University of Southampton Faculty of Humanity Art and Humanities School Cultural awareness and Intercultural awareness in ELT practices from Global Englishes perspective in higher education in a Vietnamese university by Thi Thanh Binh Nguyen Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2023 University of Southampton Abstract Faculty of Humanities Art and Humanities school Doctor of Philosophy Cultural Awareness and intercultural Awareness in ELT practices from Global Englishes perspective in higher education in a Vietnamese University by [Thi Thanh Binh Nguyen] The number of people learning English, 1.5 billion, provides strong evidence for the recent international function and the special status of English as the best communicative tool compared to all other languages worldwide. Global Englishes, mainly English as a lingua franca, have played an important role in intercultural communication among people who do not share the first language in international settings. However, the fact of using ELF has yet to be fully recognised, especially in Vietnam, where there is a large population of English users and learners who still take English as a foreign language. Since the student participant in the research are being trained as pre-service primary and secondary teachers or will be recruited to work in the international labour market, it is essential to investigate the influence of Global Englishes and Intercultural awareness in ELT in practice for them.
The research was conducted with the mixed method with three-month fieldwork at a university in the north of Vietnam. Questionnaires, interviews, and observations were all explored as research instruments for a detailed description of the research setting. With the qualitative content analysis approach and from a global Englishes perspective, the thesis compares and analyses how Global Englishes is understood or used by both teacher and student participants. The thesis also aims to understand the influence of Cultural and Intercultural awareness in English language teaching in practice for these students and teachers.
Findings show inconsistencies and contradictions between classroom performance and participants' perceptions of English use, teaching and learning. Differences exist in students' and teachers' perceptions and beliefs of using English. Student participants take linguistic aspects as the primary resources for communication; therefore, they would like the teacher to correct their pronunciation or grammar mistakes immediately in class. However, if students' performance is understandable, teacher participants do not focus on these errors.
Intercultural language education was more consistent as the cultural context of both native and non-native English-speaking countries is presented clearly in all modules in the research, especially Vietnamese culture is easily found in classroom observations. This results from the school's policy - the Centre for Research on foreign language and Culture, and the introduction and promotion of Vietnamese culture and language to the world. Basic cultural awareness and Advanced cultural awareness, particularly Levels 1 and 2 (Baker, 2015), were also introduced clearly in teaching materials and in both inside and outside classroom activities. The study provides a significant contribution to the HE in Vietnam.
Global Englishes, especially ELF, are presented in Vietnam. Educators, teachers and students need to be acknowledged the presence of ELF in teaching and learning practices. The research is strong evidence that in a language class, cultural knowledge should be treated equally to linguistic knowledge in ELT to achieve the teaching and learning goals. In terms of implications, they are targeted at the context of HE in Vietnam.
Global Englishes should be addressed directly and clearly in ELT to encourage teachers and students to become confident in their English use, learning and teaching. Table of Contents Table of Contents. i Table of Tables. v Table of Figures.
vi Research Thesis: Declaration of Authorship. viii Definitions and Abbreviations .ix Chapter 1 Introduction .1 Background and Rationale of the Study .1 Reason for researching from the Global Englishes perspective .2 Reason for searching Cultural and Intercultural awareness in ELT .3 Reason for researching at higher education level .2 The research aims and Questions .3 Structure of the thesis. 15 Chapter 2 Concepts of English, English language ideologies, teacher’s beliefs, and Global Englishes in ELT .1 Concepts of English .3 English as Lingual Franca .4 English language used in ASEAN and Vietnam .2 Standard English language ideologies and ELF .3 Teachers’ Beliefs in Language Education .4 Global Englishes in practice .5 Previous studies on teacher’s belief in Global Englishes. 38 Chapter 3 Cultural and Intercultural Awareness in English language teaching .1 Cultural and language.
40 Table of Contents 3.2 Cultural and language education .4 Intercultural competence and Intercultural communicative competence .6 ELF and Intercultural awareness: Implications for English language teaching .7 Previous studies of CA and ICA in English language teaching .8 Research on integrating Culture in ELT in Vietnam. 73 Chapter 4 Research Methods .1 Research aims and questions .2 The mixed research method .3 The study context .4 Data collection procedure .1 Research participants and selection procedures.2 Semi-structured interviews.4 Documents and field notes .6 Trustworthiness and limitations. 99 Chapter 5 Quantitative Findings .1 Students’ quantitative findings .2 Teachers’ quantitative findings. 116 Chapter 6 Qualitative results: The first round of interview .1 Coding and Categorizing .2 Results of the first round of interviews.
