THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRIEU THI THUY LOAN Cultural mistakes made by students from a high school in Kim Xuyen - Tuyen Quang: Realities and opinions (Những lỗi thuộc về văn hóa của học sinh THPT ở Kim Xuyên - Tuyên Quang: thực tế và ý kiến) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Thai Nguyen, 2019 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRIEU THI THUY LOAN Cultural mistakes made by students from a high school in Kim Xuyen - Tuyen Quang: Realities and opinions (Những lỗi thuộc về văn hóa của học sinh THPT ở Kim Xuyên - Tuyên Quang: thực tế và ý kiến) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Instructor: Dr. Nguyen Trong Du Thai Nguyen, 2019 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn DECLARATION I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “Cultural mistakes made by students from a high school in Kim Xuyen – Tuyen Quang: realities and opinions” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master in English Language. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Approved by Thai Nguyen, 2019 SUPERVISOR Researcher’s signature Dr.
Nguyen Trong Du Trieu Thi Thuy Loan Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Nguyen Trong Du, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the lecturers of the Department of Post-graduate Studies, School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for my useful lessons during two years studying here. I am also thankful to selected teachers, students from at Kim Xuyen High School for their whole-hearted participation in the study.
I also wish to give my heartfelt thanks to my family members, my closed friends who I have never enough words to express my great gratitude for their encouragement and inspiration. Eventually, the study has been completed to the best of my knowledge; however, mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable. Therefore, I look forward to receiving comments and suggestions from readers for the perfection of the course work. Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn ABSTRACT In recently years, it is important for English teachers to integrate culture so as to raise the awareness of their students about the differences between cultures when they want to use English to communicate with foreigners.
In this study, the researcher aimed to find out some of the so-called cultural mistakes made by students in a high school in Kim Xuyen. It mainly explores the mistakes related to greetings, addressing the interlocutors, or responding to those acts. In order to achieve the objectives, the researcher uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods to collect the data: Questionnaires and Interviews. The participants were five teachers and 150 students in different classes at Kim Xuyen High School.
The results show that most students and even teachers speak English in a very Vietnamese way, which is claimed by an American teacher to be a type of cultural mistakes. However, the results also reveal that those mistakes may not be avoidable because English is spoken within the context of Vietnamese culture. This study is a modest contribution for teachers who wish to improve their attitudes towards the mistakes of students. TABLE OF CONTENT Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.
iii TABLE OF CONTENT. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. The significance of the study. Methods of the study.
Design of the study.4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definitions of Culture. The relationship between language and culture. Typical features of learning English in Vietnam.
Language, culture and communication. Pragmatics and pragmatic competence. Intercultural Communication Competence. Misunderstanding of culture mistakes.
Quantitative method applied in the study. Qualitative method applied in the study .14 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc. Setting of the study. Subjects of the study.
Data collection instruments. Data analysis procedure. Data analytical methods .19 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Cultural mistakes: realities.
Cultural mistakes: students’ opinions. The results from interviews. Findings and discussion. For the English teachers.
For other researchers. For course-book designers. Limitations of the research .47 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FIG: Focus interviews group EL: English language Ss: Students Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS TABLES Table 1: students’ answer to question 1 .21 Table 2: students’ answer to question 2 .22 Table 3: students’ answer to question 3 .23 Table 4: students’ answer to question 4 .23 Table 5: students’ answer to question 5 .24 Table 6: students ’answer to question 6 .25 Table 7: students’ answer to question 7 .25 Table 8: students’ answer to question 8 .26 Table 9: students’ answer to question 9 .26 Table 10: students’ answer to question 10 .32 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale: Vietnam has been on the way of strong development and increased integration in all respects including the comprehensive and profound reform in education, especially in language teaching and learning.
The active participation of Vietnam in regional and international associations and the recent adoption of market economy have stimulated the importance of English as an international language in the country (Le & Barnard, 2009). English language has attracted significant consideration from wide range of Vietnamese communities. Vietnamese government has stimulated a huge project of language teaching and learning called the National Foreign Language Projects with impressive determination to improve the English education in the nation wide scale till 2025. However, the practice of teaching and learning English in mountainous areas is facing with lots of difficulties.
