SỐC NGƯỢC VĂN HÓA Ở CÁC DU HỌC SINH VIỆT NAM SAU KHI VỀ NƯỚC

Little is known about the reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students who have lived and studied in America. Reverse culture shock may impact their process of integration into their home culture. This research investigated the reverse culture shock that Vietnamese students faced after their return to Vietnam. It also examined the correlation between the age of moving oversea, the time living oversea and the influence of reverse culture shock. In this study, qualitative research design was applied. This study used the method of purposive sampling to take the participants and employed content analysis to analyze the data. This research revealed several findings. First, the returnees experience reveres culture shock mostly in language, cuisine, working style and traffic culture. Secondly, the age at which the students move oversea negatively correlates with the influence of reverse culture shock, and there exists the positive correlation between the time of living oversea and the influence of reverse culture shock.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK

IN VIETNAMESE STUDENTS RETURNING FROM AMERICAN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Đào Thị Thu Trang, MA.

Student: Trần Thị Thúy Hà Course: QH2010.F1.E21

HÀ NỘI - 2014

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

SỐC NGƯỢC VĂN HÓA

Ở CÁC DU HỌC SINH VIỆT NAM

SAU KHI VỀ NƯỚC

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Đào Thị Thu Trang, MA Sinh viên: Trần Thị Thúy Hà

Khóa: QH2010.F1.E21

HÀ NỘI - 2014

ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Tran Thi Thuy Ha – QH2010.F.1.E.21 , 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 for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper.

Signature

First and foremost, I want to say thanks to my dear friend - TuyetNhung, who always urged me to accomplish this study and helped me with

so many things

Secondly, this study would not be completed without the help from

my supervisor – Dao Thi Thu Trang, MA Thanks to her, I could see clearlythe direction of the research Besides, the contribution from adorablefriends who are the subjects of my study is very useful to me They are theones who show their great willingness to join this research

I also want to express my sincere gratitude to Mr Michael Vu.Thanks to the conversation with him, I have the idea for the topic of thisresearch He also helped me to invite his relatives and friends to participate

in my study

Little is known about the reverse culture shock in Vietnamesestudents who have lived and studied in America Reverse culture shock mayimpact their process of integration into their home culture This researchinvestigated the reverse culture shock that Vietnamese students faced aftertheir return to Vietnam It also examined the correlation between the age ofmoving oversea, the time living oversea and the influence of reverse cultureshock

In this study, qualitative research design was applied This studyused the method of purposive sampling to take the participants andemployed content analysis to analyze the data This research revealedseveral findings First, the returnees experience reveres culture shockmostly in language, cuisine, working style and traffic culture Secondly, theage at which the students move oversea negatively correlates with theinfluence of reverse culture shock, and there exists the positive correlationbetween the time of living oversea and the influence of reverse cultureshock

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATION

Illustration 1: Steps of data collection procedure

Figure 1: The U-curve in culture shock process

Figure 2: The W-curve in culture shock process

Figure 3: The age when Vietnamese students moved to the U.S

Table 1 Frequency of aspect of reverse culture shock in Vietnamese

students

Table 2 Frequency of reverse culture shock in language

Table 3 Frequency of reverse culture shock in cuisine

Table 4 Frequency of reverse culture shock in traffic culture

Table 5 Frequency of reverse culture shock in working style

Table 6 The reason of reverse culture shock in working style

Figure 4: Time period Vietnamese students lived in the U.S

Table 7 Frequency of reverse culture shock in service

Table 8 Frequency of reverse culture shock in traditional custom

Figure 5: Attitude towards aspects of reverse culture shock

Table 9 Frequency of attitude towards reverse culture shock

Table 10 Level of negative effect due to reverse culture shock

Figure 6: Attitude towards reverse culture shock

Figure 7: Frequency of reverse culture shock problems

Figure 8: experiencing time of reverse culture shock

Table of Content

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Error! Bookmark not defined.

1 Statement of research problem and rationale Error! Bookmark not defined.

3 Significance of the research Error! Bookmark not defined.

4 Scope of the study Error! Bookmark not defined.

5 Thesis structure Error! Bookmark not defined.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Error! Bookmark not defined.

1 Definition of key concepts Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1 Culture Error! Bookmark not defined 1.2 Culture shock Error! Bookmark not defined 1.3 Reverse culture shock Error! Bookmark not defined.

2 Related studies on the reverse culture shock Error! Bookmark not defined.

3 Chapter conclusion Error! Bookmark not defined.

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Error! Bookmark not defined.

1 Discussion of participants Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1 Selection of participants Error! Bookmark not defined 1.2 Sampling method Error! Bookmark not defined.

