ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ MỘT GIÁO VIÊN NGƯỜI MĨ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN CHẤT LƯỢNG CAO NĂM THỨ HAI TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

In today’s modern world, learning foreign languages becomes more and more popular because of globalization, so it is common that people go abroad to other countries for working and language teaching. Therefore, in the context of intercultural communication, culture shock is believed to be unavoidable. For that reason, a research on how a visiting teacher encounters culture shocks to adapt a foreign culture would be beneficial to the researcher’s future career as an English teacher. There is no doubt that English becoming the international language for communication leads to a rise in English speaking teacher recruitment in many universities in Vietnam. However, it is a matter of fact that cultural barrier is one of the biggest problems in communicating in general and teaching in particular. Therefore, this study with the focus on the way an American lecturer encounters culture shock and her adaptation to Vietnamese culture helps the researcher raise an awareness of intercultural communication areas including American culture, Vietnamese culture as well as human culture. Furthermore, in the position as an undergraduate student at the Faculty of English language teacher education, the researcher realizes that effective teaching is one of the most important factors in the process of developing future career. After four years observing and working with local as well as foreign teachers in the context of intercultural communication, the researcher finds out that American lecturers’ teaching is very effective, attractive and interesting. Therefore, it motivates the researcher to involve their teaching in the thesis in order to make a useful and practical impact on the profession of teaching after graduation. Through the study, the researcher could create and develop personal career benefits as well as gain pedagogical experience from the professional American lecturer. All of these become the motivation that stimulates the researcher to conduct a research on “A case study of an American lecturer teaching speaking to the second year fast track classes at ULIS, VNU” from a perspective of Intercultural communication.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

A CASE STUDY OF AN AMERICAN LECTURER TEACHING SPEAKING TO THE SECOND-YEAR

FAST-TRACK CLASSES AT ULIS, VNU

(From a perspective of intercultural communication)

Supervisor: Ngô Hữu Hoàng, PhD

Student: Vũ Thị Thu Lý Course: QH2010.F1.E2

Hanoi, May 2014

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ MỘT GIÁO VIÊN NGƯỜI MĨ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN CHẤT LƯỢNG CAO NĂM THỨ HAI TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA

HÀ NỘI

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Ngô Hữu Hoàng

Sinh viên: Vũ Thị Thu Lý Khóa: QH2010.F1.E2

Hà Nội - 2014

I hereby state that I: Vũ Thị Thu Lý, E2K44, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating

to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian or the care, loan or reproduction of the paper.

Signature

Vũ Thị Thu Lý

Date: May 5 th 2014

On the completion of this work, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to

my supervisor, Dr Ngô Hữu Hoàng, who gave me the benefit of his wisdom,advice and patience, who made valuable suggestions and careful critical commentsthat helped me to carry out this study

Besides, I want to express my gratefulness to Ms X, who is the Americanteacher participating enthusiastically in my research as the direct participants I amalso indebted to 25 second- year students of Fast- track program for agreeing toparticipate in my paper

Finally, I want to express my love and gratitude to my beloved friendsand family for supporting me wholeheartedly

As one of the first attempts to raise an awareness of Interculturalcommunication, the paper aims at investigating the cultural problems, culturaladaptation of a visiting American lecturer who is teaching English in Vietnam aswell as the attitudes of the students towards her behaviors To fulfill this primaryaim, qualitative method with two research instruments including interviews andobservations were adopted The participants of the study were an American lecturerand 41 second-year students of Fast-Track Program The most significant finding ofthe research was that in spite of short-term living in Vietnam with a lot of cultureshocks, the visiting American lecturer was successful to adapt Vietnamese cultureand demonstrated high teacher credibility thanks to her strategies and theglobalization going on in Vietnam The paper, therefore, would serve as a goodreference for both English language teachers and foreign language specializedstudents who desire to have a closer look at this issue or to improve theirIntercultural sense

