Tác động của văn hóa học tập ở việt nam đến thái độ của học sinh trung học phổ thông đối với các hoạt động học tiếng anh theo đường hướng giao tiếp

Luận văn trình bày nghiên cứu khảo sát về ảnh hưởng của văn hóa học tập Việt Nam đến thái độ của học sinh trung học phổ thông đối với các hoạt động học tiếng Anh theo đường hướng giao tiếp. Nghiên cứu đã sử dụng phiếu điều tra để thu thập dữ liệu từ 166 học sinh được lựa chọn ngẫu nhiên ở một trường Trung học phổ thông. Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy ảnh hưởng của văn hóa học tập Việt Nam đến thái độ của học sinh đối với các hoạt động này. Những thái độ đó vừa thuận lợi vừa bất lợi cho việc áp dụng CLT đối với đối tượng của nghiên cứu. Phát hiện này cho thấy để áp dụng CLT thành công tại Việt Nam cần phải có sự thích ứng của CLT trong bối cảnh văn hóa Việt Nam, hoặc có sự điều chỉnh của văn hóa học Việt Nam, hoặc cả hai.

I would like to express my gratitude to people who have, in various ways,contributed to the completion of this thesis First and foremost, I would like to give mymost sincere thanks to Dr Le Van Canh, my supervisor, for not only his responses to any

of my questions but also for his encouragement at any time of my hardship

I would like to thank Nguyen Viet Hung, my friend, a PhD student at the University,for helping me much with advice and encouragement

I am grateful to the students and teachers at my researched Upper-Secondary Schoolfor their cooperation during my data collection period

I owe a great debt to my wife, daughter and my families for the patience andencouragement I have had from them

I believe that with all contribution of the people mentioned, I have an improved finalthesis; however, there are unavoidably remaining weaknesses in this thesis, all of whichbelong to my responsibility, and all of which I should learn from

The present study explored the influence of Vietnamese learning culture on secondary school students’ attitudes towards communicative activities in English learning.The survey study method was adopted, and the questionnaires were delivered to asystematically selected sample of 166 students from one upper-secondary school in amountainous region in Vietnam This aimed at collecting necessary data for answeringthree research questions about the students’ belief about language learning, the influence ofthis belief on the students’ opinion about the role of teacher and learner and on theirpreferences for English learning activities both inside and outside the classroom

upper-The findings demonstrated influence of the Vietnamese culture of learning on thestudents’ attitudes towards communicative English learning activities, some of which werefavourable for utilisation of communicative activities These concern their openness incommunication, and a greater responsibility they took for their own learning They alsoindicated the students’ positive attitudes towards group work activities, which are typical

of CLT techniques Besides, the study showed evidence of the students’ negative attitudestowards communicative activities, which resulted from the incompatibleness of theseactivities to the Vietnamese culture of learning Basically, this incompatibility is relatedwith the students’ perceived drudgery nature of learning, the cultural strategies foreffective learning through memorisation and error avoidance, the necessity for maintainingharmonious relationships, the students’ passive learning, and their respect for and unequalrelationship with the teacher

Based on these findings, some suggestions were proposed concerning eitheradaptation of the CLT approach and its spawn activities to the cultural context of the study,

or adjustment of the students’ Vietnamese learning culture, or both All of this aims atsuccessful implementation of CLT at the researched school

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION OF AUTHENTICITY I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III TABLE OF CONTENT IV LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES VI

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of Study 1

2 Research Aims and Questions 2

3 Methods of Study 3

4 Scope of Study 3

5 Significance of Study 3

6 Organisation of the Thesis 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Introduction 4

1.2 Communicative Language Teaching: Principles and Characteristics 4

1.3 Learning Activities in Light of CLT 6

1.4 Communicative Activities 7

1.5 Role of Teacher and Learner in CLT 8

1.6 Culture, Attitude and Behaviour 9

1.7 Vietnamese Learning Culture 11

1.8 Conceptions of Learning in Vietnamese Culture 12

1.9 Learning Culture and CLT 14

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 18

2.1 The Research Site 18

2.2 Methodology 18

2.3 Participants and the Ethical Issue 19

2.4 Instrument 19

2.4.1 Rationale for choosing the questionnaire and question type 19

2.4.2 Validity and reliability 20

2.4.3 Questionnaire items 22

2.5 Data Collection and Analysis Procedure 23

2.6 Findings and Discussion 24

2.6.1 Beliefs about Language Learning 24

2.6.2 Role of Teacher and Learner 29

2.6.3 Preference for Learning Activities 32

2.6.4 Students’ English Learning Habits 34

2.6.5 The Influence of Vietnamese Learning Culture on the Students’ Attitudes to-wards Communicative Activities in Learning English 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 39

1 Conclusions and Implications 39

2 Limitations and recommendations for further research 41

REFERENCES 43 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX 1: A MODEL FOR SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING (SPOLSKY, 1989, P.28) I

APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE EVALUATION FORM II

APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION) III

APPENDIX 4: STUDENTS’ CONCEPTIONS OF HOW LEARNING SHOULD TAKE PLACE VII

APPENDIX 5: STUDENTS’ BELIEF ABOUT THE ROLE OF TEACHER AND LEARNER VIII Appendix 6: Students’ Preference for English Learning Activities IX

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures

Figure 1 Culture – Attitude – Behaviour 10

Figure 2 Respondents’ Gender 24

Figure 3 Respondents’ English Proficiency 24

Tables Table 1 Questionnaires Delivered and Collected 24

Table 2 Students’ Conceptions of Learning 25

Table 3 Students’ Belief about the Role of Teacher and Learner 30

Table 4 Students’ Preference for English Learning Activities 33

Table 5 Students’ Most Favoured, Most Disfavoured and Home Activities 35

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of Study

Since the time of Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman philosopher, and later in theRenaissance theories, until now all languages have been considered to be of equal status(Pym, 2007) This is because “there is nothing intrinsically limiting, demanding, orhandicapping about any of them” (Crystal, 1987, p.6, cited by Kasaian and Subbakrishna,

2011, p.165) The English language is not an exception Although English was said to be asource of gratification to mankind because it was spoken in two of the greatest powers ofthe world (Jesperson, 1905), that is, America and Britain, it has no intrinsic linguisticsupremacy over other languages in the world (Kasaian and Subbakrishna, 2011).Nonetheless, “for good or ill, the dominance of English as the world’s preferred second orforeign language has been increasing in recent years” (Canh, 2004) For this reason, “thosewho are able to exploit it, whether to sell goods and services or to sell ideas, wield a veryconsiderable power”; furthermore, “if you want to resist the exploitive power of English,you have to use English to do it” (Halliday, 2006, p.362, cited by Van, 2010, p.17).Although the statement is ideological, it has some truth in it

