How to teach american culture in a vietnamese high school curriculum; some suggestions on how to present american public holidays and festivals

This thesis provides high schools teachers of English with some knowledge of culture learning in language education CLLE and American culture in order tosatisfy students' demands in this

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

ro.n1

TRAN THUY PHUONG

HOW TO TEACH AMERICA" CULTURE

I" A VIET"AMESE HIGH SCHOOL CURRICUWM;

AMERICA" PUBLIC HOLIDAYS A"D FESTIVALS

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)

Supervisor

SIDSEL MILLERSTROM, Ph.D.

80 Chi Minh City, April 2007

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

HOW TO TEACH AMERICAN CULTURE

SOME SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO PRESENT

AMERICAN PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS

in terms of the statement of the Requirements of Theses in Master's Programs

issued by the Higher Degree Committee

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in anyother institution

Ho Chi MinhCity, April 15,2007

Tr§n Thuy Phuong

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Tran Thuy Phuong, being the candidate for the degree

of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciencesand Humanities relating to the retention and use of Master's Thesis deposited inthe Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original version of my thesisdeposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study andresearch, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library forcare, loan, or reproduction of thesis

Ho Chi Minh City,April 15, 2007

TrffnThuy Phuong

I would first like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor,

Dr Sidsel Millerstrom, for her whole-hearted guidance, thoughtful and insightfulcomments, and valuable support in the preparation and completion of this thesis.Without her encouragement and guidance, I could not have finished this study

My special thanks must go to all my teachers for their dedication andhelpful instruction during the master course from the year 2003 to 2006

I wish to thank all the members in my thesis defense committee, who wereenthusiastic to read this thesis and helped me to present it to the readers of theLibrary I hope that this modest contribution will be useful for others to build upon

I also wish to thank all of the teacher respondents from fifteen high schools

in Ho Chi Minh City for their help and willingness to answer the questionnaire and

to give precious opinions to the study I am also grateful to all the students whocarefully completed the questionnaires and sincerely provided me with valuableinformation for this study

In addition, these friends and colleagues of mine:Vo Thi H6ngLe, NguyenThi Thuy Loan, Trftn Thi Van Hoai, and Huynh Thi Bich Phuong wereparticularly of great help in my preparation of the thesis and searching for relevantreferences My heartfelt appreciation is expressed to all of them

Last but not least, I would like to dedicate the thesis to my family: myfather, my mother, and my sweetheart, for their love, understanding andwholehearted support They have taken care of everything so that I could devote all

my time to the writing of the thesis I am greatly indebted to all of them

This thesis provides high schools teachers of English with some knowledge

of culture learning in language education (CLLE) and American culture in order tosatisfy students' demands in this increasingly internationalized world The last fewdecades have witnessed a fundamental rethinking of the aims of foreign languageteaching, entailing a shift in emphasis from linguistic competence overcommunicative competence to intercultural competence The growing emphasis oncultural issues, called for by research and international curricular documents,places new demands on language teachers High school students, especiallyEnglish-majored students, are supposed to communicate well in interculturalcontexts because they have learned English for more than four years Yet manystudents' parents complain that English-majored students are timid when it comes

to communicating with native speakers on holidays and festivals This studyinvestigates the attitudes towards CLLE in order to identify problems andilluminate possible solutions

A sample of 155 tenth-grade English-majored students at Nguyen Cong TruHigh School (NCTHS), with an ESP level of intermediate, was selected Inaddition, 15 teachers from fifteen different high schools in Ho Chi Minh City werealso surveyed in an effort to identify problems and potential solutions to theinadequacy of CLLE in Vietnamese high school curriculum The data obtainedwere then subjected to quantitative analysis in an effort to obtain findings.Resultsreveal that (1) most of the students expressed positive attitudes towards CLLE andaccepted that CLLE contributes a great deal to their English proficiency and that(2) high school teachers can take the role of English language teachers with regards

to CLLE if they have good perception of CLLE and understand the contribution ofCLLE to students' English proficiency This research tries to help teachers and

students to gain some knowledge of American cultural features in order to avoidculture shock in this era of internationalization.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Aim of the Studyand Overview of the Thesis 2

1.1 DESCRIPTION OF THE ENGLISH MAJOR PROGRAM

1.1.1 Teaching and learning objectives and time allocation 5

1.1.2 Textbook 6

1.1.3 Teachingand learning environment 7

1.3 CURRICULUM OF THE ENGLISH SUBJECT

1.4 THE PRESENT INADEQUACYIN THE TEACHING

OF AMERICAN CULTURE IN VIETNAMESE

2.1.2 Research on the relationship between culture

2.2 CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND ETHNOCENTRIC

2.4 CLLE AND THEORIES OF LEARNING

VB

AND LINGUISTICS 342.4.1 Culture and principles oflanguage learning

3.2.2.1 Surveyquestionnaireforstudents 49

3.2.2.2 Surveyquestionnaire for teachers 49

3.2.3 Data collection procedures 51

4.1.1.1 Students' overall evaluation of English 10

4.1.1.2 Students' evaluation of the amount of the

cultural aspect of English 10 Advanced Textbook 564.1.1.3 Students' attitudes toward the importance of

cultural knowledge of English-speakingcountries in the study of English 574.1.1.4 Descriptive analysis of culture quiz scores 64