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

INTRODUCTION 1

I Rationale of the study 1

II Aims of the study 2

III Research questions 2

IV Significance of the study 2

V Scope of the study 3

VI Design of the paper 3

DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Previous studies 5

1.1.1 Related studies in Vietnam 5

1.1.2 Related studies in the world 5

1.2 Theoretical background 9

1.2.1 Intercultural communication 9

1.2.2 Culture shock 10

1.2.3 Cultural adaptation 11

1.2.4 Teaching English as a view of Intercultural communication 11

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13

2.1 Why a case study? 13

2.1.1 Definitions of case study 13

2.1.2 A reason of “case study” for the research 14

2.2 Steps of study implementation 15

2.3 Phase 1: Interview 15

2.3.1 Participants 15

2.3.2 Data collection 15

2.3.3 Data analysis 18

2.4 Phase two: Observation 19

2.5.1 Participants 19

2.5.2 Data collection 19

2.5.3 Data analysis 22

CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY 23

3.1 Phase one 23

3.1.1 Feedbacks of the teacher 23

3.1.2 Feedbacks of students 27

3.2 Phase two 33

3.2.1 The teacher’s cultural adaptation 33

3.2.2 The teacher’s intercultural sense affecting the students 35

CONCLUSION 39

I Major findings of the study 39

1 Findings from the interviews 39

2 Findings from the observations 39

II Contributions of the study 40

III Limitations of the study 41

1 Limitations of the methodology 41

2 Limitations of the researcher 41

IV Suggestions for further study 42

REFERENCES 44

APPENDIX 1 48

APPENDIX 2 49

The first part of the study discusses the rationale, the aims, the scope as well

as the significance of the study together with a brief overview of the research Thetwo research questions, in particular, are clearly identified to work as the guidelinesfor the whole paper

I Rationale of the study

In today’s modern world, learning foreign languages becomes more and morepopular because of globalization, so it is common that people go abroad to othercountries for working and language teaching Therefore, in the context ofintercultural communication, culture shock is believed to be unavoidable For thatreason, a research on how a visiting teacher encounters culture shocks to adapt aforeign culture would be beneficial to the researcher’s future career as an Englishteacher

There is no doubt that English becoming the international language forcommunication leads to a rise in English speaking teacher recruitment in manyuniversities in Vietnam However, it is a matter of fact that cultural barrier is one ofthe biggest problems in communicating in general and teaching in particular.Therefore, this study with the focus on the way an American lecturer encountersculture shock and her adaptation to Vietnamese culture helps the researcher raise anawareness of intercultural communication areas including American culture,Vietnamese culture as well as human culture

Furthermore, in the position as an undergraduate student at the Faculty ofEnglish language teacher education, the researcher realizes that effective teaching isone of the most important factors in the process of developing future career Afterfour years observing and working with local as well as foreign teachers in thecontext of intercultural communication, the researcher finds out that Americanlecturers’ teaching is very effective, attractive and interesting Therefore, itmotivates the researcher to involve their teaching in the thesis in order to make a

useful and practical impact on the profession of teaching after graduation Throughthe study, the researcher could create and develop personal career benefits as well

as gain pedagogical experience from the professional American lecturer

All of these become the motivation that stimulates the researcher to conduct aresearch on “A case study of an American lecturer teaching speaking to the second-year fast- track classes at ULIS, VNU” from a perspective of Interculturalcommunication

II Aims of the study

This study aims at discovering the difficulties, attitudes as well as strategies of

an American lecturer when she comes to a foreign country namely Vietnam forlanguage teaching Also, the study investigates the way how Vietnamese studentsidentify the cultural differences, their attitudes towards a foreign culture throughthe teacher’s behaviors as well as how they are influenced by the foreign teacher

III Research questions

In the implementation of this research, the researcher tries to answer thesefollowing research questions:

1) What cultural problems does she_ the visiting American lecturer_ encounter when living and teaching in Vietnam?

2) How well does she adapt herself in Vietnamese culture?

IV Significance of the study

As a future English teacher, the researcher realizes that a good teachingmethod does not include only the teaching of four skills: listening, speaking,reading and writing Suffice it to say that it is necessary to achieve the Interculturalsense in order to gain professional development from the American lecturerthrough this kind of research In other words, it could be beneficial for the

researcher’s future career by training the Intercultural sense thanks to the teaching

of the visiting lecturer

Also, it is clearly seen that the current research into the area of Englishspeaking teaching from a perspective of Intercultural communication is highlylimited Therefore, this study will partly help fill the gap in the literature

Although the study is carried out as a small scale one, the researcher hopesthat its results could be a good source for both teachers and students who areconcerning about English teaching and intercultural communication

V Scope of the study

Although there are many other lecturers in the English Department of ULIS,VNU, the researcher choose Ms X for several reasons She is responsible forteaching speaking to two second-year fast-track classes Therefore, all the studentsfrom class 12E1 and 12E15 and their American speaking teacher are included inthis study The decision to focus on two cases of the visiting American lecturer andher students was made based on the purpose of referencing their problems, attitudesand strategies to adapt a foreign culture