Since the utility of English has been perceived as a passport for many desired things

in life, English teaching has consequently been regarded to be able to serve individual,national, and international needs (Canh, 2004), and “if people are deprived of the chance oflearning it, they are the ones who suffer” (Halliday, 2006, p.362, cited by Van, 2010, p.17).During the course of teaching and learning English, numerous methods have comeand gone because there is no one-size-fits-all method that can meet the goals andneeds of all learners and programs As a matter of rule, in the 1970s CommunicativeLanguage Teaching (CLT) emerged, in the West, and started being discussed as afashionable way of teaching languages, and by the turn of the new millennium, CLT hadbecome a real buzzword in language teaching methodology around the world (Dornyei,2009) In this context, education administrators, English language educators and teachershave navigated their attention toward CLT, as a response to its irresistible appeal.Accordingly, CLT has widely been accepted as an effective way of teaching English as asecond and foreign language (ESL/EFL) This is because there is an unspoken assumptionthat CLT is not only “modern”, but is in fact the only way to learn a language properly;hence, a country without CLT is somehow backward; teachers who do not use CLT

approach in their teaching are backward; methodologies which are considered to betraditional and the one based on route learning are said to be behind in comparison withcommunicative approaches (Bax, 2003, p.281).

Vietnam is not an exception from the spread of CLT Although CLT was introducedinto the country rather later than into other countries in the neighbourhood (Canh andBarnard, 2009), it has been rhetorical in the whole school system of the country, especially

at the general education level However, scholars and researchers have reported theunsatisfactory implementation of this approach in Vietnam (Canh, 2004; Canh, 2011; Canhand Barnard, 2009; Barnard and Viet, 2010; Nguyen and Franken, 2010; Thinh, 2006; Phu,2008; Van, 2010; Son, 2011; Hung, 2011; Vietnamnet, 2012; Toan, 2013; Khang, 2014).One of the reasons for the failure of CLT implementation in Vietnam is that theapproach is imposed without taking into consideration the students’ learning culture, whichinfluences students’ attitudes towards learning activities, learning behaviours, and learninghabits However, this issue has often been ignored I believe that for the success ofinnovation, the first step to be taken should be the understanding of learners’ learningculture so that teachers can decide what aspects of the intended innovation fit the students’learning culture, and what aspects of the students’ learning culture should be changed toaccommodate the intended pedagogical innovation This is the rationale for my study

2 Research Aims and Questions

Being inspired by all the above mentioned rationales and my preliminary interest,this survey study aims to explore the influence of Vietnamese learning culture on attitudes

of the upper-secondary school students in a mountainous area toward CLT Informationgained from this study is aimed to help teachers to make their teaching more learner-centred by modifying the principles of CLT to the students’ learning culture for bettereducational results With this aim in mind, the study was designed to seek answers to thefollowing research questions:

1 What is the students’ belief about language learning?

2 How do their beliefs about language learning affect their opinions of the teacher’srole and student’s role in the English language classroom?

3 How do their beliefs about language learning affect their preferences for languagelearning activities both inside and outside the classroom?

It is hoped that answers to the above questions can inform classroom teachers of how

to adapt CLT in their classrooms

3 Methods of Study

In order to achieve the above-stated aims, this research adopts the survey studyframework with the use of a questionnaire as the key instrument for data collection As thepurpose of this study is to gain insights into students’ attitudes to, and opinions of, learningactivities, the survey method is appropriate However, the survey was conducted with asmall group of upper-secondary school students who were chosen purposefully in oneschool in a mountainous region of Vietnam Therefore, no generalization of the findingswas intended Rather, the findings can be used to inform teachers of English in this andother similar schools of how to adapt CLT more effectively

4 Scope of Study

The study limits itself to the exploration and description how the students’ learningculture influences their learning of English within the context of an upper-secondaryschool in one northern mountainous province

5 Significance of Study

This study hopes to be significant in pointing out some culturally inappropriateaspects of the CLT approach to a group of school students in a mountainous area Thisunderstanding can lead to some suggestions for how to adapt CLT to the local learningculture so as to raise the educational effectiveness

6 Organisation of the Thesis

The thesis is composed of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Part A introduces the rationale, research aims and questions, method, scope and

significance of the study Part B – the Development – includes a review of the related

literature (Chapter 1) and issues concerning the methodology, participants, instruments, theprocedure of data collection and analysis, findings and discussions of the findings (Chapter

2) Part C – the Conclusion – presents the concluding remarks drawn from this survey as

well as the recommendations for adapting CLT in the researched school and other similarschools

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Introduction

First introduced in the 1970s by British applied linguists as a reaction away fromgrammar-based language teaching approaches, CLT is a multi-perspectival approach thatbuilds on several disciplines that include, at least, linguistics, psychology, philosophy,sociology, and educational research (Savignon, 1991, 2002; Hu, 2002; Dornyei, 2009;Asassfeh et al., 2012) Beside this widely accepted view, there have been many attempts inaccounting for the formation of CLT; nevertheless, for personally logical reason, this paperpresents a combined view of these scholars and some others on the background of CLT

1.2 Communicative Language Teaching: Principles and Characteristics

CLT is resulted from a shift in the way language is viewed Accordingly, whilelanguage is still considered as consisting of vocabulary, structures and rules with which,through learning, learners can make grammatically correct sentences, it is not a staticsystem of interconnected units but social behaviour, which is used purposefully, andalways in context (Savignon, 1991, 2002) Its primary function is for interaction andcommunication: people communicating with others to accomplish some course of action.Therefore, language is said to be instrumental to communicative functions such as making,expressing, exchanging and negotiating meaning (Ma, 2009; Hu, 2002) The assumption isthat there is always interdependence between form and meaning, or between structural andfunctional aspects of language within a language (Hu, 2002) Thus, knowing a languagemeans not solely knowing how to construct sentences in isolation, but also knowing how tocombine sentences into texts and to put texts in discourse of the speech community inorder to fulfil some task and meet some need CLT has made this one of its mostcharacteristic features when “it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structuralaspects of language, combining these into a more fully communicative view” (Littlewood,

1981, p.1, cited by Dornyei, 2009) Moreover, it also puts more emphases on meaningfuluse than on the form with the guiding principle that “accuracy and acquisition of theformal features of the L2 [second language] are less a measure of successful languagelearning than are fluency and an ability to get something across comprehensibly to a nativespeaker” (Sanders, 1987, p.222, cited by Beale, 2002, p.19)

In order to communicate effectively in a language, people need to have the followingfour aspects of abilities (Stern, 1983, cited by Ma, 2009):

 The intuitive mastery of the forms of language

 The intuitive mastery of the linguistic, cognitive, affective and social-culturalmeanings expressed by the language forms

 The capacity to use the language with maximum attention to communication andminimum attention to form

 The creativity of language use

Hymes (1971 cited in Ma, 2009), while reacting to Chomsky’s conception of

competence and performance, is concerned more with language in the speech communities

and in its integration with communication and culture To him, linguistic knowledge is anecessary but not sufficient condition for successful communication People also need tounderstand about culture, through which they know how to interact in culturally acceptableways with others in different situations and relationships He proposes an influential theory

“the most important linguistic ability”, which helps to “produce or understand utterances

which are not so much grammatical but, more important, appropriate to context in which they are made” (Campbell and Wales, 1970, p.247, cited by Canale and Swain, 1980, p.4,

italics in original) Communicative competence consists of four components, includinggrammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategiccompetence (Ma, 2009; Canale and Swain, 1980; Latha and Rajan, 2012; Beale, 2002;Richards, 2006)

The grammatical (or linguistic) component refers to the knowledge of lexis, syntax,morphology, phonology and the like It concerns the language users’ understanding abouthow phonemes are combined into words, how words come together to form phrases,

clauses or sentences, and how sentences are sounded with stresses and with differentintonations Briefly speaking, grammatical competence is the cognition of linguistic rules,which enables people to create and understand grammatically correct sentences.