4.1.2.1 Teachers' overall evaluation of English 10

4.1.2.2 Teachers' evaluation of the amount of the

cultural aspect of English 10 Advanced Textbook 674.1.2.3 Teachers' perception of culture learning

APPENDIX 1B

APPENDIX2A

APPENDIX2B

Questionnaire for students (Vietnamese version) 126

Questionnaire for teachers (English version) 130

Questionnaire for teachers (Vietnamese version) 134

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1.2 Qualifications and training experiences of the surveyed teachers 9

Table 1.3Number of English class periods per week at the

Table 3.1 Summary of students' levels of English 47

Table 4.1 Students' comments on English 10 Advanced Textbook 55

Table 4.2 Students' opinions of the topics in English 10 Advanced Textbook 55

Table 4.3Students' opinions about the amount of cultural knowledge of

English-speaking countries provided in English 10

Table 4.4 Amount of cultural knowledge of English-speaking countries

provided in English 10 Advanced Textbook compared to that

Table 4.5 Frequency of students' attempts acquiring cultural knowledge of

Table 4.6 Reasons for students' not looking for cultural information of

Table 4.7 How much students like acquiring cultural knowledge

Table 4.8 How much more of cultural knowledge students want to see in

English 10 Advanced Textbook compared to the four

English-speaking countries provided in English 10

Table 4.16 Amount of cultural knowledge of English-speaking countries

provided in English 10 Advanced Textbook compared to that

Table 4.17 Teachers' opinions of how much students like acquiring cultural

Table 4.18Teachers' opinions of the usefulness of culture learning in

Table 4.20 Frequency of students' raising cultural questions to teacher 70Table 4.21How much more of cultural knowledge teachers want to see in

English 10 Advanced Textbook compared to the four

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communicative skills 71Table 4.22 Teachers' opinion of which days that should be introduced

Table 4.23 Comparison of students' and teachers' responses 73

Table 5.1 An instruction program to improve students' cultural competence 111

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

English 10 Advanced Textbook compared to the four

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Culture Learning in Language Education

English as a Foreign Language

English as a Second Language

First Language

Second Language

Second Language Acquisition

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

This thesis reports the results of a study investigating how to teach Americanculture in a Vietnamese high school curriculum of English language major classes

The aim of the study is to determine students' need of acquiring cultural knowledge

of English-speaking countries in their English language learning This introductionpresents a discussion of the research questions being addressed and an overview ofthe whole thesis itself

Research Questions

Learning a language is not only learning the skills to convey ideas,thoughts,

desires, etc but also learning the ways to behave and communicate in that languageenvironment The knowledge of the culture and civilization of a languagecommunity helps to behave properly and reach high effectiveness incommunication Therefore, in order to master a language, it is essential to learnabout the culture of the language community Certainly there is no exception forhigh school students,especially students majoring in English.The main aims of thesyllabus of English in high school are to enable students to communicate in English,

and with the knowledge from the lessons,students can grasp some timely topics andcan express their own ideas about them (according to the "Aims of the Syllabus ofEnglish in High School" passed by The Ministry of Education and Training, inEducation and Times Magazine 69, June 8th, 2002) That means it is vitallyimportant to teach the cultures of the English-speaking countries to those students

However, culture is not emphasized in English 10 Advanced Textbook (Titng Anh

10 Nang cao , Til Anh et al., 2006) On having a chance to meet native speakers,

students find it too difficult to communicate with them, especially about theirtypical holidays and festivals My students usually ask me about the cultures of

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English-speaking countries,specifically about where to go, what to do,what to say

on particular days, such as on holidays and festivals Whenever I discuss thisproblem with some of my colleagues, they say they also have to try to answer thesame questions They added that students seem not to know many important things

in English and American cultures Therefore, they cannot understand many thingsthey read about in newspapers and the Internet or hear from the native speakers.This adds to the difficulties in communication and is one of the main reasons whyhigh school students are not interested in English class The knowledge they learnfrom their textbook does not adequally help them to understand and mingle withpeople from other cultures

The overall aim of this study is to deepen the knowledge about the attitudes

of English-majored students and teachers at the high schools towards the treatment

of culture in English 10 Advanced Textbook (Fitng Anh 10 Nang cao) Thequestions in focus are: I) Does English 10 Advanced Textbook (Fitng Anh 10 Nang cao) published in 2006 give students sufficient cultural knowledge of English-speaking countries?; (2) Should teachers introduce more cultural knowledge ofEnglish-speaking countries?, (3) Why should teachers know more about some ofAmerican public holidays and festivals? and (4) Can high school teachers take therole of English language teachers with regards to culture learning in languageeducation?