VI Design of the paper

The study consists of three main parts:

INTRODUCTION – includes the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the

significance and the scope of the study

DEVELOPMENT:

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW - provides the background of the study

and related studies on the issue

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY - describes in details the participants,

instruments of the study as well as the procedure which the research follows

CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY - analyzes data found out and discusses the outcomes

CONCLUSION – summarizes the main issue of the paper, the limitations of the

research and gives some suggestions for further studies

The REFERENCES and APPENDICES include a list of references that the

researcher used for the research, guided questions for interview and interviewtranscript

DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter mentions previous studies in Vietnam and in the world related

to the topic as well as provides the theoretical background including interculturalcommunication, culture shock, cultural adaptation and teaching English as a view

or Intercultural communication

1.1 Previous studies

1.1.1 Related studies in Vietnam

In this part, the researcher attempted to review the literature related to somecases of cultural shocks and cultural adaptation with a lot of studies have beenconducted worldwide However, as teaching English in a view of culturalcommunication is rather new in Vietnam, not much research has been done into thisarea The researcher found no piece of research of Vietnamese researchers on thisissue in the library of Vietnam National University or on the Internet, whichjustifies more research to gain insight into intercultural communication in thecontext of Vietnam, particularly at ULIS, VNU

1.1.2 Related studies in the world

These founded case studies were carried out as investigations in foreignstudents’ adaptation when coming to another country for further research Still,there was a lack of exploring that of a foreign teacher

(i) Cultural Influence in Intercultural Adaptation- A Case Study of My Son's

"Cultural Clash" in the United States

This is a case study of a Chinese student going abroad to America for highereducation The focus is on how culture influences the way he encounters culturaldifferences in the United States Whereas most studies focus on cultural awareness,culture shock, psychological adjustment, this study emphasizes the importance ofculture influence in intercultural adaptation The cultural influences here are

examined to be integrated into a relationship of cultural values and culturalconflicts

Throughout the study, related terms including culture, cultural values,cultural differences and cultural adaptation are discussed respectively in order tofigure out the problems that the writer’s son met when he had to face with a main-stream culture, the reasons for that and what he could do for his adaptation toAmerican life Firstly, according to Varner and Beamer (1995), culture is thecoherent, learned, shared view a group of people has about life's concerns that rankwhat is important, instills attitudes about what things are appropriate, andprescribes behavior, given that some things have more significance than others.Whereas, Pedersen and Hofstede (2002) argued that "culture is rather like the color

of your eyes; you cannot change it or hide it, and although you cannot see ityourself, it is always visible to other people when you interest with them" (p.196)

Based on those definitions of culture, Feather (1990) indicated that “culturalvalues provide broad guidelines about what are acceptable means for achievingend-states in different situations and influence cultural norms and rules” Individualvalues are also considered to “provide specific guidelines for behavior acrosssituations” (Feather, 1990) Those affect communication styles across cultures,according to Gudykunst, Matsumoto, Ting - Toomey, Nishida, Kim, and Heyman(1996) Since different countries have different cultural values, misunderstandingamong people can be caused easily It is also argued that misunderstanding andinappropriate intervention are caused by inaccurate interpretation of outside peoplefrom cultural context Therefore, it is believed that the cultural differences are thegreatest obstacles that prevent the Chinese student from adapting to the UnitedStates of America culture The reason for misunderstanding is the lack ofknowledge about American culture Hence, sometimes the Chinese studentmisconceives American behaviors

With the belief that cultural differences are the hinder for people tounderstand each other well, Chen and Starosta (1997) claimed that “harmony is thecardinal value of the Chinese culture” A successful communication is when a

harmonious relationship established This is when conflict is considered to be adetractor from harmony rather than only a problem of communication That partlyexplains why Chinese are more likely engage in conflict towards out groupmembers In China culture, a serious conflict can be caused by losing one’s face.Looking back to the Chinese student’s situation, when he saw an old lady pullingthe small cart with lots of books and rushed forward to push the cart for her withoutany hesitation, he just got words “No help! I can do it Thank you” Then the boy