120 ii Table of Contents 6.1 Teacher’s knowledge about Teaching foreign language policy at higher education level in Vietnam.2 Teacher’s knowledge about English as Global Englishes .3 Teacher’s knowledge about Cultural and intercultural awareness in teaching English. 136 Chapter 7 Qualitative results: The second round of interviews and classroom observation.1 Coding and Categorizing.2 Results of the second round of interview and classroom observations .1 Exploring the complexity of local culture .2 Exploring cultural representation in language learning materials .3 Exploring traditional arts and media in English .5 Face-to-face and electronical intercultural communication .1 Students’ and teacher’s Perceptions of Global Englishes and Intercultural awareness.1 The concept of Global Englishes and ELF .2 Student’s and Teacher’s perceptions of Intercultural Awareness in teaching English .2 The influence of Global Englishes and Intercultural Awareness in teaching and learning English in practice .1 Global Englishes in ELT .2 Cultural awareness in ELT .1 Basic cultural awareness (CA) .2 Advanced cultural awareness .4 Integrating ICA in the classroom. 181 iii Table of Contents 8.1 Research aims and questions .2 Research coding and analytic framework and research findings .3 Contributions and implications of the research .4 Limitations and further research. 191 Appendix A Questionnaire for Student.
192 Appendix B Questionnaire for Teacher. 197 Appendix C Interview guide 1. 203 Appendix D Transcription conventions. 205 Appendix E Consent form.
206 Appendix F Interview Transcription. 208 List of References. 235 iv Table of Tables Table of Tables Table 1: Research participants. 81 Table 2 Student’s attitude toward the English language from Global Englishes perspective 103 Table 3 Students’ attitude to English learning.
105 Table 4 Students’ attitude toward English use. 107 Table 5 Students’ actual involvement in English communication. 108 Table 6 Teacher’s attitude toward English language from Global Englishes perspective. 112 Table 7 Teachers’ attitude to English.
113 Table 8 Teachers’ attitude toward Intercultural Awareness. 114 Table 9: Teachers’ attitude toward English use. 115 Table 10 Teachers’ actual involvement in English conversations. 116 Table 11 First round interview coding table.
119 Table 12 Second round of interview and classroom observation coding data table. Error! Bookmark not defined. v Table of Figures Table of Figures Figure 1 Baker and Ishikawa’s (2021: 33) Culture and language as interacting complex adaptive systems. 44 Figure 2 Byram’s (1997: 73) Model of Intercultural communicative competence.
53 Figure 3: The twelve components of intercultural awareness (Baker 2015). 57 Figure 4: A model of intercultural awareness. 62 Figure 5 Understanding conversation Between native speakers - CEFR. 121 Figure 6 Understanding a native speaker interlocutor - CEFR.
122 vi Research Thesis: Declaration of Authorship Research Thesis: Declaration of Authorship Print name: Thi Thanh Binh Nguyen Title of thesis: Cultural Awareness and Intercultural Awareness in ELT in practice from Global Englishes perspective in higher education in a Vietnamese University I declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and has been generated by me as the result of my own original research. This work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this University; 2. Where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated; 3. Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed; 4.
Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; 5. I have acknowledged all primary sources of help; 6. Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself; 7.
None of this work has been published before submission Signature:. vii Acknowledgements Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my dear supervisor Associate Professor. Will Baker, for his valuable suggestions and guidance. With his patient guidance, continuous encouragement and inspiring advice, the completion of this thesis is possible.
My thanks also go to my second supervisor Professor Associate Ying Zheng, who has offered me many valuable suggestions for writing this thesis. Many thanks to my colleagues at the Centre of Global Englishes at the University of Southampton for their valuable discussions and comments in seminars. I want to thank the university management where I conducted the study, 16 English language teachers and 138 students who participated in my research. However, their names cannot be identified (for confidentiality).
This thesis was only completed with the ideas and information these teachers shared with me as well as the classes that I observed. I also owe my heartfelt gratitude to my parents for their lifelong support, eternal love, understanding and faith in me. Their encouragement and unwavering support have sustained me through frustration and depression. They have been a constant source of support throughout this PhD.
I want to dedicate this PhD thesis to them. viii Definitions and Abbreviations Definitions and Abbreviations CA. Cultural Awareness ICA. Intercultural Awareness GE.
Global Englishes ELT. English Language teaching ELF. English as Lingua Franca WE. World Englishes MOET.
Ministry of Education and Training CEFR. Common European Framework of References for Language ix Definitions and Abbreviations Chapter 1 Introduction This research investigates teachers’ and students’ perceptions of Global Englishes and how cultural and Intercultural awareness are presented in English language teaching in Vietnamese higher education from the global Englishes perspective. The chapter begins with some reasons for conducting the research, from three aspects; reasons for researching from the global Englishes perspective, researching cultural and intercultural awareness in ELT in practice and researching at the higher education level for readers to have a clear overview of the reasons why the research has been taken. Next, the chapter provides research aims and questions and ends with the structure of the thesis.1 Background and Rationale of the Study 1.1 Reason for researching from the Global Englishes perspective The researcher first knew about the term Global Englishes when she participated in a program named Brunei – US English language enrichment project for ASEAN in 2015.
At that time, the participants were from 10 ASEAN Countries, and they all used English as the communicative tool. She realised that each of them used English in their way, but the communicative functions of English still worked very well, and they were all confident with what they had done with our English. After completing the course, she returned to my teaching job and felt very interested in that topic. She recognised that the English they used in real life and the English taught in class was not the same.