Aim of the Study and Overview of the Thesis

The thesis strives to reveal whether or not language teaching today can bedescribed as intercultural, in the sense that culture is taught with the aim ofpromoting intercultural understanding, tolerance and empathy The results of theinvestigation will serve as a basis for recommendations that might help to fosterculture learning and teaching in English classes at the high school level This studytakes its starting-point in language didactics, and can also be regarded as acontribution to teacher cognition research

This investigation was based on data collected from two different sources:The first set of information concerned the students and includes (1) theirdemographic data, and (2) their responses to a survey questionnaire aimed atmeasuring their perceptions of learning language through learning culture, theirculture learning activities, their evaluation of the cultural knowledge provided intheir textbook, and their suggestions concerning how culture learning in languageeducation (CLLE) in high school curriculum can be developed.

The second set of information is similar to that collected from the studentsbutit was collected from teachers This allowed for partial verification of the results

of the students' responses and contributed to the overall strength of the findings ofthe study This information includes (1) the demographic data of the teachers, and(2) the teachers' responses to another survey questionnaire which aimed to revealtheir perceptions of culture learning in language education (CLLE), their CLLE

activities, and their evaluation of the cultural knowledge provided in English 10

Advanced Textbookand their suggestions concerning how the CLLE in high schoolcurriculum can be developed

Summary of Thesis Chapters

In addition to the introduction, the thesis consists of five main chapters asfollows:

Chapter 1 provides the background to the research It describes the Englishlanguage major program with the current textbook, characteristics of the studentsand the teachers, and the management of the English language major program atsome high schools in Ho Chi Minh City

Chapter 2 reviews the literature on Issues concerning CLLE and theintegration of culture into English teaching and learning This chapter involves thetwo factors that are important to knowledge to make good use of CLLE: languageacquisition theory and learning theory, the teacher's role in CLLE implementation;and factors influencing a successful English language major program

3

Chapter 3 presents the methodology employed in the research This chapterincludes a presentation of the research questions, methods used in sampling anddata collection, an overview of the demographic data of students and teachers, anddetails of the survey of their evaluation of the cultural knowledge provided in

English 10 Advanced Textbook. In all, 15 teachers from 15 different high schools in

Ho Chi Minh City and 155 students at Nguyen Cong Tru High School wereincluded in the study

Chapter 4 discusses and analyzes the research findings from the two maindata sources: analysis of responses to survey questionnaires and comparison of thetwo results of students' responses and the teachers' responses I hope that the results

of the study will help teachers to have a fuller understanding of CLLE and how theCLLE in high school curriculum can be developed

Chapter 5 makes some recommendations on how to best present the topic ofAmerican public holidays and festivals to tenth-grade English major students.Students are encouraged to look at their own familiar culture from anotherperspective, and to learn to empathize with and show respect and tolerance forotherness in general, not just concerning representatives of English-speakingcountries The study indicates that many teachers feel unsure about how to teachculture in an appropriate and up-to-date manner This is attributed to, among otherthings, lack of teacher insights as well as lack of time and adequate material Thethesis ends with some recommendations to improve the problem of teachingAmerican culture in a Vietnamese high school curriculum, and a conclusion as tohow EFL could be developed in a more intercultural direction

Because of time limitation, I will focus only on some American holidays andfestivals

CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

This chapter presents the background information essential for the issuesdiscussed in this thesis The chapter consists of four sections The first section is abrief description of the existing English language major program at some highschools in Ho Chi Minh City The second section provides information on thecharacteristics of the students and teachers to in order to form a picture of thecurrent English language major program for tenth grade students The third sectionindicates the contribution of culture to English language learning at high school.The fourth section discusses the inadequacy in the teaching of American culture as

1.1 DESCRIPTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR PROGRAMFOR TENTH GRADE STUDENTS

This section gives a description of the English language major program fortenth grade students at some high schools in Ho Chi Minh City with the followinginformation discussed:

(1) teaching and learning objectives and time allocation;

(2) course book;

(3) the teaching and learning environment

1.1.1 Teaching and learning objectives and time allocation

English language learning in the English language major program aims to theproficiency in using English in all the four skills In order to achieve this, incomingstudents are assumed at intermediate level (level B equivalent) On graduating from

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high schools, English language major students are supposed to pass the entranceexamination to an English Department of a university.