Sociolinguistic competence implies knowing what is expected socially andculturally by members of the speech community This element transcends its linguisticcounterpart because with knowledge of language alone, people cannot use languageappropriately, and therefore, effectively They need to know about sociolinguistic rules,which stipulate, for example, what to say to people of different statuses and differentrelationships in different circumstances This knowledge is also about how to responsenonverbally in particular ways basing on the purpose of the interaction It enables people tovary their use of language according to the setting and the participants

Discourse competence is related to the logical meaning relationship betweensentences, that is to say, in a text or a discourse It concerns the ways, for instance, howsentences are grouped, with different discourse markers, and rules of cohesion andcoherence, in different discourse structures, in meaningful ways to serve language users’purposes These discourse principles are also important clues for processing different types

of texts, and perceiving and comprehending the meaning that the conversational partnerswant to convey

Strategic competence is the knowledge of communication strategies that peopleemploy in interaction It is, for example, “the ability to know how to keep a conversationgoing, how to terminate the conversation, and how to clear up communication breakdown

as well as comprehension problems” (Ma, 2009, p.41) Basically, when people usecommunication strategies, they manipulate their language to meet their communicativepurpose For this reason, it can be said that this kind of understanding is the compensationfor the limitation in or reinforcement of people’s understanding of linguistic,sociolinguistic and discourse rules

From the communicative competence perspective, learning a language is to facilitatethe integration of the four types of knowledge for learners (Canale and Swain, 1980;Asassfeh et al., 2012; Richards, 2006; Savignon, 2002; Hu, 2002; Ma, 2009; Latha andRajan, 2012), as dissected above

1.3 Learning Activities in Light of CLT

CLT emphasizes “activities that involve real communication promote learning”(Richards and Rogers, 1986, p.72) It requires that the input language for teaching andlearning must be “realistic samples of discourse use surrounding native speaker and non-native speaker accomplishments of targeted tasks” (Doughty and Long, 2003, p.61) On theother hand, since the language classroom aims at preparing for learners’ survival in the realworld, the relationship between classroom activities and real life is essential; therefore,learning and use of language must be contextualised and must utilise authentic materials,situations, activities, and tasks (Richards, 2006; Hu, 2002), through active participationinto which, learners are better prepared to function in real-world communicative events.Furthermore, the input language must also be rich, meaning that it is complex in terms ofnot only language but also quality, quantity, variety, genuineness, and relevance

In addition, since CLT activities are required to involve real communication, theymust promote cooperative and collaborative learning As pointed out by Vygotsky (1978),teacher’s assistance and social interactions play a crucial role helping learners reach apotential that exceeds their current level of development; therefore, conversationalinteraction must be used as a means of developing communicative competence, whichrelies on learners’ own ability to interactively negotiate meaning with each other

Norris et al (1998, p.31) explain that:

the best way to learn and teach a language is through social interactions [ they] allow students to work toward a clear goal, share information and opinions, negotiate meaning, get the interlocutor’s help in comprehending input, and receive feedback on their language production In the process, learners not only use their inter-language, but also modify it, which in turn promotes acquisition.

Savignon (1991) shares this view and comments that communicative tasks determinethe opportunities for language use, for the interpretation, expression, and negotiation ofmeaning

 They seek to develop students’ communicative competence through linking grammatical development to the ability to communicate.

 They create the need for communication, interaction, and negotiation of meaning through the use of activities such as problem solving, information sharing, and role play.

 They provide opportunities for both inductive as well as deductive learning of grammar.

 They make use of content that connects to students’ lives and interests.

 They allow students to personalise learning by applying what they have learned to their own lives.

 Classroom materials typically make use of authentic texts to create interest and to provide valid models of language.

Examples of activities of this type are information-gap activities, jigsaw activities,task-completion activities (puzzles, games, map-reading), information-gathering activities(surveys, interviews, and searches), opinion-sharing activities, information-transferactivities, reasoning-gap activities, role plays

1.5 Role of Teacher and Learner in CLT

It is widely accepted that changes in teacher’s and learner’s role are one of thebiggest differences between traditional language teaching approaches and CLT, whichresults from the type of classroom activities, i.e communicative activities, proposed inCLT, which are in turn led from the emphasis in CLT on the processes of communication,rather than mastery of language forms For this reason, CLT is conceived to derive from “aset of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the

kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom” (Richards, 2006, p.2, italics added) Jacobs and Farrell (2003),

cited by Richards (2006), see the shift toward CLT as marking a paradigm shift in ourthinking about teachers, learning, and teaching

Accordingly, language education with CLT is no longer a “banking” system withbank-account-learners into which regular deposits (knowledge and skills) are made to bedrawn later for specific purposes like examination (Choudhury, 2011), but “landscapes ofpractices” (Wenger, 2010, p.3), in which learners have greater choice over their ownlearning, both in terms of the content of learning as well as processes they might employ(Richards, 2006) They can develop their own routes to language learning, progress at

different rates, and have different needs and motivations for language learning They areconsidered to be the centre of the learning process in which diversity among learners ispaid greater attention and viewed not as impediments to learning but as resources to berecognized, catered to, and appreciated Learning language with CLT, learners have toparticipate in classroom activities which are based on a cooperative rather thanindividualistic approach to learning They have to become comfortable with listening totheir peers in group work or pair work tasks, rather than relying on the teacher for a model.They are expected to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning(Richards, 2006).