2 Research design Error! Bookmark not defined.

3 Data collection Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1 Data collection instrument Error! Bookmark not defined 3.2 Construction of data collection instrument Error! Bookmark not defined 3.3 Data collection procedure Error! Bookmark not defined.

3 Data analysis method Error! Bookmark not defined.

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Error! Bookmark not defined.

1 Findings Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1 Aspects of reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students Error! Bookmark not

defined.

1.2 Attitude towards reverse culture shock Error! Bookmark not defined 1.3 Influence of reverse culture shock Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.4 Time experiencing reveres culture shock Error! Bookmark not defined.

2 Application of the research Error! Bookmark not defined.

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION Error! Bookmark not defined.

1 Summary of the findings Error! Bookmark not defined.

2 Limitation of the study Error! Bookmark not defined.

3 Recommendations for further studies Error! Bookmark not defined.

REFERENCES Error! Bookmark not defined APPENDIX Error! Bookmark not defined.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter was designed to present the purposes of this research.Research questions, significance of the research, the scope of the study andthesis structure were also mentioned in this chapter

1 Statement of research problem and rationale

Morreale, Osborn and Pearson considered communication an importantfactor which is “vital to the development of the whole person”, (p 15)

Therefore, the problems exists in communication would exert influence in

individuals

Among the factors affecting the communication, the reverse cultureshock is the one that lays impact on the returnees Reverse culture shock isthe process that the returnees have to re-adjust and re-acculturate and re-assimilate into their home culture The time experiencing reverse cultureshock could range in different level depending on each individual’scondition (Adler, 1981; Frank, 1992) In spite of the influence of reverseculture shock, there are limited studies intensively investigating thisproblem, especially the reverse culture shock in Asian returnees in generaland Vietnamese students in particular

Nowadays, more and more Vietnamese students have opportunities tolive and study abroad America is a destination of many students As thestatistic of General Statistics Office of Vietnam (2011), Vietnam rankseighth in the global scale in the number of student studying in America.Culture shock is a matter that many people often think of and anticipatewhen moving to a new country or a new culture, however, reverse cultureshock is little got concern by the returnees after they came back their home

country (Gaw,1995) Therefore, this research was conducted to have acloser understanding about reverse culture shock in Vietnamese studentswho returned to their home country after a period of time studying andliving in America.

2 Research questions

The researcher focuses on four specific questions relating to thedescription of reverse culture shock participants meet, which is divided intocultural differences and difficulties, and their reaction toward reverseculture shock and also the reasons for that reverse culture shock Theresearch questions are: 1) What is the reverse culture shock in Vietnamesestudents’ perspective after they returned to Vietnam? 2) What are thereasons for Vietnamese students’ reverse culture shock? 3) What is thecorrelative relationship between the age of moving, the time living and theinfluence of reverse culture shock? The following is researcher’sclarification of questions’ importance

Research question 1: What is the reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students’ perspective after they returned to Vietnam?

Reverse culture shock discovered in different aspects of culture.Question 1 aims at finding out reverse culture shock in daily routine andworking environment which the returnees meet Because of the differences

in culture between Vietnam and America, the returnees experience theinfluence of reverse culture shock at different level due to the time of livingoversea and the age at which they move abroad

Research question 2: What are the reasons for Vietnamese students’ reverse culture shock?

This question 2 focuses on the reasons leading to the reverse cultureshock in the returnees

Research question 3: What is the correlative relationship between the age

of moving, the time of living and the influence of reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students?

The research is conducted to understand the correlative relationshipbetween influential factors and the level of reverse culture shock that thereturnees have to face

3 Significance of the research

Due to the limitation in the amount of research as well as journal aboutreverse culture shock in Vietnam, especially in education environment, theresearcher was really encouraged to conduct a study in this interesting topic

- reverse culture shock encountered by Vietnamese returned students.Besides, the result from this research could be useful information forVietnamese students before they come back to their hometown to reducethe influence of reverse culture shock in them In addition, this study would

be considered a reference material for other researchers to understandreverse culture shock and have further studies This research is also hoped

to give suggestions for the returnees so that they would soon integrate intotheir own culture

4 Scope of the study

This study investigates the difficulties that the returnees meet in theprocess of integrating into Vietnamese culture The working and studyingenvironment and daily life are concentrated Due to the limitation of the

participants, this study is similarly like a qualitative study With a smallnumber of sixteen participants, the result from this study is hardlygeneralized into scientific figure for bigger context The researcher wouldlike to understand the reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students.Besides, the research also aims at finding out the reason of the returnees’reverse culture shock, the influence of that shock on each returnee Inaddition, the researcher wants to discover the relationship among importantfactors in the returnees’ reverse culture shock In this study, the researcheralso aims at comparing the findings to what the researcher known vialiterature review.