With the reason that this is an English language major program, the Ministry

of Education and Training allocates four periods of 45 minutes per week as the

instruction session for English.There are 35 weeks in the whole school year, whichmeans the total is 140 periods The textbook has 16 units and 4 consolidations Foreach of the learning unit, the time allotted is as follows:

• Reading: 2.5 periods

• Listening: 1period

• Speaking: 1period

• Writing: 2 periods

• Language Focus: 1period

The total is 7.5 periods for each unit Each unit covers two weeks, which isequivalent to 8 periods This means that on the average teachers have 0.5 extraperiod every two weeks for a review of the whole unit,which is too inadequate forteachers and students to meet the requirements of an English major program

1.1.2 Textbook

The textbook used is English 10 Advanced Textbook (Tie'ng Anh 10 Nang

cao) Besides, each school suggests some resources for grammar review, forexample, students at Nguyen Cong Tru High School are asked to do exercises in theworkbook ofUnderstanding and Using English Grammar (Azar, B S and Azar,D

A, 1990)

Language skills are developed as outlined below:

Listening:listening for general information; for detailed information

Speaking: carrying out everyday talks; asking and giving information on

related topics; exchanging ideas/opinions on related topics; talking about relatedtopics; describing places, people, and things; giving instructions

Reading: reading for general information; for detailed information; scanning

for specific information

Writing: writing a description; a notice; a postcard; a telephone message; a

speech; instructions; a paragraph/passage; a story; formal/informal letters; abiography; an exposition; describing information from charts/tables

The reality shows that the time allocated above for any of the skills is toolittle, therefore most schools give students and teachers additional periods,otherwise students and teachers cannot meet the requirements above

1.1.3 Teaching and learning environment

The average number of students in each class is 52 It may be lower atschools located in the city center, and higher at schools in the suburbs Attendingsessions at school is compulsory

1.2.1 Characteristics of the students

This section provides some information of the students, which includedgender and age (see Table 1.1)

64 (41.3%) 91 (58.7%) 3 (1.9%) 149 (96.2%) 3 (1.9%)

Table 1.1.Demographic data ofthe students

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The predominant gender of the surveyed group was female, which is typicalfor classes major in social sciences in NCTHS, while the male gender ispredominant in classes major in natural sciences Most of the students (149) are 16years old, the most appropriate age to be in grade ten They are in their biologicaland psychological bend, the ones who have just left lower secondary school tomove to upper secondary school Dr Bui Ngoc Oanh (1995), lecturer ofpsychology at University of Pedagogy, Ho Chi Minh City, considered the students

at this special age as those who are eager to acquire knowledge and communicativeskills in order to become mature people Due to English language majoring, all of

the students are using the advanced textbook (Tilng Anh 10 Nang cao) with all thefour skills _ listening, speaking, reading and writing The students are to get readyfor the entrance examination to an English Department of a university In general,students in English language major classes are supposed to be equipped withadvanced level of English language skills so as to use English in real life and tofurther their education later

1.2.2 Characteristics of the teachers

In the previous section, the information about the students, one of the twoagents of the teaching and learning process has been presented This sectiondiscusses the role of the second agent: the teachers - the crucial force in teachingand learning English

The 15 surveyed teachers are from 15 different high schools in differentdistricts in Ho Chi Minh City, aged from 28 to 49 All of them had formal tertiarytraining in language teaching in different educational institutions within Vietnam,mostly in Ho Chi Minh City Presently, two of the teachers possess MA in TESOL,one is attending an MA course in TESOL, and the rest possess BA degree inEnglish language

The table below summarizes general qualifications and training experiences

of the surveyed teachers

surveyed teachers

Having attended training courses In new teaching 13/15

methods

Table 1.2.Qualifications and training experiences ofthe surveyed teachers

Table 1.2 reveals the potential of the surveyed teachers in terms of theirlanguage proficiency as well as their language teaching competence The fifteenteachers are from fifteen different high schools because the number of Englishlanguage major classes is usually small in most schools (from one to four classes),and very few teachers (from one to two) in the English language staff of each schoolare in charge of those classes These are important issues and will be addressed inChapter III

LANGUAGE MAJOR CLASSES

Due to English language majoring, the time allocated by the Ministry of Education and Training for English classes with English 10 Advanced Textbook (Titng Anh 10 Nang cao) is 4 periods (lperiod = 45minutes) per week, whichmeans one more period compared to those with the standard textbook (3 periods perweek) As one more period is not enough to meet the requirements of an Englishmajor program,most schools give students and teachers additional periods per week

so that the students can have more interaction with their teachers and classmates

9

The table below shows the number of English class periods per week at thesurveyed schools.