On the other hand, teachers in CLT classroom no longer play a dominant role in theclassroom; they are not authorities, like the Titans or Atlas of Greek mythology, who bearthe burden of the whole class and learners’ learning on their shoulders They are no longerviewed as the source of all knowledge (and the model or exemplar of morality as in thecase of Vietnam), who fill, through teaching-as-modelling-and-explanation, receptaclelearners with knowledge (and virtue) The role of teachers in the CLT classroom is that of

a facilitator, who creates a classroom climate conducive to language learning and providesopportunities for students to use and practice the language and to reflect on language useand language learning Rather than being models for correct speech and writing and oneswith the primary responsibility of making students produce plenty of error-free sentences,teachers have to develop a different view of learners’ errors and of their own role infacilitating language learning (Richards, 2006) Besides, teachers can also play the role of

an independent participant within the learning-teaching group, a researcher and learner, orthat of an analyst, a counsellor, and a group process manager (Richards and Rodgers,1987)

For this reason, CLT has been considered to be a learner-centred approach tolanguage teaching; it takes into account learners’ backgrounds, language needs, and goalsand allows learners some creativity and role in instructional decisions (Canale and Swain,1980; Beale, 2002)

1.6 Culture, Attitude and Behaviour

It is undeniable that culture is an omnipresent entity (Kramsch, 1993, cited by Jabeenand Shah, 2011), which pervades and influences all fields of life It influences people’sbehaviours by “establish[ing] for each person a context of cognitive and affective

behaviour, a template for personal and social existence” (Brown, 2007, p.189) On theother hand, attitude and culture are considered as mutually dependant terms, and wheneverculture is reckoned, the concept of attitude is also in one way or another brought up(Jabeen and Shah, 2011) In Ajzen’s and Fishbein’s (1973) view, attitude and overtbehaviour are closely related Olson and Zanna (1993, p.125), cited by Bakker (1996,p.34), remark that values, as constituent of culture, can be seen as determinants forattitudes and behavioural intentions and can be used to predict attitudes towards specificsubjects Although this study does not delve into exploring the connection between culture,attitude and behaviours, this section reviews the related literature to make explicit, to someextent, this relationship as well as to give a theoretical evidence for the cruciality of takinginto consideration culture/learning culture in adoption of CLT.

Culture plays a very important role in constituting a person’s attitude toward anobject, an act/behaviour or another person, which in turn influence, to a large extent,his/her behavioural intentions and subsequently overt behaviours This can be summarisedfiguratively as follows:

Figure 1 Culture – Attitude – Behaviour

(Adapted from Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975, and Bakker, 1996)

As can be seen in figure 1, overt behaviours not only are influenced (the solidarrows) by cultures through the two paths of attitude and subjective norm but also givefeedback (the dashed arrow) to the actor’s cultural values and normative beliefs This mayinspire some implications for implementation of CLT at the researched school, which will

be discussed later Part 3

Bearing a similar view to Ajzen’s and Fishbein’s but specific to the field of secondand foreign language learning, Spolsky (1989, p.131) proposes that social factors, whichinclude culture, influence second language learning in two indirect but essential ways

Culturallydetermined

values

Attitude

Subjectivenorm

BehaviouralintentionsNormative

beliefs

Overtbehaviours

(Appendix 1) Firstly, they play a major role in developing in the learner the set of attitudes

towards the language being learned, its speakers and the language learning situation (in

the case of this study, communicative activities) that are hypothesised to directly influencemotivation Secondly, they determine the social provision of language learning situationsand opportunity of various kinds

So far, what has been aroused is that learners’ attitudes toward communicativeactivities in English learning are very much likely to be affected by Vietnamese culture oflearning This influence in turn may lead to learners’ English learning behaviours andresult in learning effectiveness For this reason, research into this issue can hopefully, inthe one hand, give an account for the current situation of CLT deployment and, to someextent, raise some awareness of this issue at the researched site, on the other hand

1.7 Vietnamese Learning Culture

Being one form of culture, culture of learning is understood as “taken for grantedframeworks of expectations, attitudes, values and beliefs about what constitutes goodlearning, about how to teach or learn, whether and how to ask questions, what textbooksare for, and how language teaching relates to broader issues of the nature and purpose ofeducation” (Cortazzi and Jin, 1996, p.169) The concept of culture of learning implies thatlearning is cultural, and learning or, more broadly, education is deeply rooted in the historyand culture of the community or society in which it is located (Cortazzi and Jin, 1996,2013) Learning culture is not a matter of different ways of learning but beyond content orsyllabus differences; it includes deeper presuppositions and values, for example, about thenature of school subjects or the roles of students and teachers in interaction (Cotazzi andJin, 2013)

An important aspect in Vietnamese culture of learning is the concept of face; which

is considered to be powerful due to the collectivist nature of the society (Cortazzi and Jin,1996) This is much reflected in learners’ behaviours in classroom They would notinterrupt the lesson by questioning because by questioning teachers, it is thought that theyare questioning the teacher’s authority and challenging his/her knowledge This iscategorised as showing disrespect to the teacher because if learners pose a question thatteacher cannot answer, the teacher (and the learner questioning) will lose face Therefore,

if learners have some issue needing explicating, they will simply wait thinking that theteacher will probably mention it later In case it is not mentioned, it is because the issue is

not worth mentioning, and leaners will probably ask questions to the teacher individuallyafter the class time Learners’ respect to teachers can also be seen in other ways learnersbehave in classroom They would all stand up to greet the teacher at the beginning of thelesson and would remain standing until being allowed to sit When they want to go out,they are expected to ask the teacher for permission to do so This is similar to the casewhen they have something to say: they have to raise their hand and wait for the teacher’sallowing them to speak.

1.8 Beliefs of Learning in Vietnamese Culture

It can be said that learning in Vietnam is influenced, firstly, by face-saving andharmony-maintaining culture This features the collectivist nature of Vietnamese culture

In Vietnam, each member of the community sees themselves as belonging to an in-group;they do not want to stand out from this collective and do not want to be seen as the “nailthat sticks up” (Anderson, 1993, cited by Littlewood, 2000) For this reason, they arereluctant to participate in discussions, in which people have to challenge each other’s ideas

to reach agreement on certain issues By doing so, they can avoid the risk of their ideasbeing vetoed by other members or their vetoing others’ ideas, through which they can saveface for not only themselves but also for others, and maintain a harmonious relationshipwith and among members (Littrell, 2005; Kramsch and Sullivan, 1996; Qiao and Tan, n.d.;Littlewood, 2000; Phuong-Mai et al., 2006; Trang and Baldauf, 2007; McCornac & Chi,2005; Lee, n.d.; Lewis and McCook, 2002; Huong, 2008) Since losing face inflictsextremely serious personal damage, and one should try to avoid it at any price (Hofstedeand Hofstede, 2005, cited by Phuong-Mai et al., 2006), there is an intense fear of makingmistakes among Vietnamese people; these are reflected in common proverbs that serve asmaxims for interpersonal communication Examples include “twisting your tongue seven

times before speaking out your thought” (Uốn lưỡi bảy lần trước khi nói), or “words cost

no money, so people should speak beautifully to please others” (Lời nói chẳng mất tiền mua, lựa lời mà nói cho vừa lòng nhau) On this respect, Huong (2008) refers to Duong,

Diller and Sutherland’s (1975, p.126) comment that:

According to Vietnamese custom, one should remain modest and humble, showing the extent of knowledge or skills only when asked In Vietnam, there is the motto of saying less than what one actually knows, often and admirable characteristic Modesty and humility for Vietnamese are very important social graces, and deeply ingrained into their identity.