“flushed his face and felt puzzled and depress, left there as quickly as possible”.The reason for his action and emotion is that he accepts traditional education inChina That is “everyone should respect any old person, especially when youngpeople see their familiar or unfamiliar old person who needs help, he or she shouldgive his or her hands to the old one” Nevertheless, America culture is totallydifferent Helping the lady may let her think “I am old and useless” and feeloffended That is the reason why the lady refused the boy’s help

Above all, it is necessary that the Chinese students should learn certainthings about another culture’s priorities, what attitudes its members have, and howthey think people would behave By doing so, Chinese students can guess howpeople from another culture expect them to act with the knowing of how they thinkfor the purpose of acting appropriately under circumstances so as to overcomeproblems from cultural differences Also, Hofstede’s advice: “The principle ofsurviving in a multicultural world is that one does not need to think, feel, and act inthe same way in order to agree on practical issues and to cooperate” would be agood suggestion

(ii) Cultural Adaptation: A case study of Asian students’ learning experiences at

a New Zealand University

The number of Asian students studying in New Zealand in 2005 counts foreighty-five percent of international students, which raises an enormous concern forthe New Zealand education industry to explore the level of satisfaction of Asianstudents with their learning experiences This study provides a critical summary of

some important and yet challenging issues in teaching Asian students In order tomeet these challenges, it is said to be important to review and adapt pedagogicalpractices and to realign the students to the needs of both local and internationalstudents

In detailed, studying in a different country can be an exciting andchallenging experience for international students who have to experience manyadjustment problems, particularly those relating to academic, socio-cultural andpsychological adjustment (Ward & Kenny, 1993) According to Ward, Bochner, &Furnham (2001), problems can arise from differences in the linguisticallydetermined of the communication patterns of the participants In other words, thecloser the student culture is to that of the host community, the easier the interactionand adjustment will be (Mehdizadeh & Scott, 2005)

Normally, there are several factors that are said to influence Asian studentscultural adaptation, such as English language skills, prior learning experiences,beliefs, cultural values, conceptions of learning, personal traits, and motivations(Berno & Ward, 2004) Therefore, it is necessary for those students to makeacademic adjustments in a new territory where there are different patterns ofteacher-student interactions, classroom cultures, academic requirements andexpectations, and different concepts and definitions of what constitutes goodteaching and learning (Ward, Bochner & Furham, 2001)

Asian students have to make every effort to adapt when studying in NewZealand However, there are so many cultural differences that they have toencounter Many participants in the study assert that they enjoy independentlearning, but when the lecturers adopt teaching method aiming to facilitate studentsindependent learning skills, they feel disheartened as they found that these methodsare incompatible with their expectations For example, some of them say that it isunfair to require students to produce more outputs than the inputs they hadreceived Also, they point out that the current teaching methods adopted by thelecturers at the university is based on an assumption that students have already been

equipped with independent learning skills, which become an interculturalcommunication barrier that both lectures and Asian students have to overcome

A qualitative research approach was adopted to find out the results First, theAsian students’ cultural adaptation affects much of their satisfaction In otherwords, the better they adapt to the new environments, the more positive theirlearning experience is In the process of cultural adaptation, on the one hand, theymade every attempt to adapt to the new learning culture; on the other hand, theytried to make best use of learning skills acquired in their own countries Second, thestudy suggests that in the age of globalization, it is important that lecturers and hostinstitutions are professionally responsible to make adaptations to help Asianinternational students cope with cultural differences, equip them with adequateknowledge of academic discourses, and transcend the culturally framed border andsubjective

1.2 Theoretical background

1.2.1 Intercultural communication

As cited in “Promoting Intercultural Communication” (Fareeda, 2012), “theterm intercultural communication involves a wide range of communication issuesthat inevitably arise within an organization composed of individuals from avariety of religious, social, ethnic and technical backgrounds Each of theseindividuals brings a unique set of experiences and values to the workplace, many ofwhich can be traced to the culture in which they grew up and now operate” (SBE,2002) The term is divided into two key words which are “inter” and “cultural”.They signify a multidisciplinary field, involving people having divergent ways ofthinking and doing possibly belonging to different geographical areas and speaking

a variety of languages

Other definitions assume that “intercultural communication is adynamic process of interrelation, transference and exchange of cultural values andcultural specificities, and a process of interaction of diverse cultures which are

being increasingly marked by new information and communicationtechnologies” (Vertovec & Cohen,2002)