Periods of English class per week Number of the surveyed schools

Table 1.3.Number ofEnglish class periods per week at the surveyed schools

The teachers strictly follow the time allocation schedule by the Ministry of

Education and Training and add extra materials into the additional periods

However, students do not show complete satisfaction in the English major programdespite the investment of the administration in terms of teaching and learningfacilities

1.4 THE PRESENT INADEQUACY IN THE TEACHING OF AMERICANCULTURE IN VIETNAMESE HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM

In Vietnam, culture is not emphasized in the two suites of textbooks forEnglish grade 10, II and 12 One is in use until May 31st, 2008 and one started to be

in force on September s", 2006 and will completely replace the former onSeptember s", 2008 The latter, the new textbook, has two different kinds: thestandard textbook, which is used by students in general education classes and inclasses majoring in natural sciences, and the advanced textbook, which is used bystudents in classes majoring in social sciences, especially English language majorclasses Both of the two books consist of sixteen units, among which culture isemphasized in only two units: Unit 12: MUSIC (in both of them) and Unit 13:

FILMS AND CINEMA (in the standard textbook) or Unit 13: THEATER ANDMOVIES (in the advanced textbook) The advanced textbook is, of course, more

difficult than the standard textbook, but has the same topics and similar classroomactivities After graduating from junior high school, the tenth-grade students, whoare using either of the textbooks, expect a lot in the curriculum of an uppersecondary school, the new school they have just passed the entrance examinationinto At this age of biological and psychological bend, tenth-grade students fancylearning and discovering new things about life,therefore they expect a great deal inthe knowledge their new school provides, especially the knowledge of how tobehave properly in different situations In recent years, while Vietnam has beentrying to mingle with other countries in the world, especially English-speakingcountries,students have become more interested in the cultures of those countries.

On American and English holidays and festivals, teachers are usually asked aboutwhere to go, what to do,what to say, etc Students cannot understand things theyread about in the newspapers, the Internet,or hear from the native speakers on thosedays Students say they really want to know such information in time for thespecific holidays in an English class, so that they can mingle with American orEnglish people Both teachers and students complain that they cannot find anyguidelines in textbooks In order to try to answer students' questions on these

'timely topics', teachers have to resort to Google,which is not accessible to all ofVietnamese teachers Nor can students/teacher assume that all Internet information

is correct This means the curriculum has failed to give students and teachersexposure to quality educational opportunities Active students who want to useEnglish in real life or to major in English say they are very disappointed Such anunsatisfactory curriculum results in students' passive outcomes Many Vietnameseeducators have been concocting new teaching techniques, but they seem to forgetthe importance of culture in language teaching and students' need, especiallyEnglish-major students, who are using the advanced textbook The advancedtextbook must provide the students with more knowledge than the standard textbook

in every aspect of a language.Unfortunately,the authors seem to forget the culturalaspect The lessons fail to provide the students with the practical knowledge they

II

need Because it is extremely difficult to have textbooks changed, teachers have tolook for something more practical and interesting to add into lessons It is this'something more practical and interesting' that makes a good teacher of English in aVietnamese high school! Culture, especially the knowledge of holidays andfestivals, seems to attract most of students' interest Talking about the comingholidays and festivals is always a timely topic,because it is the common interest ofmany people Different people have different interests,but holidays and festivals arethe same for everyone.That is the reason why students like to talk about this topicthe most Since there is almost no information about this in textbooks, students arevery disappointed if their teachers cannot fulfill their interest Teachers of English

in my school usually find themselves talking to each other about this topic, but theproblem is still unsolved, because no reliable guidelines have been found It isessential for teachers of English to master American and English cultures, or atleast, to master some of the most important points in the cultures of these influentialnations As this is a serious problem for most high school teachers of English, Iwould like to make a study on how to best present American public holidays andfestivals, so as to give Vietnamese teachers of English a little help in their teaching

in this era of internationalization In this global world, the understanding of anotherculture is of crucial importance and we language teachers can and must playa keyrole We are well positioned to do so as we constantly operate at the intersection oflanguage and culture We owe it to our students to go beyond the mechanics oflanguage and delve, head on, into the world of cross-cultural literacy We would beremiss if we did not

1.5 SUMMARY

The chapter has described English 10 Advanced Textbook (Titng Anh 10 Nang cao), the characteristics of the students as well as those of the teachers some,thought about the English major program at several different schools, and thepresent inadequacy in the teaching of American culture in Vietnamese high school

curriculum The thesis hopes to seek the answers to characterized attitudes, toidentify problems and to illuminate possible solutions The information in thischapter is essential in identifying the reality of the English major program with

English 10 Advanced Te xtbook (Tu Anh et al., 2006) at high schools in Ho ChiMinh City

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

In chapter 1, the background to the study has been depicted In this chapterthe literature relevant to the study is reviewed in seven main sections: (1) theconcept of culture; (2) cultural relativism and ethnocentric issues; (3) culturelearning in language education (CLLE) and second language acquisition (SLA); (4)CLLE and theories of learning and linguistics; (5) the importance of culture inlanguage teaching;and (6) CLLE teacher's role and competencies