This norm spontaneously affects the way learners behave in classroom; they dare notvolunteer personal ideas, either for fear of being considered silly or for fear of makingothers feel humiliated (Phuong-Mai et al., 2006) A learner may even think that he/sheloses face only due to he/she did not speak or state an issue clearly and thus was laughed at

by his/her classmate According to Huong (2008), there is a widely accepted view inVietnam that a learner should speak little but correctly rather than verbalise a lot butwrongly This view is also recognised by Lewis & McCook (2002, p.147), in theiraccounting for Asian learners’ learning style; they state that verbal perfection has beentraditionally valued across many Asian cultures, which contributes to learners’ quietness inclass and their seldom voluntarily expressing ideas or contributing to the lesson In herstudy, Phuong-Mai et al (2006) also draw a similar conclusion that learners fromConfucian heritage cultures (CHC) are usually quiet, shy, reticent and lacking initiative;they dislike public touching and overt displays of opinions or emotions, do not talk inclass, but instead expect the teacher to teach them everything they are expected to know.They have little desire to discover for themselves, wish to be spoon-fed, and, therefore,teacher-dominated classrooms are common

Another Confucian belief in education is the “learn-to-use” philosophy Accordingly,learning is considered to be an accumulating process of knowledge rather than a practicalprocess of constructing and using knowledge for immediate use (“learn-by-using”philosophy) (Phu, 2008; Cortazzi and Jin, 1996; Littrell, 2005; An, 2002; Biggs, 1998;Huong, 2008; Lee, n.d.) For this reason, the focus of teaching is not on how teachers andstudents can create, construct, and apply knowledge in an experiential approach, but onhow extant authoritative knowledge can be transmitted and internalised in a most effectiveand efficient way This conception can also be explained with the respect that people havefor knowledge as well as knowledgeable men Therefore, the importance is attached toknowledge and memory over creativity as the dominant method of acquiring knowledge(Lee, n.d.; Kramsch and Sullivan, 1996) This way of learning has been reckoned as

“passive learning”, “rote learning”, “silent learning” or “memorisation”, through whichknowledge is “poured” into the students’ heads without them having any real opportunity

to exercise However, an interesting feature of Vietnamese learners is that though they arethought of learning by rote or memorisation, they are only silent and inactive in thesurface The survey conducted by Duong Thi Hoang Oanh and Nguyen Thi Hien (2006)

showed that both teachers and students at the tertiary level emphasised memorization as animportant strategy for learning grammar and vocabulary.

Vietnamese learners prefer learning through exemplars or models This leads to theimportance of the textbook and, especially, the teacher as the model of not only knowledgebut also morality, who learners have to strive to become alike Therefore, Phuoc (1975),cited by An (2002), comments that the Confucian teaching model is “teacher-centred,closed, suspicious of creativity, and predicated on an unquestioning obedience from thestudents”

Besides, the notion that learning is a process of accumulating knowledgespontaneously leads to the belief that learning is a hard and serious undertaking, whichrequires a full commitment and painstaking efforts (Phu, 2008; Ha, 2013) Learning is alife-long job; it involves learners’ perseverance and patience “to grind an iron bar into aneedle” (Hu, 2002) and not concerning to or associated with light-heartedness (Phu, 2008).For this reason, Vietnamese learners are expected to be hard-working and willing toparticipate in activities; however, with all the conceptions of learning, as explicated above,they tend to be silent and shy in class (Huyen and Ha, 2013)

To sum up, as culture affects cognitive structures and the structure of personality(Lambert, 1973, p.3), it follows that culture affects the way people learn At a glance, thelearning philosophy of CLT and that in Vietnamese culture are under different poles(Hsiao, 2010) This entails that the meeting of these, manifested in the implementation ofCLT in Vietnamese context, to Vietnamese learners, may cause either convergence ordivergence Another point to note is the dynamic nature of culture Culture is alwayschanging, and with recent rapid development of Vietnam through modernization andindustrialization, Vietnamese cultural values are subject to change, and changing This mayresult in changes in Vietnamese philosophy of learning, and subsequently in the wayVietnamese people learn, as well as learners’ attitude towards CLT

1.9 Learning Culture and CLT

Since its birth, CLT has spread out of its birthplace It has been widely implemented

in many countries of dissimilar cultural values, beliefs and norms; however, itseffectiveness in these contexts has been widely suspected The notion that CLT is aWestern rooted language teaching approach, which needs to be both culturally attuned andculturally accepted in contexts other than the West (Kramsch and Sullivan, 1996; Bax,

2003; Ellis, 1996; McKay, 2003; Barnard and Viet, 2010; Hu, 2002; Lewis and McCook,2002; Stroupe, 2012; Hsiao, 2010; McClintock, 2011; Mahmoodzadeh, 2011; Khoi andIwashita, 2012; An, 2002) has been consuming paper and ink of a lot of scholars.

Kramsch and Sullivan (1996, p.199) state a general rule that “what is appropriate in

an international context may not be appropriate in a local context” and in mentioning CLT,they are concerned that “the notion of appropriate pedagogy should be a pedagogy of bothglobal appropriacy and local appropriation.” Therefore, they follow on Berman’s (1994)view that educators and teachers need to think globally, but act locally Bax (2003)classifies approaches to language teaching into two groups, i.e., methodologically-drivenand language-driven, and argues that there should be a context-driven approach which cansuit learners of different cultures and in different conditions On this line, he stresses thatthe learning context, including learner variables, is the key factor in successful languagelearning, and methodology, such as CLT should only be placed in second place Inassessing the appropriateness of CLT in Asia, Ellis (1996) maintains that a number ofaspects of Canale and Swain’s model are unsuitable for Asian learners and teachers Sheexemplifies that the focus of CLT on meaning rather than form ignores the observance ofrituals in the “collectivist societies” of Asia and the reverential attitude towards themastery of individual linguistic forms McKay (2003) discovers that in many countries,such as Chile, China, Japan, and Korea, the appropriateness of CLT in light of the localcontext and learners’ needs has been challenged On this basis, they recommend that whenselecting a methodology for a particular context, it is vital that teachers consider the localneeds of the students rather than assume that a method that is effective in one context iseffective in all contexts Barnard and Viet (2010) review a large amount of literature whichshows that in many Asian contexts, including Hong Kong, China, Korea, Japan, andThailand, there has been a great mismatch between the tenets of CLT as well as Task-Based Language Teaching and local cultures of learning

Taking a step closer to the issue, Hu (2002) analyses that CLT takes the drudgery out

of the learning process and injects elements of entertainment, such as various languagegames, with a view to making learning become a light-hearted, pleasant experience inlearning However, it is inappropriate for CHC learning context in terms of teacher-learnerrelationship, learning methods and learning content It is because CLT aims to create anegalitarian communicative learning environment and practices in which the relationship

between teacher and learner is not the one of hierarchy but equality, and learning is notconcerned with hardness and serious-undertaking but with light-heartedness Besides, CLTdownplays the importance of memorisation as the philosophy of CHC learning, stressverbal interaction (often at the expense of inner activity), and encourage speculation (e.g.guesswork) and tolerance for ambiguity Hu (2010) also agrees that one of the mainobstacles of CLT implementation in China is the teachers’ authority and students’ passiverole The passivity is generalised to learners of other Asian countries and is said to be acultural barrier to successful CLT (Lewis and McCook, 2002; Stroupe, 2012) In theirstudies, Hsiao (2010) and McClintock (2011) clarifies some contradictions between CLTapproach and Confucian views of learning These include the centredness of learning,respect and reverence for teachers and education, nature of learning activities, teachers’authority, and learners’ autonomy in learning.