According to Dodd (1991), intercultural communication is a scientific fieldwhose object of interest is the interaction between individuals and groups fromdifferent cultures, and which examines the influence of culture on who people are,how they act, feel, think and, evidently, speak and list As described by Vila (2005),intercultural communication may be defined as a communicative process involvingindividuals from reference cultures which are sufficiently different to be perceived

as such, with certain personal and/or contextual barriers having to be overcome inorder to achieve effective communication

The perception of the definition of intercultural communication differsamong researchers But “it is true that the world is shrinking and the contact ofpeople from different cultural backgrounds has been increasing more than everbefore as that in the process of intercultural communication, there are lots ofbarriers such as language differences, different values, cultural shock, whichgreatly affect human communication” (Zhou & Cui, 2007)

1.2.2 Culture shock

“Culture shock is experienced when returning to a place that one expects to

be home but actually is no longer, is far more subtle, and therefore, more difficult

to manage than outbound shock precisely because it is unexpected andunanticipated,” says Dean Foster, founder and president of DFA InterculturalGlobal Solutions

In other words, almost everyone who studies, lives or works abroadexperiences some degree of difficulties in adjusting to the new culture Thisresponse is commonly referred to as “culture shock” Culture shock can be defined

as the physical and emotional discomfort a person experience when entering aculture different from his or her own (Weaver, 1993) According to Oberg (1960),

Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all ourfamiliar signs and symbols of social intercourse These signs or cuesinclude the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the

situations of daily life… All of us depend for our peace of mind and ourefficiency on hundreds of these cues, most of which we do not carry on thelevel of conscious awareness…Now when an individual enters a strangeculture, all or most of these familiar cues are removed (p 177)

1.2.3 Cultural adaptation

Berry (as cited in Sam, 2003, p.52) defined adaptation to be the relativelystable changes that take place in an individual or group in response to externaldemands Psychological adaptation, operation in terms of depression or mooddisturbance, refers to psychological or emotional well- being according to a stressand coping framework, while socio- cultural adaptation, measured in relation to theability to “fit in”, or interactive aspects of the new culture, which is subjected to asocial learning paradigm (as cited in Ward & Kennedy, 1999; Sam & Berry, 2003,p.13)

These two kinds of adaptations are said to be predicted by different factors.The former is believed to be predicted by personality, life changes and socialsupport while the latter is predicted by length of residence, language ability,cultural distance, quantity of contact with host nationals etc

1.2.4 Teaching English as a view of Intercultural communication

(i) English teaching in Vietnamese context

According to Crystal (1997), several geographical and historical factors aswell as socio-cultural ones led to the initial spread of English Smith (1976)stated that “As an international language, English is used both in a global sensefor intercultural communication between countries and in a local sense as alanguage of wider communication within multilingual societies” InVietnamese context, people learn English as a foreign language, not a secondlanguage, which leads to a lack of their motivation to achieve thecommunicative skills in English (Ngo, 2014) Therefore, they may be quitegood at communicating with English speaking people but get troubled in

Intercultural communication, where not only English speaking people but alsothe whole world speaks that language (Ngo, 2014) This is partly becauseEnglish is taught with the only aim of Vietnamese people being able tocommunicate with English speaking people In other words, Vietnamesepeople still pursue a native English speaker model while the control of thislanguage is gradually shifting away from native speakers (Crystal, 2004).Additionally, as it is an international language, “the use of English is no longerconnected to the culture of countries where English is used as the firstlanguage” (Smith, 1976)

(ii) English teaching in Intercultural communication context

The situation of teaching English in Vietnam now improves thanks to theglobalization going on in the country, which leads to a need of Vietnamesepeople using more English to communicate in intercultural contexts (Ngo,2014) Since one of the primary functions of English, as is the case with anyinternational language, is to enable speakers to share their ideas and cultures(McKay, 2005), it results in a lack of a pedagogical model which promotesVietnamese learners’ English skills for global communication (Ngo, 2014).Moreover, it is said that today 80 percent of English language teachingprofessionals worldwide are non-native speakers (Canagarajah, 1999b) Hence,teaching English as a view of Intercultural communication also mean teachingEnglish for the purpose of communicating with all people worldwide That is,

“learners use English to contact whoever and acquire whatever they needwithout the possibility of the interference of their mother tongue” (Ngo, 2014).English learners are not necessary to learn English from only native speakingteachers but also learn from non-native speaking teachers