I am teaching English at a high school in Kim Xuyen - Tuyen Quang where seventy - five percent of the students are ethnic minorities and have low living standard, and I recognize that they often make a number of mistakes, especially ones related to the appropriate use of language items real-life conversations. From my observation, most of those mistakes are caused by the impact of Vietnamese culture. Learning a language is learning a new culture. In order to communicate successfully, learning the language aspects such as grammar, vocabulary, listening, or speaking is not enough; it is important to learn the cultural factors of that language.
Sometimes, learners speak English with correct pronunciation but they are still misunderstood or the conversation between them and native speakers is not smooth because they use inappropriate language in specific contexts. The research is based on some situations within the particular area of language education for communicating across culture. Language and culture are inseparable and culture is influential on all levels of communication, from forming the context for communication to the culture content embedded in linguistic units (Crozet & Liddicoat, 1999, 2000). Dan Hauer has made a series of videos showing the fact that Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn Vietnamese learner of English often make some common mistakes: Vietnamese names are written as Last Name + Middle Name + First Name (Nguyen Van A; Pham Thi B, which is opposite to the way people use different to American.
The first Vietnamese name is normally used appropriate to be Mr. Hoa and the Vietnamese do not use the last name to address someone. Besides, Kim Xuyen students call or greet their teachers as "Good morning, Teachers" as a way of addressing Vietnamese. The video of Dan Hauer often says “it is incorrect or in his America country”, in his country, they do not use greetings such as: How are you? I'm fine, thank you, and you? ; Whether or not to use "Good morning, teacher" etc.
Dan Hauer listed the mistakes in his video so the researcher based on these communication mistakes, observed, questionaire and interviewing students of Kim Xuyen High School. From the imfacts of Vietnamese culture, the researcher would help students in Kim Xuyen High school distinguish their cultural mistakes. This study helps English teachers to understand certain difficulties that Vietnamese students might encounter due to cultural differences. Otherwise, this study will help Kim Xuyen students who study English or to become aware of their own socio- cultural behaviors towards communication in order to reduce cultural mistakes misunderstandings.
The last the implications of this study would be relevant to language teaching in other cultural. The researcher has relied on Dan Hauer's videos to investigate whether those mistakes were made by Kim Xuyen students or those mistakes were incorrectly not used by native speakers. At the same time, the researcher has also pointed out that what he said that was not right, not consistent with the usage style of Vietnamese people, the words must be full such as: "Hello teacher = Good morning, Teacher" don't just use "Good morning". Understanding mistakes here are not grammatically and phonetically, but they might be misunderstandings or influenced by Vietnamese culture.
Finally, watching those clips gave me the idea of conducting this study. Aims of the study Professor Hu Wenzhong (1999) thinks that the cultural mistakes is more serious than the language errors, because it is easy to cause emotional unpleasant Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn between foreigners and Chinese. Therefore, how should we use language correctly and appropriately is an important part of the intercultural communicative competence. The first aim of study is to investigate what are common cultural mistakes that high school students make in initial stages of communication such as greetings and responding to greetings, inviting and accepting/refusing etc.
The researcher also expects to explore teachers and students’ opinions about whether those mistakes must be avoided in every context. Research questions From those aims, two research questions are set out: 1. What are common mistakes high school students make in initial turns of conversations? 2. What are the teachers’ and students’ opinions about whether those mistakes must be avoided in every context? 4.
Scope of the study This study focuses on investigating the mistakes occurring in the initial turns of conversations. As such, it mainly explores the mistakes related to greetings, addressing the interlocutors, or responding to those acts. Generally, initial turns can vividly reveal the impact of Vietnamese culture on the students’ performance of English. In this study, the researcher only concentrates on a group of students in a remote and mountainous area where there is a lack of a good English speaking environment.
Thus, the findings might not be representative for all Vietnamese high school students. The significance of the study Firstly, the study is conducted to find out some cultural mistakes which students have made when they communicate with foreigners. Hopefully, the findings of the study contribute theoretically and practically to the improvement of speaking process. On the other hand, the research can bring a number of benefits to involve namely students, teachers, educational administrators and researchers of the related fields.