Getting closer to the context of the current study, although it is reported that

“Vietnamese teachers of English, by and large, have positive attitudes towards the CA[CLT]” (Canh, 1999), implementation of CLT in Vietnam has not satisfied teachers,learners and parents, and educational managers The underlying reason of this, besidesones concerning to teachers’ and learners’ English proficiency, inefficiency of teachingfacility, big-class size, is cultural Ellis (1994), cited by Khoi and Iwashita (2012), discernsthat CLT in its original form is not suited to the Vietnamese context and should not beadopted but rather culturally adapted and culturally redefined Barnard and Viet (2010)echo this view and assert that cultural values of Vietnam should be closely and carefullyconsidered in applying CLT or any other modern teaching methods It is, for example,explained that because CLT is socially constructed with Western values such asindividualism, whereas collectivism is greatly valued in Vietnamese society(Mahmoodzadeh, 2011) For this reason, it is concerned that how Vietnamese teacherscope with conflicts between Western values embedded in CLT and traditional Vietnamesevalues (Khoi and Iwashita, 2012) Since teachers’ traditional roles as mentors andimparters of knowledge in the classroom lie at the heart of the pedagogical practices inVietnam (Kramsch & Sullivan, 1996), CLT is believed to be unsuitable in Vietnamesecontext by downgrading teachers’ authority in the classroom to facilitators (An, 2002).This would be uneasy for not only teachers but also learners to accept Therefore, in trying

to implement CLT, the Vietnamese teachers struggle with conflicts between their twoidentities As teachers of English, they need to be a facilitator rather than a controller At

the same time, in order to be good Vietnamese teachers, they need to perform theirtraditional duty as behavioural educators or moral guides (Khoi and Iwashita, 2012) Inaddition, CLT is unfamiliar to Vietnamese learners in the sense that too much noise ismade during learning activities while it is perceived that the school should be a placewhere students keep silent while listening to teachers and copying from the board (An,2002) In terms of group learning, Kramsch and Sullivan (1996) observe that “theassociations students form are more akin to Western notions of ‘family’ than ‘classmate’”,which they maintain close relationship throughout their lives, forming ties that encompassfinancial, familial, and social obligations In this respect, whole class activities would bepreferred, and it would be divisive and detrimental to learning to divide the class intosubgroups.

So far, this current chapter has presented a review of the extant literature on CLT,culture, the connection between culture, attitude and behaviour It has also referred to abrief about Vietnamese culture of learning as well as implementation of CLT under theinfluence of learning culture This is hoped to be a theoretical basis for the empiricalresearch into the claimed field

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 2.1 The Research Site

The study reported in this thesis was conducted in a state upper-secondary school inCao Bang province Economically, the area where the school is located is underdeveloped,with 93.7 per cent of the population being ethnic minorities (2009) Admission is usuallybased on the results from entrance exams organised by the Provincial Department ofEducation and Training The English proficiency of students as indicated from the result ofthe entry examination is low, which may be due to the language learning educationcondition which is characterized as low input and poorly-resourced

At the time when this study was conducted, the school had the total number ofstudents of 700 accommodated in 20 classes (7 grades 10, 6 grades11 and 7 grades 12).The average number of students in each class is 35 There were six teachers of English.The textbook used in the school was mandated by the Ministry of Education and Training(MOET), which are based on the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) approach (Canh

& Barnard, 2009; Van, 2010; Hung, 2011), offspring recent development of the CLTapproach The time allocated for formal English teaching and learning at the school is, asnationally, 3 periods (45 minutes each) per week

2.2 Methodology

Collis and Hussey (2009) explain that there is a link between the research paradigmand the method They suggest that a researcher needs to take into account theappropriateness between the method chosen and the problem stated, the researcher’spersonal experience and skills, which may be assisted by the best choice of method, andthe audience to whom the findings from the research will be addressed

Since the purpose of this research is to explore the influence of students’ learningculture on their learning English in the classroom, it is descriptive by nature Therefore, thestudy adopted survey method The survey method was considered to be highly appropriateand was chosen for the current research in terms of the paradigm adopted, the aims of thestudy, the number of participants (discussed later), the role of the context, and the limitedexperience and skills of the researcher

As defined by Mathiyazhagan, and Nandan (2010, p.35), a survey study is “a method

of descriptive research used for collecting primary data based on verbal or writtencommunication with a representative sample of individuals or respondents from the target

population” It is a type of research which, typically in the form of questionnaire, focuses

on people, the vital facts of people, and their beliefs, opinions, attitudes, motivations andbehaviour (Mackey and Gass, 2005; Brown, 1991) For this reason, it has been considered

as one of the most common methods used in second language research and Englishlanguage teaching in particular

As a research design, the survey study has been accepted with many of itsadvantages These include amount of information probed, short time of data collection,cost-saving, possibility for accessing to a wide range of participants, accuracy of data incase of probability sampling, and the precision and clarity of data (McDonough andMcDonough, 1997; Brown, 1991) Although problems of the survey study framework areusually concerned with low response rate, Brown (1991) maintains that if carefullycontrolled, this method can aid in discerning patterns in large amounts of information Byadopting the survey study framework and with careful selection of participants, aselaborated below, it is hoped that the data collected would be reliable and could yieldvaluable findings

2.3 Participants and the Ethical Issue

The study utilised the systematic sampling frame; accordingly, the full list of allstudents of the school was established, which included students’ full name and their class

In order to do this, the student name lists of all the classes were collected in the form ofcomputer files (Microsoft Excel) These separated lists were then combined into one list,which was again sorted alphabetically according to the students’ names After that, 150students were randomly chosen out of the total student body of the school (N=700).Randomization was achieved by choosing one in the list out of every four students Thenthe chosen students were sorted out according to their grade The final list of participantswas composed of 50 grade 10 students, 63 grade 11 students, and 62 grade 12 students

As a critically important issue, the research ethics was assured by observing theprinciples of confidentiality and anonymity No real name of the students was used in thisthesis