In general, in the context of Intercultural communication, teaching Englishrequires a need of the English teachers to balance between sharing a culturewith cultural behaviors and adapting Vietnamese culture The former and thelatter are equal with the use of English as a global language to communicate

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

In this part, the researcher provided a justification for the choice of casestudy, followed by an overview of the settings of the current study Afterwards, adetailed look at its methodology was provided There were two distinct phases inthe study

Since this is a piece of research on a visiting American lecturer who isteaching English in Vietnam, her cultural problems, her adaptation and thereactions of the students towards her behaviors are all explored, which makes theresearcher decide to conduct a case study

2.1 Why a case study?

2.1.1 Definitions of case study

Yin (1984) stated that the case study is the most flexible of all researchdesign, allowing the researcher to retain the holistic characteristics of real-lifeevents while investigating empirical events In other words, a case study is anempirical inquiry which investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearlyevident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used

A case study’s definitions abound that are useful or maybe not Webster’s dictionary (2009) defines a case study straightforwardly as follows:

Merriam-Case study An intensive analysis of an individual unit (as a person

or community) stressing development factors in relation to environment.

According to this definition, case studies focus on an “individual unit”, what

is mentioned above as a “functioning specific” or “bounded system” So the firstdecisive factor in defining a study as a case study is the choice of the individualunit of study and the setting of its boundaries, its “casting” to use Ragin’s (1992,p.217) felicitous term (Le, 2012)

Case study is also considered to be intensive Le (2012) states that “case

for the unit of study than does cross- unit analysis The commitment with in- depthdetails, with intensiveness is what makes case study distinguishable from surveyresearch” She also emphasizes that case studies stress development factors Itmeans that a case typically evolves in time and place And case studies focus onrelation to environment which means the context

Gerring (2004, p.342) has correctly pointed out that the many academicattempts to clarify what case study means has resulted in “a definitional morass”,and each time someone attempts to clear up the mess of definitions it just getsworse So it is better to stay with definitions from Webster’s as they are morecommonsensical definitions

2.1.2 A reason of “case study” for the research

With the aim of getting thorough understanding of the issue and increasingthe validity of the study, the paper was conducted in qualitative approach since ithelped the researcher collect the participants’ feelings, emotions as well as thesounds and vision, illustrated by Cohen et al (2007) and Denscombe (2007) Casestudy was chosen to be the research methodology for several reasons

First, according to Yin (1984), in a case study, the examination of the data ismost often conducted within the context of its use, that is, within the situation inwhich the activity takes place For example, in this case study, the researcher wasinterested in the adaptation of an American lecturer To explore her encounter withcultural differences, the researcher must observe the subject within herenvironment, such as her teaching in classroom This would contrast withexperiment, for instance which deliberately isolates a phenomenon from its context,focusing on a limited number of variables (Zaidah, 2003)

Second, Zaidah (2003) states that the detailed qualitative accounts oftenproduced in case studies not only help to explore or describe the data in real-lifeenvironment, but also help to explain the complexities of real-life situations whichmay not be captured through experimental or survey research

Although case study is often labeled as being too long, difficult to conductand producing a massive amount of documentation (Yin, 1984), it was considereduseful in this study as it enabled researcher to examine data at the micro level

2.2 Steps of study implementation

The participants in this study were an American lecturer and all second- yearEnglish students at two fast- track classes at ULIS, VNU The study was dividedinto two phases In phase one the researcher aimed at a general description of thetarget subject’s encounter with culture shocks when living and teaching in Vietnam

In phase two, the researcher moved into closer investigation of her adjustments andmodifications so as to adapt to Vietnamese culture

Therefore, two different instruments were used in the two phases to collectthe needed data in order to answer different research questions In phase one, theresearcher conducted in- depth interviews with the target American lecturer as well

as some students to answer the first research question In phase two, the researcherused observation to seek answers to the second research question

2.3 Phase 1: Interview

The research question to be answered in this phase is the first one: “What cultural problems does the American lecturer encounter when living and teaching in Vietnam?”

2.3.1 Participants

In this phase, before observing the speaking lessons of the chosen year fast- track classes, the researcher conducted five interviews with the Americanteacher as well as 2 students from class 12E1 and 2 students from class 12E15

second-2.3.2 Data collection

(1) Justification for the use of email interview

There are several reasons for choosing email interview as one of the majorresearch instruments in the study Regarding to time saving, observation could helpreduce the time of travelling to the interview location Moreover, it would be muchconvenient to both the interviewer and interviewees to arrange time flexibly as toinvest in the focused questions Also, the researcher could save time transcribingthe interview as the answers were all typed into the computer In addition, emailcould help the researcher conducted a large number of interviews at the same time.