Chapter 2: Literature review

This chapter introduces the explanation of key concepts and presentsthe researcher’s review on previous studies in related issues

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

This chapter presents the research findings and discusses the reverseculture shock that Vietnamese students encounter The application of thisstudy is also mentioned

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This chapter presents summary of the research, the limitation of theresearch and also suggestion for further studies.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Definition of key concepts

“culture is learned, not inherited It derives from one's social environment,not from one's genes.” In other word, culture is transmitted acrossgenerations Having the same idea with Hofstede, Hall (1976, p 16)introduces that culture is not genetically inherited, and cannot exist on itsown, but is always shared by members of a society

After over a decade since the time of Hofstede’s study, in 1991,Mulholland mentioned the word “culture” in his study as the complexconcept which could not get the same agreement among researchers Heregarded culture “a set of shared and enduring meaning, values, and beliefsthat characterize national, ethnic, or other groups and orient their behavior.”The definition introduced by Mulholland includes both the idea of Tylorand Hofstede It mentions the essential nature of culture with values andbeliefs and also the feature of specific characteristics in culture which areconsidered the ones to “distinguishes the members of one group fromanother” by Hofstede (1980, p 25).

After reviewing some definitions introduced for the concept “culture”

as well as the explanation, the following definition by Mulholland isadapted in this research: “Culture is a set of shared and enduring meaning,values, and beliefs that characterize national, ethnic, or other groups andorient their behavior”, (p.18)

1.2 Culture shock

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 11th edition,culture shock is defined as the feeling of disorientation experienced bysomeone when they are suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way oflife, or set of attitudes In history of research in culture, the concept “cultureshock” was first used by the anthropologist Cora DuBois in 1951 to denotethe feeling of anthropologists when entering a new place (Oberg, 1954) In

1960, Oberg developed the concept “culture shock” introduced and applied

it for people traveling abroad into new cultures He expanded it into adefinition as an “occupational disease of people who have been suddenly

transplanted abroad” (p.177) Culture shock is considered “a feeling offrustration and anxiety” which “results from losing all our familiar signsand symbols of social intercourse” when individuals experiencing a newway of life (Oberg, 1954) In this vein, Adler (1975) provided a newdefinition for the concept “culture shock” which denotes the reaction ofindividual to a new culture:

Culture shock is primarily a set of emotional reactions to the loss ofperceptual reinforcements from one’s own culture to new culturalstimuli which have little or no meaning and to the missunderstanding

of new and diverse experiences (p 13)

Adler’s definition clarifies the essential nature of culture shock.Ruben, Askling, and Kealey (1977) combined the concept “culture shock”with the period of adaptation or adjustment:

Culture shock focuses on the manner in which personsexperience and cope with the cyclic psychological, physiological,and vocational fluctuations associated with the adjustment in thefirst months in a new environment (p 91)

The American Psychological Association (1988) described cultureshock as “social, psychological or emotional difficulties in adapting to anew culture or similar difficulties in adapting to one’s own culture as theresult of rapid social or cultural changes” (p 50) This definition clarifiesclearly the concept “culture shock” when it refers to culture shock ofindividuals in their own culture

Among different definitions, this research will adapt and use thedefinition of “culture shock” introduced by American PsychologicalAssociation

1.3 Reverse culture shock

Reverse culture shock is also known with the name re-entry shock orown culture shock This concept refers to the difficulties returnees may facewhen entering their own culture Reverse culture shock is a period inculture shock process It is the progress of readjusting to one’s own cultureafter appropriate time living oversea (Gaw, 1995) Returnees are likely to

go through a process of adjustment like what happen in their culture shockoversea After a short time of feeling excited when seeing family andfriends, returnees will soon feel somewhat isolated in their own culturewhen things change by time In this study, the definition of reverse cultureshock introduced by Gaw is chosen

2 Related studies on the reverse culture shock

Due to the similarity and involvement between reverse culture shockand culture shock, understanding reverse culture shock should begin withculture shock first

Culture shock consists of both psychological confusion andemotional discomfort (Hess, 1994) Regarding the impact of culture shock,Ferraro (2006, cited in Xia, 2009) claimed in her study that people wouldhave behaviors of rejecting the environment they come when they cannotcope with symptoms of culture shock Hisam (1997) stated that cultureshock is a root cause of expatriate failure

In the study Culture Shock Adjustment to New CulturalEnvironments, Oberg (1960) mentioned the symptoms of culture shockwith excessive concern over daily matters like eating, drinking and sleepingtogether with the fear of contact with other people, also the feeling ofhelplessness and desire for dependence on the residents in the host country