2.4 Instrument

2.4.1 Rationale for choosing the questionnaire and question type

As stated previously, this study is an exploratory inquiry using the survey method.Therefore, the self-reported questionnaire was used as the key instrument of data

collection Questionnaires are considered to be very popular among educationalresearchers in general and ELT research in particular, especially in the survey context(McDonough and McDonough, 1997) It is more economical and practical than theinterview (Mackey and Gass, 2005; Selinger and Shohamy, 1989; Bryman, 2004) It canelicit comparable information from a number of respondents, and in conducting a studywith the questionnaire the researcher has a greater degree of flexibility in the gatheringprocess (Mackey and Gass, 2005) It is also said to afford a good deal of precision andclarity (McDonough and McDonough, 1997) In terms of the quality of the data collected,since questionnaires are given to all subjects of the research at the same time the data isusually more accurate, more uniform and standard Furthermore, when anonymity isassured, subjects tend to share information of a sensitive nature more easily (Selinger andShohamy, 1989); thus, the information collected tends to be more truthful In addition, thequestionnaire is highly appropriate for descriptive and explanatory studies whichinvestigate attitudes, opinions of people and cause-effect relationships between variables

(Saunders et al., 2009) Furthermore, although questionnaires usually generate only one

chance for collecting data and induce a low level of co-operation from participants, andtherefore lower response rates (Bryman, 2004), if worded correctly, they normally requireless skill and sensitivity to administer than semi-structured or in-depth interviews

(Saunders et al., 2009).

In addition, since question types usually affect people’s consideration of the answers(Bryman, 2004), and influence their co-operation and response rate, special attention waspaid to choosing the appropriate type of question In this sense, structured questionnairesare considered to be more efficient than open ones (Selinger and Shohamy, 1989), andclosed-item questions have greater uniformity of measurement, therefore, can yield greaterlevel of reliability Additionally, questions of this type are also easy for data quantifyingand analysing process (Oppenheim, 1992; Mackey and Gass, 2005) As the most importantcriterion is the measurability and the ability of the question type to probe necessaryinformation, the 5-point Likert scale was employed for almost all the questionnaire items

In addition to the Likert-type items, there were three open-ended items These open-endeditems were to give the participants more freedom to express their opinions on the issuesunder investigation (see Appendix 3 for the complete questionnaire)

2.4.2 Validity and reliability

The value of research is made up of the credibility of the findings, which is againcreated from the validity and reliability of the data collection instrument and theinformation collected Therefore, in the current study, much effort was given to designingthe questionnaire and data collection and analysis processes

In order to ensure the validity and reliability of the research findings, prior todesigning the questionnaire, the literature relating to the research issue was thoroughlystudied to work out the variables and the relationship between these variables which need

to be measured These then became the basis for determining the number and content ofquestions Another factor that can affect the validity and reliability of the study is thestructure and design of the questionnaire Accordingly, it is essential that the questionnaire

be structured and designed in a way that it “must be understood by the respondent in theway intended by the researcher”, and “the answer given by the respondent must be

understood by the researcher in the way intended by the respondent” (Saunders et al.,

2009, p.371) For this reason, the aims of the research and the content of the questionstogether with the instructions on how to answer the questions were made clear to therespondents Accordingly, general information about the aims of the research and a simpleand lucid instruction about how to complete the questionnaire were clearly explained to thestudents prior to the questionnaire delivery This was intended to contribute to therespondents’ basic understanding about what they were expected to do and to minimise thepossibility that the participants would not answer the questions or their answers would not

be reliable (McDonough and McDonough, 1997)

On the other hand, special attention was paid to the wording of the questions byusing clear and simple language with familiar terms and avoiding jargons or words which

do not have an everyday usage Leading questions, double-barrelled questions and doublenegative ones were all avoided, since they can cause misunderstanding and confusion toboth the respondents and researcher Furthermore, the questions were kept short to makethem clear and unambiguous However, some longer questions were included to clarify theterms unfamiliar to the respondents All of this aimed at making all the questions goodones which are relatively easy to answer, easy to record and evaluate, user-friendly andunambiguous (McDonough and McDonough, 1997) In addition, the order andarrangement of the questions was carefully considered All the questions were grouped into

5 corresponding parts, and factual questions were located at the end of the questionnaire.This, together with the consistent formatting and familiar layout, hoped to contribute to thereliability of the questionnaire as well as the data collected.

One of the potential threats to the reliability of this study was how to cope with thecontaminating effect which may result from “social desirability bias” (Bryman, 2004) Thiscan lead to a gap between what the students indicate and what they actually think and feelabout their learning and their teacher This issue is even more problematic in Vietnam,with the culture of communal and collective spirit, in which researchers, who try to explorethe organisation, may be considered as intruders However, this effect was minimised withprior contact and explanation to the principal of the school, who was recommended not tocreate pressure on the students and not to get involved in their filling in the questionnaires.Furthermore, the questionnaires were directly delivered to and collected from the students

by the researcher which actually brought about the participants’ co-operation andmotivation, and helped to achieve the high response rate, the authenticity of the datacollected, and the reliability of the research findings

It is considered to be invaluable in trying out the instrument to obtain informationabout the relevancy and clarity of the questions, the format, and the amount of timerequired to answer the questions from all of which, a decision is made on if thequestionnaire needs revising in order to improve its quality (Selinger and Shohamy, 1989).Hence, a pilot was conducted with six respondents, two from each of the grade blocks Therespondents were asked to fill in the questionnaire and then an evaluation form (Appendix2) After being piloted, the questionnaire was revised to devise the final version for thedata collection

2.4.3 Questionnaire items

The questionnaire was developed based on the variables identified during the process

of literature review and linked to the research objectives It was composed and delivered tothe participants in Vietnamese, and then translated into English for the aim of reporting.The full English version of the questionnaire can be found in Appendix 3

The questionnaire consists of 60 questions grouped in five parts The first part withthe first 22 items probes the students’ preference for typical English learning activities ofdifferent teaching approaches, which aims to answer research question 3 The second part,including items from #23 to #39, investigates the students’ opinions of the teacher’s role

and student’s role in the English language classroom, in order to answer research question

2 The third part of the questionnaire with items from #40 to #55 was supposed to answerthe first research question, which is concerned with the students’ belief about how learningshould take place Part four of the questionnaire, including three open-ended items, aims toanswer the third research question about the way students usually employ in learningEnglish both inside and outside the classroom The last two items of the questionnaireextracts the students’ personal information about gender and their English score ofsemester 1 in academic year 2013 – 2014, both of which are assumed to affect thestudents’ attitude towards learning activities

