountered many constraints relating to professional training, curriculum and materials, time, and students’ proficiency during the CLIL implementation. Keywords: Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), constraints, benefits, primary education iv Table of Contents CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY.
i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS. iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.1 Background of the study .2 Rationale for the study .3 Aims and objectives of the study .5 Scope of the study .6 Significance of the study .7 Definition of the terms .8 Organization of the thesis. 6 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW. 1 Definition of CLIL .2 Models of CLIL.3 4Cs Conceptual framework of CLIL .4 The history of CLIL in Vietnam .5 The benefits of CLIL .6 Constraints of CLIL .1 Lack of professional training .2 CLIL inconsistencies in curricula and materials .3 Lack of time for preparing lessons .1 The international contexts .2 The Vietnamese context.
19 Lack of professional training .2 Learning facilities and conditions .3 Curriculum guidelines and textbooks .1 Semi-structured interviews .4 Procedures for data collection and analysis .5 Validity and reliability .1 Semi-structured Interviews. 30 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 The EFL teachers’ perceptions of benefits of the CLIL implementation .2 The difficulties faced by EFL teachers when CLIL is implemented at Binh Hoa primary school. 38 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.1 Implications for teachers .2 Implications for administrators .4 Recommendations for further research. 49 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.2: Current teaching situation…………………………………………….3: Research questions in relation to instruments and data analysis ………28 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 CLIL’s 4Cs conceptual framework………………………………….2 Conceptual framework of the study………………………………….20 ix LIST OF ABBVERIATIONS No.
Acronyms Full written words 1 CBI Content-Based Instruction 2 CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages 3 CLIL Content and Language Integrated Learning 4 DOET Department of Education and Training 5 EFL English as a foreign language 6 ICT Information and Communications Technology 7 MOET Ministry of Education and Training 8 PBL Project-Based Learning 9 PYP Primary Years Programme 10 ZPD The Zone of Proximal Development x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study English becomes a lingua franca, which is used in almost all fields such as education, economy, science, and information technology. In today's worldwide world, the English language serves as our major means of communication (McKay, 2018). Therefore, English is considered a compulsory subject in the curriculum of many public schools in the world. New English syllabuses or curricula aiming at “teaching English for effective and appropriate communication” have been released more regularly in Singapore (Zhang, 2006).
In Vietnam, English has also become a key subject, which is not only a means of communication as many people believe but also a compulsory subject for K-12 students who would like to finish their school. English is regarded as a basis subject from the primary level to a higher level in Vietnam, thus students are required to get enough skills, knowledge, and learning attitude in the learning English process with their teachers and parents. However, there is a fact that many students in our country, Vietnam, are failing to use English effectively in some daily situations although they have learned English for years.29) states that “despite the importance of English in the new context of integration and globalization, English language teaching in Vietnam, due to its low quality, has not met the demand for competent English-speaking people.” For this reason, finding an effective method to improve communication skills and increase students’ English levels is a great necessity. In recent years, a diversity of nontraditional EFL teaching and learning methods have been introduced to Viet Nam education systems, such as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Project-Based Learning (PBL), Content-Based Instruction (CBI).
One method that is advocated is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). In this paper, the author just focuses on the CLIL method which is applied to meet learners’ needs and develop the competent linguistic as well as skills for the cross-cultural communication of students. 1 In Vietnam, it was not until 1998 that the Department of Education and Training (DOET) in Ho Chi Minh City piloted a project in which Maths and Science at Grade 1 were taught in English. At that time, in Vietnam, English Bilingual Education was a relatively new concept.
These days, this topic is becoming increasingly widely recognized and addressed under the label CBI or CLIL. Students focus on meaning rather than form in CLIL-based lectures; language becomes an instrument for mastering relevant material and mediating ideas, concepts, and values. In traditional classes, content and language are separated. The CLIL approach as an educational approach has been strongly positioned and promoted during the country’s English language education crisis which has extensively been addressed in scholarly publications.
In 2008, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) started adopting CLIL through the National Foreign Language 2020 Project. An overarching objective of the National Foreign Language 2020 project is to enable Vietnamese adolescents to converse confidently in a foreign language in a multicultural and integrated setting (MOET, 2008). The implementation of CLIL is one particular task of the project that allows the students opportunity to integrate into both cultural and social contexts, along with other tasks like producing a new set of English textbooks, retraining English teachers, and updating English assessments. It is clear that this project has supposed to last until 2020, but it seems to bring the “poor results”.
Therefore, this project has been revised again. In 2018, the Department of Education and Training in Ho Chi Minh City organized a one-day training for the leaders of English teacher groups at primary schools in Binh Thanh about CLIL approach. In that training, all English teachers were randomly divided into groups to choose one specific topic, design activities for that topic, present the topic and then get feedback from other groups despite the fact that they had not been provided with any theoretical framework related to CLIL before. CLIL implementation was problematic due to a lack of conceptual frameworks surrounding the CLIL, as well as concerns regarding what the teacher did in reality.
2 After that, they were necessitated to retrain the rest of the English teachers at their primary school in the group meetings. Their English teacher group had to choose one topic per semester to be implemented in the academic school year. That theme ought to be included in their teaching syllabus and approved by the school management board. Then, one teacher would teach that theme period for other English teachers to observe and then give feedback.
Up to now, the implementation of two themes has been continued annually. EFL teachers of Binh Hoa school also took part in the training and recognized some benefits and constraints that teachers had to face when implementing CLIL in teaching English, especially in teaching Math and science subjects. Therefore, in this paper, the author just focused on CLIL approach but not any other approaches to investigate the perspectives of teachers at Binh Hoa primary school when they applied CLIL approach in their English classrooms.2 Rationale for the study Firstly, this research is conducted due to the researchers’ concern about the perspectives of teachers at Binh Hoa primary school toward the implementation of CLIL in the classroom and how they are confronted with the difficulties when CLIL is implemented at a primary school. Studies show that due to the growing use of languages and the accessibility of bilingual education options, the value of being able to communicate across cultures and in different languages is increasing in classrooms around the world.
Students who participate in CLIL have been shown to have better oral communication, speaking fluency, and social interaction skills in the foreign language than students who just take regular foreign language classes; Several authors (Lasagabaster, 2008; Mayo and Ibarrola, 2014; Perez Canado, 2017; Jäppinen, 2005; Arribas, 2016; Serra, 2007; De Diezmaz, 2016; Dalton-Puffer, 2011) have noted a dearth of highly effective and content-focused English instruction at the primary level, so this study provides an overview of teachers' opinions about applying CLIL in the classroom. Secondly, almost Vietnamese teachers are aware of the significant role of the CLIL approach, they also have ways of delighting students in language class.