2.1 THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE

This section provides definitions of culture and the relationship betweenculture and language teaching

2.1.1 What is culture?

The word culture , from the Latin colo, - ere, with its root meaning "tocultivate", generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structuresthat give such activity significance (Clepper, 2006) Culture has been called "theway of life for an entire society" (Sheilds, 1999:105) Anthropologists mostcommonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity toclassify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically (Haviland, 2005;Miller, 2007) The nineteenth-century British anthropologist, Edward Tylor,proposed the first and most well-known technical definition of culture, as sociallypatterned human thought and behavior Culture, he wrote, is "that complex wholewhich includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any othercapabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (Tylor, 1924 [orig

1871], p.I)." This definition is an open-ended list, which has been extendedconsiderably since Tylor first proposed it A committee of the British Associationfor the Advancement of Science undertook the first inventory of cultural categories

m 1872 (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952) The committee prepared ananthropological field manual that listed seventy-six culture topics, includinglanguage There has been considerable theoretical debate by anthropologists sinceTylor over the most useful attributes that a technical concept of culture shouldstress.For example, in 1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, two Americananthropologists, published a list of 164 different definitions of culture that hadappeared in anthropological writings since 1700 (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952).Leslie A White (1959) was a major theoretician in North American anthropologywho saw culture as consisting of three essential components, which he referred to astechno-economic, the social, and the ideological In contemporary culturalanthropology, the theoretical positions of the ideationists and the culturalmaterialists correspond to two different definitions of culture Clifford Geertz(1984), speaking for the ideationists, states that culture consists of symbols,motivations, moods, and thoughts This definition focuses on people's perceptions,thoughts, and ideas, and does not include behavior as a part of culture Culturalmaterialist Marvin Harris (1975:144) states "A culture is the total socially acquiredlife-way or life-style of a group of people It consists of the patterned repetitiveways of thinking, feeling, and acting that are characteristic of the members of aparticular society or segment of society" To put it another way, culture is notobservable behavior but, rather, the shared ideals, values, and beliefs people use tointerpret experience and generate behavior and that are reflected by their behavior

Through the comparative study of many different cultures, anthropologistshave arrived at an understanding of the basic characteristics all cultures share.Major characteristics include culture is adaptive, culture is related to nature but not

• Anthropologists now avoid the use of "man" to refer to all humans and instead use generic words such as

"humans" and "people" (Miller, 2007:12).

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the same as nature (which means culture diverges from nature, even though related

to it), culture is based on symbols, culture is something that is learned, culture isintegrated, and culture is something that changes (Bodley, 1990; Haviland, 2005;Miller, 2007) When anthropologist Leslie A White observed that all humanbehavior originates in the use of symbols, he expressed "an opinion allanthropologists share" (Haviland, 2005:43) Art, religion, and money involvesymbols The most important symbolic aspect of culture is language - thesubstitution of words for objects Through language, humans are able to share,store, and transmit culture over time (Haviland, 2005:43; Miller, 2007:15) Inparticular, language makes it possible to learn from cumulative shared experience.Without it, one could not inform others about events they were not a party to(Haviland, 2005:43) This means that language is not only part of how we defineculture; it also reflects culture Culture is a concept that is inherently tied to many ofthe linguistic concepts taught in second language classes

Since this study focuses on public holidays and festivals, dealing mainly withbehavior and thinking, I would like to elaborate some more on the secondcharacteristic of culture - culture is related to nature but not the same as nature -which can help us understand people's behavior and thinking One way of seeinghow culture diverges from nature, even though related to it, is to see how basic

"natural" demands of human life are met in different ways because of culturallydefined variations (Miller, 2007:13).The universal human functions that everyonemust perform to stay alive are eating, drinking, sleeping, and eliminating.(Requirements for shelter and clothing vary, depending on the climate Procreation

is not necessary for individual survival,although it is for group survival, so it is notincluded here.)Natural demands are such that,if they are not met in a certain timeperiod, a person will die Thus, nature dictates that in all cultures, people will eat,drink, sleep, and eliminate (Miller, 2007:13)

Eating Culture shapes what one eats, how one eats, and when one eats, and

influences ideas about eating The human body requires certain nutrients forsurvival, but they can be provided in many ways For example, eating meat is not anecessity for survival Many vegetarian cultures have avoided meat eating of anysort for centuries (Miller, 2007:13)