2.5 Data Collection and Analysis Procedure

The questionnaires were hand-delivered to the participants and collected directly bythe researcher After being collected, each of the returned questionnaires was marked with

a distinct code, which is to prevent errors during the data entry process The responseswere then fed into the computer, checked for correctness between on-paper and in-computer data, processed and analysed using SPSS (version 16.0) Accordingly, theresponses to the scale questions were analysed to work out the mean values, and the ones

to the open-ended questions were synthesised to extract the frequency of the learningactivities mentioned Based on these factors, the variables were interpreted, explained,validated to build up the findings and conclusions of the study

The data analysis adopted the inductive approach, in which the analysis frameworkwas, to some extent, less structured and relied much on data interpretation This means that

no proposition had been developed before the analysis; therefore, the analysis wasexpected not to be constrained or bound by any pre-determined assumption However, itwould be insufficient to rely solely on the empirical data from the questionnaire; thus, theanalysis made use of the prior development of theory from the literature about theinfluence of culture and CLT This provided a rigorous basis for the explanation of thefindings, guiding the analysis process and reaching the conclusions

Moreover, some principles were paid great attention to during the analysis process toensure confidentiality, anonymity and to avoid typographical errors as well as researcherbias, which may lead to misrepresentation of data This was partly guaranteed by theunbounded nature of the analysis, as discussed above All of this careful consideration

taken into methodological issues helped to ensure both the quality and quantity of the datacollected as well as to provide a robust basis for the development of the research findings.

Of the total 175 questionnaires delivered, 166 were returned, which made the overallresponse rate of 94.9 per cent A summary of the response rate is presented in Table 1

Of the 166 respondents, there were 44 males (27%), and 122 females (73 %) Interms of English proficiency, 21 respondents had good English score (from 8.0 to 10) insemester 1, academic year 2013 – 2014 (13%), 79 had fair score (from 6.5 to 7.9 – 47%),and 66 had medium score (from 5.0 to 6.4 – 40%) These characteristics of the respondentsare demonstrated in figures 2 and 3

Block Questionnaires delivered Questionnaires returned Response Rate (%)

Table 1 Questionnaires Delivered and Collected

Figure 2 Respondents’ Gender Figure 3 Respondents’ English Proficiency

2.6 Findings and Discussion

2.6.1 Beliefs about Language Learning

It would be a better idea to explore the students’ conceptions of learning, i.e theirbelief about how learning should take place This domain was probed in 16 questions, from

#40 to #55, in the questionnaire, and the students’ responses with the mean (M) values aretabulated in Table 2; the percentage of the responses can be found in Appendix 4

The purpose of learning is one among various cultural beliefs which may influencestudents’ attitudes towards English learning and types of learning activities In this respect

(item #40), the M value of 3.0 reveals that the students in this study were undetermined on

if they are learning in order to get good marks in exams, as their most important purpose ofgoing to school Success in exams seems to be no longer the “highest target” the studentswant to achieve, which is, to some extent, in contrast with the Vietnamese traditional belief

that learning is “to pass (exams) and to gain (success)” (đỗ đạt), and that one’s success in

life unavoidably stems from one’s demonstration of one’s own capacity in exams Thestudents may think that exam results do not necessary guarantee their success in later life,but their real ability

Q40 The purpose of learning is to get good marks in exams 166 3.00 1.165 Q41 Learning is a hard and serious undertaking; it requires students’ effortand patience; it is not an entertainment activity. 166 3.43 1.130 Q42 Learning is concerned with effort of individual students, not involvedwith collaboration and cooperation between students. 166 2.11 895 Q43 Students should always avoid making mistakes in learning 166 3.57 897 Q44 Teachers’ lectures are very important in students’ learning 166 4.14 571 Q45 In order for students to learn well, teachers have to give clearexplanation about grammar. 166 4.34 666 Q46 In order to learn well, students need to spend a lot of time memorisingwhat they have learnt in lessons. 166 3.90 803 Q47 Students learn better when learning takes place in the class as a whole,not in groups. 166 2.70 994 Q48 Students should maintain harmony with all of their classmates 166 4.37 655 Q49 In the classroom, a student should not express his/her opinions be-cause in case of incorrectness he/she will be laughed at by classmates. 166 1.75 964 Q50 In the classroom, a student should not express his/her opinions be-cause their classmates may think that he/she is boasting and not mod-

est.

166 1.69 872

Q51 In the classroom, a student should not debate with their classmates;otherwise, they may be made ashamed. 166 1.85 799 Q52 Students should not interrupt teacher’s lecture 166 3.33 1.161 Q53 In the classroom, students should not debate with the teacher on thelecture. 166 2.30 974 Q54 Students should only express their opinions when allowed by theteacher. 166 3.13 1.207 Q55 In class, students should not express their personal opinions 166 2.07 1.028

Table 2 Students’ Conceptions of Learning

In terms of the nature of learning, the participants largely believe that learning is ahard and serious undertaking; it requires deep commitment and painstaking effort, notinvolving with entertainment (item #41, M = 3.43) This is consistent with the Vietnameseconception of learning, but it impinges on the tenet of the CLT approach that in order forlearning to be effective it must be injected with elements of entertainment, such as various

language games, so that it can become a light-hearted, pleasant experience (Hu, 2002).Vietnamese people think that learning is drudgery, and it should be done, formally orinformally, in one’s whole life; therefore, it is always considered to be painful andponderous Learning in Vietnam is not only for the learner’s self but also for the family,relatives and moreover for the society and the nation For this reason, learning has been set

as a heavy task, and if someone decides to undertake this “career”, they must committhemselves with it This also explains that learners and learning in Vietnam are always paidmuch attention, interest, and given much support and priority of the family, society and thecountry However, while learning is traditionally compared to grinding an iron bar into a

needle (dùi mài kinh sử), which is much concerned with learners’ envisioning,

contemplation and reflection, the students in this study thought that learning is generallynot much linked with effort of individual learners and but related with collaboration andcooperation between learners (item #42, M = 2.11)

The unfavourable attitude of the students towards uncoordinated learning, to a largeextent, led to their negative attitude to the view that learning should take place in the class

as a whole, not in groups (item #47, M = 2.70) To the students, when learning isconducted with group work activities, students learn better This fits into the learningphilosophy underlying CLT in which language acquisition is an unpredictabledevelopmental process requiring a communicatively interactive and cooperativenegotiation of meaning on the part of students; therefore, the classroom is considered as acommunity where learners learn through collaboration and sharing (Richards, 2006, Beale,2002) For this reason, almost all types of learning activities in CLT concern pair andgroup work, and through completing these activities, students have more opportunities toshare information and help each other They have more time to speak and hear thelanguage; moreover, with equal relationships between members of the group, theirmotivation level is enhanced, which creates good conditions for the development offluency Nevertheless, this is in contrast with Kramsch’s and Sullivan’s (1996) view thatVietnamese students feel more comfortable communicating in a whole class setting, ratherthan in small group settings This contrast may signal the change in the students’ view onlearning, which may be much affected by the Western value of individualism This isbecause Vietnam is said to be a collectivist society (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005), inwhich each individual is and always try to be a member of the in-group, the collectivist