In other words, the interview with the teacher and the interview with the studentswere conducted at the same period of time

In terms of informed and confidentiality, email interview could ensure thatall information and names of the interviewees were kept confidentially Concerningthat many people perceive online communication as anonymous because there is noin-person contact and thus, little accountability This anonymity may explain whysome people are more willing to participate in email interview studies, whereasothers are more willing to stop participating, not respond in a timely fashion,embellish more, or be less friendly to the interview, as cited in Meho (2005)

As for data quality, the quality of responses gained through online research

is much the same as responses produced by more traditional methods, (Denscombe,

2005, p.51) The same conclusion was reached in several studies that compared, orconducted, both email and face-to-face interviews (Curasi, 2001; Meho & Tibbo,2003; Murray, 2004; Murray & Harrison, 2004) In these studies, participantsinterviewed via email are proved to be more focused on the interview questions andprovided more reflectively dense accounts than that in face-to-face interviews

(2) Description of the interview schedule

The interview schedule employed in this study is a semi- structured one,with two major parts

The aim of the first part is to provide the researcher with general profiles ofthe interviewees The first question for the teacher was about her years of living inVietnam, and the first question for students was their time of learning English

The second part of the interview questions for the teacher contains twoquestions Question 1 asks the respondent about some problems that sheencountered when living and teaching in Vietnam Question 2 asks about how theseproblems affect her and how they are solved

The second part of the interview questions for the students contains twoquestions Question 1 asks the respondents about their experience studying withforeign teachers, for instance, about whether they have ever worked with a foreignteacher, and whether there are any behaviors of the teacher that cause confusionsand misunderstandings Question 2 asks about their observation of their teacher’sadaptation to Vietnamese culture

In terms of language use in the interviews, the researcher approached thestudents in a more informal way All emails sent to the students were the same withregard to the content of the interview Also, the number of students interviewedwas chosen randomly, including two students from class 12E1 and two studentsfrom class 12E15

During the interview process via email, the researcher might ask theinterviewees to give further information or detailed explanation to clarify theiranswers so as to ensure the quality of the results As it was necessary to investigate

in the every single adaptation of the American lecturer, some extra-interviews wereconducted right after the observations as the researcher found out anything thatwere unclear and confusing about her behavior, attitude, etc in the classroom Theparticipants were very supportive and enthusiastic, which made the interviews veryflowing and natural The answers of the respondents to each of these two questionsoften contained more than one idea Since they were interviewed via email, theycould freely express their ideas and feelings without the fear for their identity andreputation With each question, the respondents were asked to rank the ideas inorder of importance so that the research could transcribe them easier later

(3) Procedure of data collection

Step 1: Preparation

The researcher made a set of interview questions for both teacher andstudents and send two different emails for the two kinds of subjects As theresearcher had a time being familiar with those students, it was quite easy tocontact their monitors (or some other representatives of these classes) and asked fortheir permission to interview them

Step 2: Conducting the interviews

All the interviews with the teacher and the students were conducted inEnglish They were quite acquainted with the researcher through some observations

so that the conversation via email had no significance difference from the face interviews or interviews through mobile phone

face-to-Before starting each interview, the researcher promised to keep theinterviewees’ names in confidentiality in the current study So they would bementioned in the results as anonymous The participants were informed of the basiccontent of the study beforehand so that they could have general information aboutthe interview Then, they were asked to answer the interview questions which werearranged in the order specified in the interview schedule The interviews with bothteacher and students were conducted at the same time via email with differentquestions Previously, the researcher made a list of respondents including theirname, class, email address and their phone number thanks to two monitors of class12E1 and 12E15 Therefore, the researcher could check and ensure the number ofemails replied There were some respondents who did not answer the interviewquestions for unknown reasons, so the researcher waited for about one week fromthe date that the email for interview was sent, and then contacted them againthrough mobile phone to remind them about the interview

The number of the interviewees was not large, so there was no need for anysoftware to transcribe them When the interviews were completed, the informationfrom the respondents were transcribed and interpreted by the researcher to analyzeand reach the conclusion

2.3.3 Data analysis

The analysis of the interviews was broken into three smaller steps.

