VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ________________________ TRẦN THỊ ÁI HOA DEVELOPING TOUR GUIDE STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO MAKE SENSE OF HUMOUR IN ENGLISH JOKES THROUGH AUTHENTIC MATERIALS Phát triển khả năng hiểu tính hài hước trong các truyện cười tiếng Anh của sinh viên ngành Hướng dẫn du lịch qua tài liệu nguyên gốc A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 62140111 Supervisors: Assoc. Nguyễn Phương Nga Dr. Tô Thị Thu Hương HÀ NỘI-2018 z STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I, the undersigned, certify my authority of the dissertation entitled ―Developing Tour Guide Students‘ Ability To Make Sense Of Humour In English Jokes through Authentic Materials‖ in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the dissertation.
TRAN THI AI HOA i z ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the very outset of this report, I would like to extend my sincere and heartfelt obligation towards all the personages who have helped me in this endeavour. Without their active guidance, help, cooperation and encouragement, I would not have made headway in the project. First of all, I wish to thank my supervisor Assoc. Nguyen Phuong Nga for her tolerant perseverance with me in the world of combustion research.
It was only due to her initial valuable guidance and accurate judgement that I received to be able to drive my research work in a respectable manner.I am eternally grateful to my associate supervisor, Dr. To Thi Thu Huong for her extensive expertise and her generosity in steering me through the research. She has always been in a cheerful, enthusiastic and ever-friendly nature that inspires me to administer and complete this research. They both have made my research possible by providing me with precious lessons and giving me the chance to gain access to every stage of research.
My warm and sincere thanks are also merits to Prof. Nguyen Hoa, Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan, Assoc. Le Van Canh, Assoc.
Pham Thi Hong Nhung, Assoc. Le Hung Tien, Dr. Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa and Dr. Dương Thi Thu Mai for their valuable suggestions and assistance.
I would like to acknowledge the contribution of all the tour guides, foreign tourists, teachers and tour guide undergraduates who participated in the survey in Khanh Hoa Travel Agency and at college and university in Nha Trang City. I am thankful for the teachers and tour guide undergraduates at Nha Trang College of Art, Culture and Tourism (now renamed Khanh Hoa University) for verifying the proposed authentic materials. Particularly, I am grateful for the 20 students at Khanh Hoa University who were so enthusiastically participatory and hard-working in the intervention course. Last but not least, I am deeply and forever indebted to my beloved family, specifically my husband for their unconditional love, and my supportive foreign and Vietnamese friends, especially my best friends in Nha Trang City for their precious friendship and strong faith in me through all the fluctuations of my study.
ii z ABSTRACT Using humour in tourism by telling English jokes to English-speaking tourists in guided trips is a much needed capacity for Vietnamese tour guides. Vietnamese EFL tour guide students, therefore, need to be trained and qualified with this capacity for their tour guiding job. This study is an attempt to help develop Vietnamese EFL tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes (defined as being able to understand and retell jokes in English to appropriate audience in appropriate situations) through the use of authentic materials to enable them to appropriately use humour in their tourguiding with particular reference to English-speaking tourists. An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was used for collection of both quantitative and qualitative data to enhance validity and reliability of the findings.
The research was designed with two phases: one for authentic materials selection and related competency-based experimental intervention course design and the other for the implementation of the course to help develop tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour. After 8-week extra-curricular intervention, post test results presented a significant rise compared with pre-test. Nearly all the students were able to comprehend the humour in the introduced English jokes and two-thirds of the students could retell suitable English jokes to appropriate audience in appropriate situations. The findings have offered a considerable contribution not only to the field of language education but also to the one of humour research.
Thus, it can be stated that EFL tour guide students could make sense of humour in English jokes when properly trained and humour can be taught, a confirmation of the finding in Pham‘s (2014) study. The contribution of the study is that it helps to provide the tour guiding community in Viet Nam with a high-quality workforce to promote the tourism industry development in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province. iii z TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .x LIST OF TABLES.
xi LIST OF FIGURES. Significance of the study. Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study.
Key terms and definitions. Sense of humour. Cognitive-perceptual processes in humour. Humour comprehension, humour appreciation and humour competence.
―Make sense of‖ and ―Tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes‖. Authentic materials, authentic texts, authentic English jokes. Study componential schema. Structure of the study .12 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Humour and its importance in tourism. Sense of humour. Classification of humour. Theories of humour.
Humour research and the field of the present study. Humour in English jokes. Integration of the three traditional theories of humour in a joke. The ambiguity in jokes.
Pragmatic perspective of jokes. Cultural elements in English jokes. ELT tour guide students‘s ability to make sense of humour in English jokes. Pragmatic competence and its interface with humour competence.
Obstacles for EFL tour guide students to make sense of humour in English jokes. Conditions for ELT TG students to interpret humour in English jokes. Authentic materials for developing EFL students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes. Authenticity and authentic materials .Competency-based approach to syllabus/ materials design/ selection.
An overview of approaches to syllabus/ materials design/ selection. Competency-based language teaching. Process of establishing competencies to guide the selection of AM and the design of relating course. Criteria for selection of authentic materials.
Cognitive theory to guide the teaching and learning process. Questions and tasks. Using scripts and learners‘ experience. Syllabus design and materials evaluation.