Preferences about what tastes good vary markedly, and many examples exist

of foods that are acceptable in one culture and not in another In China, most peoplethink that cheese is disgusting, but in France, most people love cheese Onedistinction exists between eating animals that are alive and animals that are dead In

a few cultures, consumption of live, or nearly live, creatures is considered agourmet specialty; for example, a Philippine dish includes ready-to-be-born chicks(Miller, 2007:13), and most Vietnamese people enjoy eating boiled eggs with ready-to-be-born ducks or quails inside In many cultures where hunting and fishing aredominant ways of procuring food, people believe that the freshness of the catch isimportant They consider canned meat or fish highly undesirable Although somescientists and anthropologists have attempted to delineate universal taste categoriesinto four basic types (sweet, sour, bitter, and salty), cross-cultural researchdisproves these as universals Among the Weyewa people of the highlands ofSumba, an island in Eastern Indonesia, categories of flavors are sour, sweet, salty,bitter, tart, bland, and pungent (Miller, 2007: 13) The same case can be found inVietnamese, in which categories of flavors are sour ('chua'), sweet ('ngQt'), salty

('m~n'), bitter ('d~ng'), tart ('chat'), bland ('ngQt thanh'), pungent ('the'),piquant ('cay'), and greasy ('beo') How to eat is also an important area of foodbehavior Rules about eating are one of the first things you will confront whenentering another culture Proper dining manners in India require that a person eatusing only the right hand because the left hand is reserved for assisting inelimination A clean right hand (one that has been rinsed in water, preferably) isbelieved to be the cleanest dining implement, since silverware, plates, and

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glassware that have been touched by others, even though washed, are never trulypure (Miller, 2007:14).

Drinking. Every culture defines the appropriate substances to drink, when todrink, and with whom In the United States, water is commonly consumed duringmeals, but in India one takes water only after the meal is finished The meaning ofparticular drinks and the style of drinking and serving them are heavily influenced

by culture If you offered water to an American guest,he might think it odd Socialdrinking, whether the beverage is coffee, beer, or vodka, creates and reinforcesbonds (Miller, 2007:14)

Sleeping. Common sense might say that sleep is the one natural function that

is not shaped by culture, because people tend to do it every twenty-four hours,

everyone shuts their eyes to do it, everyone lies down to do it, and almost everyonesleeps at night But there are many cultural aspects to sleep, including the question

of who sleeps with whom.Cross-cultural research reveals varying rules about whereinfants and children should sleep: with the mother, with both parents, or bythemselves in a separate room Culture also shapes the amount of time a personsleeps In rural India (and also in Vietnam), women sleep fewer hours than mensince they have to get up earlier to start the fire for the morning meal (Miller,2007:14)

Elimination. How does culture affect the elimination process? Differencesemerge in the degree to which elimination is a private act or can be done in more orless public areas Public options include street urinals for males but not for females,

as in Paris In most villages in India (and also in Vietnam), houses do not haveinterior bathrooms Instead,early in the morning, groups of women and girls leavethe house and head for a certain field where they squat and chat Men go to adifferent area No one uses toilet paper; instead everyone carries in hislher left hand

a small brass pot full of water with which they splash themselves clean (Miller,

2007:15) The same thing happened in rural Vietnam, where people used water orbanana or guava leaves instead of toilet paper In Southern Vietnam, where there are

a large numbers of brooks and ponds, people built wooden 'toilets' over them, so as

to feed the fish they raised This practice has ecological advantages because it addsfertilizer to the fields and leaves no paper litter Westerners may consider the villagepractice unclean, but village Indians would think that the Western system isunsanitary because paper does not clean one as well as water (Miller, 2007:15) Inmany cultures, the products of elimination (urine and feces) are considereddisgusting People do not try to keep such things, nor do they in any way reverethem In Papua New Guinea, in the South Pacific, people take great care to bury orotherwise hide their fecal matter They fear that someone will find it and use it formagic against them In some cultures, these substances are believed to have positive

effects Among Native American cultures of the Pacific Northwest, urine, especiallywomen's urine, was believed to have medicinal and cleansing properties and wasconsidered the "water of life" (Miller, 2007:15) In certain death rituals, it wassprinkled over the corpse in the hope that it might rejuvenate the deceased Peoplestored urine in special wooden boxes for ritual use, including the first bath that ababy was given (the urine was mixed with water for this purpose) (Miller, 2007: 15)

Culture is really an integral part of the interaction among language, thought,

and behavior Cultural patterns, customs, and ways of life are expressed inlanguage; culture-specific worldviews are reflected in language (Valdes, 1986:45)

It is now broadly accepted in most parts of the world that learning a foreignlanguage is not simply mastering an object of academic study but is moreappropriately focused on learning a means of communication Communication inreal situation is never out of context, and because culture is part of all contexts,communication is never culture-free Therefore, it is now increasingly recognizedthat language learning and learning about target cultures cannot realistically beseparated (Valdes, 1986) In Britain, for example, many documents about foreignlanguage teaching show three broad aims,as analyzed by Byram (1993:15):

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• The development of communicative competence for use In situations thelearner might expect to encounter

