VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HƯƠNG GIANG AN ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL FACTORS IN THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 12 FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE PHÂN TÍCH CÁC YẾU TỐ VĂN HÓA TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 12 THEO QUAN ĐIỂM TIẾNG ANH LÀ NGÔN NGỮ QUỐC TẾ M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 HANOI – 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HƯƠNG GIANG AN ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL FACTORS IN THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 12 FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE PHÂN TÍCH CÁC YẾU TỐ VĂN HÓA TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 12 THEO QUAN ĐIỂM TIẾNG ANH LÀ NGÔN NGỮ QUỐC TẾ M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 SUPERVISOR: Dr. LÊ VĂN CANH HANOI - 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Full phrases 1.
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations 2. CLT Communicative Language Teaching 3. EFL English as a Foreign Language 4. EIL English as an International Language 5.
ELF English as a Lingua Franca 6. ELT English Language Teaching 7. ESL English as a Second Language 8. FLT Foreign Language Teaching 9.
MOET Ministry of Education and Training 10. SLA Second Language Acquisition 11. TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages 12. WTO World Trade Organization 13.
WEs World Englishes iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. III LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS. V LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES.
VIII PART I - INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Research aims, objectives and research questions. Scope of the study.
Significance of the study. The structure of the thesis. 3 PART II - DEVELOPMENT. THEORY AND LITERATURE REVIEW.
The concept of culture. Relationship between language and culture. Culture in second/ foreign language teaching. English as an International Languge.
Kachru's Three Circles Model and English varieties. 8 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. What is English as an International Language (EIL)?. The issue of culture in the context of teaching English as an International Language.
Cultural content in materials for EIL teaching. 17 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY. The Vietnamese English teaching context. Overview of the National Curriculum and Syllabus for ELT.
The conceptual framework of the study and criteria for analysis. The conceptual framework. Criteria for analysis. Content analysis procedure.
Purpose of the analysis. Sample of the analysis. Elements of the analysis. Units of analysis.
Instrument of the analysis. Constructing the content analysis card. Description of the content analysis card. Applying the content analysis card.
Procedures of the study.language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.language CHAPTER III: FINDINGS ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION. Culturally oriented activities in the textbook. Cultural representation in the textbook. Cultural distribution in the textbook.
Vietnamese culture in the textbook. International culture in the textbook. Target culture in the textbook. Opportunities for students to compare and contrast cultures.
35 PART III - CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research. CONTENT ANALYSIS CARD.
XII vii (LUAN.language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.language LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures Figure Content Page Figure 1 Kachru's categorization of countries in which English is used 8 Figure 2 The organization of 16 topics in the textbook English 12 25 Tables Tables Content Page Table 2.1 The structure of each unit in the textbook English 12 25 Frequency and percentage of the cultural activities related to the Table 3.1 29 whole activities of the textbook English 12 Frequency and percentage of Anglo-Saxon culture and non- Table 3.2 30 Anglo-Saxon culture in the textbook English 12 Frequency and percentage of three types of cultures in the Table 3.3 31 textbook English 12 Frequency and percentage of Vietnamese culture in the textbook Table 3.4 33 English 12 Frequency and percentage of International culture in the Table 3.5 33 textbook English 12 Frequency and percentage of Target culture in the textbook Table 3.6 35 English 12 Frequency and percentage of activities that provide Table 3.7 35 opportunities for students to compare and contrast cultures viii (LUAN.language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.language PART I - INTRODUCTION This part introduces the rationale of carrying out this study, its aims and objectives as well as its scope and significance. The part also presents the structure of the thesis. Rationale of the study Unlike any other language which normally rests itself in its homeland, English has stepped beyond the boundary of its first settlements, initially the United Kingdom, later the United States of America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, travelling to every corner of the world, being used by people of all kinds of nationalities and ethnic backgrounds as a common language for most of their international encounters (Crystal, 1997; Graddol, 1997; McKay, 2002) and has actually grown into "a world property" (Talebinezhad, 2001), used "by the world" and "for the world" (Ngo, 2012). One of its lengthened names: English as an International Language (henceforth EIL) indicates an attempt to reflect such global scale usage of the language.
English has become a global language with so many implications for the teaching and learning of the language. McKay (2002: 1) points out that "the teaching and learning of an international language must be based on an entirely different set of assumptions than the teaching and learning of any other second or foreign language". These assumptions give rise to changes in teaching methods, learners' goals, materials, assessment and the view on the cultural content in the teaching and learning materials. One of the questions arising from the context of EIL teaching is: Is totally (or extremely) native English-speaking cultures oriented approach to teaching and learning materials still reasonable with the advent of EIL? This question implies changes in approach to cultural content of materials for EIL teaching.