Review of previous studies on humour competence. Review of previous studies in other countries. Review of previous studies in Viet Nam. Chapter conclusion and theoretical framework.
Phase 1 –Materials selection. Stage 1 - Needs analysis. Participants and sampling. Data collection instruments.
Data collection procedure. Stage 2 - Materials verification and piloting. Participants and sampling. Data collection instruments.
Data collection procedure. Participants and sampling. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedure.
Significance of quantitative data and qualitative data integration .96 vi z CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS. Phase 1 –Materials selection. Stage 1- Results from needs analysis. Results from survey questionnaire.
Results from interviews. Results from observation data. Summary of findings from Phase 1, Stage 1. Target situation and learning needs.
Criteria and strategies for authentic materials selection and teaching. Teaching methodology guideline for the proposed authentic materials. The Proposed Authentic Materials. Materials verification and piloting.
Result from questionnaires (Teachers‘ assessment). Results from the interview (Students‘ opinions). Adjustments after the materials verification and piloting. Phase two – Intervention.
Results of pre-post tests of humour interpretation in English jokes. Description of the process of learning. Pre-post test data results. Pre-post test about difficulties.
Results of test of performing jokes. Application of the authentic materials: benefits and challenges. Application of humour competence model. Role of pragmatic competence.
Role of teaching methods to the proposed authentic materials. Answer to sub-question 1. Answer to sub-question 2. Answer to sub-question 3.
Suggestions for further studies .159 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TOUR GUIDES. I APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TOURISTS. VI APPENDIX 3: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS. VIII APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TOUR GUIDES. XIV APPENDIX 6: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH FOR TOURISM. XV APPENDIX 7: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. XVII APPENDIX 8: PRETEST FOR 20 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS.
XVIII APPENDIX 9: POST TEST FOR 20 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. XXI APPENDIX 10: THE INTERPRETATION OF HUMOUR IN ENGLISH JOKES .XXIV APPENDIX 11: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR 10 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. XXVII viii z APPENDIX 12: EVALUATION CHECKLIST FOR 20 TOUR GUIDE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. XXVIII APPENDIX 13: RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRES ON NEEDS ANALYSIS.
XXX APPENDIX 14:RESULTS OF OBSERVATIONS ON BUS TOURIST TRIPSXXXVIII APPENDIX 15: RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRE ON MATERIALS VERIFICATION .XLII APPENDIX 16: T-TEST OUTPUT. XLIII APPENDIX 17: RESULTS OF JOKE-TELLING CONTEST. XLIV APPENDIX 18: PARTICIPANTS‘ BRIEF PROFILE. XLV APPENDIX 19: STUDENTS' BOOK.
XLVIII APPENDIX 20: TEACHER'S BOOK. LXXXIX APPENDIX 21: SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHENTIC MATERIALS. CXVIII APPENDIX 22: TEACHING METHODOLOGY GUIDLINE FOR THE SUGGESTED MATERIALS. CXLI APPENDIX 23: LESSON PLAN.
CXLVI ix z LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AM Authentic materials EFL English as a foreign language ESL English as a second language EG Experimental group FL Foreign language FT Foreign tourist GTVH General Theory of Verbal Humour HA Humour appreciation HC Humour competence L1 First language L2 Second language MoET Ministry of Education and Training MoCST Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism MSOH Making sense of hunour MV Materials verification NA Needs analysis NNS Non-native speaker NS Native speaker NVB Non-verbal humour PC Pragmatic competence S Student/ Subject SOH Sense of humour SSTH Semantic Script Theory of Humour TEFT Teacher of English for tourism TG Tour guide TGS Tour guide student TGU Tour guide undergraduate VB Verbal humour x z LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Classification of humour .2: Ambiguities of English jokes .3: Humour competence and the interaction of three systems .4: Interface of humour competence and pragmatic competence .5: EFL TG Sts‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes. Descriptions of steps in competency-based materials (Sujana, 2005) .Equality of the Target Situation Needs and Learning Needs.8: Criteria for selection of authentic materials. Summary of the previous studies on humour competence.
Summary of information and data needed for research questions. Description of joke test .1: Categories of TGUs‘ difficulties in interpreting humour in English jokes .2: Needs of learning humour .3: Criteria for selecting the authentic materials .4: Strategies for selecting the authentic materials.6: The proposed syllabus.7: Summary of the students‘ opinions .8: Percentage of the scores of the subjects.9: Results of the post test .10: Results of the interviews. Achievement of competencies .134 xi z LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Research Componential Schema.
Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary research of humour. Research field of the present study .3: The integration of the three humour theories. Incongruity-resolution model (Suls, 1972). Linguistic humour structure spectrum(Obrst, 2012).
Non-bona fide communication in verbal humour. Hay‘s scalar implicature of unqualified humour support. Hay‘s scalar implicature of unqualified humour support. Theoretical framework for developing tour guide students‘ ability to make sense of humour in English jokes.
Explanatory Sequential Design (Creswell, 2011) .2: Visual research design. Data collection procedure of the study .Tour guide undergraduates' difficulties in telling jokes. Tour guides' difficulties in telling jokes .