• The development of an awareness of the nature of language and languagelearning

• The development of insight into the foreign culture and positive attitudestoward foreign people

But, as Byram shows, these three aims must be integrated

In Vietnam, Professor Pham Due Duong, Ph.D.,has also attempted to defineculture in a broad term.In his book Vietnamese Culture in Southeast-Asian Settings ,

2000, he wrote: "Culture is translated into 'van hoa' in Vietnamese 'Van' is theappearance, what one creates, not by nature, to show out During that process, one is'hoa', or educated, to become better, to change oneself from a natural object into ahuman" In his lectures to students of Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University-HCMC, he uses

Tylor's definition of culture as the basis He also mentions UNESCO's other 256definitions and five constants of culture: Humanities, Values, Cognition, Creation,and Communication The fifth constant, Communication, means it is very important

to incorporate culture into second language teaching The main aims of the syllabus

of English in Vietnamese high schools are to enable students to communicate inEnglish, and with the knowledge from the lessons, students can grasp some timelytopics and can express their own ideas about them (according to the "Aims of theSyllabus of English in High School" passed by The Ministry of Education andTraining, in Education and Times Magazine 69, June 8th, 2002) The term culture

can, of course have different meanings Some language teachers use the term torefer to cultural products (e.g literary works or works of art).Others use it to refer

to background information (e.g facts about the history or geography of countrieswhere the target language is spoken.That is, unfortunately, a very limited concept

of culture.Here, the term culture includes such aspects, but it also includes behavior

and attitudes, and the social knowledge that people use to interpret experience In

this way, culture can be seen as the framework of assumptions, ideas, and beliefsthat are used to interpret other people's actions, words and patterns of thinking Thisframework is necessarily subjective and is commonly taken for granted.However, it

is crucial that foreign language learners should become aware of differing culturalframeworks, both their own and those of others; otherwise they will use their owncultural system to interpret target-language messages whose intended meaning may

be well-predicatedon quite different cultural assumptions

2.1.2 The relationship between culture and language teaching

Culture and language learning involve a dynamic relationship between thesituation and the actors in which cultural context, prior experience,and other factorscome into play (Street, 1993; Haviland, 2005; Miller, 2007) Putting culture at thecore of language education means preparing students to be culture learners Thus, it

is never enough to find and accept someone else's static definitions of the culture.Words and their meaning are linked to a cultural context, and language and culturalpatterns change over time and vary according to the situation.To become effectiveculture learners,students must develop a variety of learning strategies ranging fromreflective observation to active experimentation or what Kolb, an Americanresearcher and educator, refers to as experiential learning style (Kolb, 1984) Mostimportant is to know how to learn from the context while immersed in it, or whatHughes (1986:55) refers to as "learning how to learn."

The methodology suggested by Byram et a1 (1991) is congruent with Paige'sdefinition of culture learning (Paige, 1997) in that it is anchored in threefundamental learning processes: (1) the learners' exploration of their own culture;2) the discovery of the relationship between language and culture, and 3) thelearning of the heuristics for analyzing and comparing cultures A recent response

by the language teaching profession has been to tum to anthropology and

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intercultural education to explore the systematic use of ethnographic' techniques inand outside of the classroom, whereby, as Jurasek (1995:225) explains, the

"product" of the ethnography is considered less important than "the process ofobserving, participating, describing, analyzing, and interpreting" (For a morecomplete description of the ethnographic method and suggestions for its integrationinto foreign language instruction, see Byram, 1991; Jurasek, 1995; Robinson,1981) Starting with the recognition that we "can never see through another's eyes;

we must see through our own" (Robinson, 1981:150), the overall goal for thelearner is to progress towards the development of intercultural competence byaddressing the affective component of such a competence (see Bennett, 1993).Jurasek (1995:228) suggests that such an outcome has two general facets: (1)consciousness-raising in regard to perception and perspective, and (2) "an ever-increasing ability to recognize at least in a limited way what things might look likefrom the viewpoint of members of another culture" It is worth remarking that thegradual development of such a competence is at the heart of foreign languagelearning

2.2 CULTURAL RELATIVISM VERSUS ETHNOCENTRISM

In teaching culture it is essential to differentiate cultural relativism fromethnocentric ideas Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human'sbeliefs and activities make sense in terms of his or her own culture This principlewas established as axiomatic in anthropological research in by the American

anthropologist Franz Boas (1911) in his book The Mind ofPrimitive Man', and then

popularized in the 1940s by Boas's students Boas himself did not use the term, andthe term became common among anthropologists after Boas's death in 1942 (the

term first appeared in the journal American Anthropologist in 1948); thus, the term

itself represents how Boas's students summarized their own synthesis of many of

• Ethnography : the scientific description of different races and cultures

• Already slated on pp 15, anthropologisits today consider "primitive" as a derogatory term (Miller, 2007).