As a high 1 (LUAN.language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.language school teacher of English, I have noticed that the new set of textbooks introduced nationwide in 2006 by MOET shows a great deal of improvement as compared with the old grammar-based one. However, I wonder whether it keeps pace with changes in terms of cultural content required by the advent of EIL. Whose cultures are presented in the textbooks? How are they distributed? Do they provide learners any opportunities to compare and contrast cultures? Therefore, there has arisen a strong need to tackle a study to find answers to those questions, figuring out to what extent the textbooks can equip learners with adequate cultural instruction in the context of EIL. This is my motivation in conducting this research.
Research aims, objectives and research questions This study aims at analyzing the cultural content in the textbook English 12 to figure out whether or not it provides students with adequate cultural instruction in EIL context. The objectives of the study are to define whose cultures are more presented in the textbook so that decisions on modification or supplementation of the cultural content can be made. In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims and objectives, the study was designed to find answers to the following overarching research question: - To what extent does the textbook English 12 meet the criteria for the cultural content from the perspective of English as an International Language? The above question encompasses three sub-questions that this study aims to answer: 1. What cultures are embedded in the textbook English 12? 2.
Which culture predominates in the textbook English 12? 3. To what extent does the textbook English 12 provide opportunities for students to compare and contrast the target culture, the home culture and the international culture? 2 (LUAN.language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Scope of the study Given the aforementioned aims and objectives, this study is limited to the analysis of the cultural content embedded in the textbook English 12 for Vietnamese high school students. Significance of the study Findings of this study will help to raise cultural awareness among textbook writers, classroom teachers and students.
They also suggest pedagogical solutions to the challenge of addressing the issue of culture in the context of teaching English as an international language. Those suggestions will help to develop better Vietnamese high school students’ intercultural awareness so that they can use English for international communication more effectively in their personal and career life. The structure of the thesis This thesis is divided as follows: PART I is Introduction. This part presents general details that serve as the rationale of the study.
It also introduces the scope of the study, research objectives and research questions, its significance, and outlines the thesis. PART II - Development is divided into three chapters Chapter 1 - Theory and Literature Review clarifies important theoretical issues: the concept of culture, the concept of EIL and the issue of culture in EIL and cultural content in materials for EIL teaching as well as reviewing previous studies on the topic. Chapter 2 - Methodology presents the method used to analyze the cultural factors of the textbook. It also describes setting and sample of the research, data collection instrument, and data collection procedure and data analysis.language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.language Chapter 3 - Findings Analysis and Discussion presents the results from the data collected and a discussion of the findings.
PART III is Conclusion and Recommendations. It presents the recommendations drawn from the findings of the study and concludes the thesis. Summary: This part has introduced general details which serve as research background leading to the formation of research needs. The impetus for the study has arisen from the fact that today English has gained the status of an international language, entailing changes in approach to basis of cultural content in EFL teaching materials.
Therefore, a study to examine cultural content of current EFL textbooks should be conducted. The research aims, objectives and research questions, the scope and significance of the study as well as the structure of the thesis have also been clarified in this part.language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.language PART II - DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I. THEORY AND LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents the concept of culture in terms of its definition and its relation to language which leads to the inclusion of culture in language teaching. It also clarifies the key concept of EIL before discussing the issue of culture in EIL teaching which serves as basis to determine cultural content in materials for the teaching of EIL.
After that, some previous studies on the topic of EIL are reviewed. The concept of culture 1. Definition There are numerous ways to define the concept culture. On a general level, culture has been referred to as "the ways of a people" (Lado, 1957, cited in Thanasoulas, 2001).
302, cited in Saluveer, 2004) defines culture as "the way people live", Brown (2000, p.176, cited in Saluveer, 2004) sees culture as "a way of life" and includes" the ideas, customs, skills, arts and tools that characterise a given group of people in a given period of time".3, cited in El Shawa, 2011) provokes five dimensions of culture: products (food, clothes, tools), practices (verbal and non-verbal language, actions and interactions), perspectives (values, beliefs), communities ( race, gender, religions ) and persons (individuals) and adopts the following definition (p.34, cited in El Shawa, 2011): Culture is the evolving way of life of a group of persons, consisting of a shared set of practices associated with a shared set of products, based upon a shared set of perspectives on the world, and set within specific social contexts.