Step 1: Transcribing the interviews

Firstly, all the interviews with both the teacher and students from the twosecond- year fast- track classes were transcribed to enable an in-depth investigation

of the information gathered from the respondents This helped make theexamination of data more convenient and enabled quotations to be made accurately

Step 2: Classifying the data

The data collected from the interviews with teacher and students wereclassified according to the research question that they answered Therefore, therewere two major groups of answers corresponding to the teacher’s encounter withcultural problems and her adaptation

Step 3: Interpreting the data

After collecting and grouping the data, the researcher compared andcontrasted the information given by the teacher and students for greaterunderstanding of the data with the aim of finding out the connections between themand then jumped to the conclusions

2.4 Phase two: Observation

2.5.1 Participants

In this phase, the researcher asked for permission of the visiting Americanlecturer to be present at each period of speaking lesson Also, the researcherinformed the students via their monitor before the observation, guaranteed that itwould not affect their teaching and studying In other words, there was oneAmerican lecturer who was in charge of teaching speaking, 20 students from class12E1, 21 students from class 12E15, which means 42 participants in total

2.5.2 Data collection

(1) Justification for the use of observation

There were certain reasons for the decision of choosing observation wasmade The first reason was because of its directness As the researcher involved inthe lesson directly, everything would be recorded as the most truthful evidence For

instance, instead of asking people about their actions in a certain situation, theresearcher could actually observe and record their attitudes, their behaviors as well

as their actions Moreover, observation could avoid inaccurate or uncompletedanswers from the participants, which are the common problems of questionnairesince sometimes people might answer the same way as they think the researcherexpect them to do, no matter how different they are in reality

The second reason for choosing observation was because of its diversity,flexibility and applicability According to Mackey and Gass (2005), it can “providethe researcher with the opportunity to collect large amounts of rich data on theparticipants’ behaviors and actions within a particular context” Moreover,observation is also considered to be one of the “methods of generating data whichinvolve the researcher immersing in a research setting and systematically observingdimensions of that setting, interactions, relationships, actions, events, and so on,within it”, cited in Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.175

Last but not least, the decision to choose observation was made because ofits provision of a permanent record It would be kept as a very helpful source forfurther research and analysis In spite of so many benefits that the researcher couldgain from observation, some drawbacks of observation were also taken intoconsideration Among the typical weaknesses, it was insufficient not to mentiontime consuming and observer effect The latter is a so- called potential one as thesubject might be affected by the presence of the observer In order to minimizethese negative effects of observation, the researcher tried to arrange time to observeconveniently and attempted to be as unobtrusive as possible

(2) Description of the observation schedule

The researcher contacted with the target subject as well as the monitors ofclass 12E1 and 12E15 via email two weeks before the observation date to ask forpermission to come to attend those classes As planned, the researcher attendedtwenty-four sessions of speaking conducted by the target American lecturer Theresearcher came very early each class and tried to make the students be familiar

with the researcher’s presence In order to make sure that the presence of theobserver does not have any significance on the classroom setting and avoid the risk

of being an “obtrusive observer” (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.187), the researcher didnot intervene in their lessons and attended as a non- participant by staying at theback of the class for the whole period so as not to distract the students

At the beginning of the lesson, the researcher set the camera at the corner ofthe last table in the classroom so that it did not catch their attention but stillrecorded with good quality In other words, the recordings of the lessons inordinary classrooms were made in the “high- tech approach” (Wallace, 1991,p.101) Apparently, this act of filming the lesson was permitted by both theAmerican lecturer and the students beforehand Wallace (1991) suggested that thistool had “undoubted convenience of electronic playback” (p.101) as a source ofreference for observers Before each lesson, the researcher also prepared smallpieces of papers to take notes

(3) Data collection procedure

The data collection procedure consists of two steps: preparation and observation

Step 1: Preparation

In the preparation step, the observation was carried out in lessons with thevisiting American lecturer of English speaking to two second- year fast- trackclasses during the six-week period Firstly, the researcher thought about thequestion that was planned to be answer through observation To be more specific,the researcher wanted to find the answer for research question number two, whichfocused on the way she_ the visiting American lecturer encountered cultural shocks

to adapt herself in Vietnamese culture after observing her teaching After that, theresearcher prepared recording sheets and field notes which could help collectobservation data easily and systematically Then the researcher timed theobservations appropriately by planning in advance the exact dates of the observedclasses with the consideration of holidays and examinations

Step 2: Observation