He noted that culture shock included arrivers’ refusal of learning newlanguage and finally, it leaded to the desire to be back their familiar livingenvironment and lifestyle to meet their relatives and bathing in their mothertongue These symptoms that Oberg mentions are almost all the negativeones which deprive the arrivers from acquiring a new culture and adjusting

to adjust to that new environment by learning host nation’s language andunderstanding the customs there After a period of time in the third stage,experiencers will move to the last stage called adjustment In this stage,experiencers tend to integrate to a new living environment and accept a newlife style

In 1975, Adler expanded periods of culture shock into five stagesincluding contact, disintegration, reintegration, autonomy and

independence As what Adler (1975) introduced, the first stage is similar tohoneymoon stage mentioned above The second stage includesdisintegration of individuals’ familiar lifestyle and then it is full ofbehaviours meeting requirements in new environment They would belikely to meet lots of difficulties and consequently blame for themselves.The third stage is highlighted with reintegration into new environment Thisstage will be continued with the fourth stage featured with individuals’autonomy in their living environment together with their balancedperspective presented by the ability to see the negative and positiveelements in culture of both of their country and the host one Finally,individuals will experience the fifth stage with the interdependence, whichthey can feel comfortable in both their home culture and host culture Dr.Michael Davidson (n.d) explained in his paper that Adler’s stage-theory ofculture is well-known as the U-curve in the academic field despite of the U-curve hypothesis by Lysgaard.

In this vein, there are many theories describing different stages in theprocess of culture shock Despite of that, almost all theories consist ofphase-based stage in this complex process of culture shock (Pedersen,1995) In general, stage theories of culture shock come out in support forthe U-curve hypothesis However, the U-curve was then extended into theW-curve hypothesis including the period of readjustment to home culture.Gullahorn and Gullahorn (1995) conducted a study with the participation of5,300 scholar returnees to understand readjustment pattern and then theyfound it similar to the U-curve of culture shock introduced by Lysgaard,hence, the W-curve theory appeared (see figure 2) This hypothesis wasprovided by many researchers (Adler, 1981; Berry, 1985b; Bochner, Linand McLeod, 1980; Brislin, Cushner, Cherrie and Yong, 1986; Brislin

Figure 1: The U-curve in culture shock process

and VanBuren, 1974; Curie, 1973; Gullahorn and Gullahorn, 1963;Hertz, 1981; Martin, 1984, cited in Zapf, 1991).

Reverse culture shock was first got concern about in 1944 by Scheutzwhen he tried to understand what veterans in the arm forces have to faceafter they came back to their home town The re-entry issue dated from

1935 was also mentioned in Austin and Jones’s study in 1987 (Gaw, 1995)

As what Gullahorn and Gullahorn stated, the difference betweenculture shock and reverse culture shock is the expectation Moreover,reverse culture shock could be even more difficult to the experiencer due tothe lack of expectation (Gullahorn & Gullahorn, 1963, cited in Gaw 1995).Before moving to a new place, experiencers often expect a new culture withnew environment and also new life style; however when coming back to

Figure 2: The W-curve in culture shock process

home culture, what they expect are the welcoming and unchanged things(Gaw, 1995).

Culture shock is studied by many researchers and a lot of researchhas been published to discover returnees’ difficulties in reverse cultureshock after a period of time living abroad

As what N Adler and Carlisle-Frank described in their studies,reverse culture shock is experienced in different level, some meet a little bitdifferences in their hometown, some consider reverse culture shock apersonal problem and it takes them months to years or even longer to befamiliar with the home countries Reverse culture shock tends to be aproblem of all people returning from oversea

In a study on reverse culture shock encountered by studentsreturning from oversea with the number of 66 participants, the results ofKevin F Gaw (1995) pointed out that the higher level of reverse cultureshock returnees experience, the more shyness problems and personaladjustment they have to face This study also showed the negativecorrelation between reverse culture shock and student support service

Sahin (1990, cited in Gaw, 1995) conducted a research in reverseculture shock to present levels of depression and anxiety of Turkishsecondary school returnees in comparison with non-returnee ones Theresults revealed that 34% of returnees regretted returning home (Gaw,1995) These studies pointed out the worthy findings to understand theimpact of reverse culture shock into individuals and also to see therelationship between reverse culture shock and other influential factors

3 Chapter conclusion

To sum up, this chapter gives the definitions of key concepts andintroduces related studies on reverse culture shock Previous research pointsout the interrelation among reverse culture shock and the adaptation.However, there has been limited number of research concerning aboutreverse culture shock among Vietnamese student returnee In the vein ofresearch background, the researcher is eager to conduct a study to have acloser look at Vietnamese students returning from oversea Due to thelimitation of the research, the researcher decided to choose America to bethe culture environment influencing the returnees’ attitude This research isintended to give evidence supporting or disapprove the results of the studiesmentioned before.

Due to the limitation in the number of research in reverse cultureshock in Vietnam, this fact leaves a gap that encourages this research to bemoved on The researcher hopes that this study would bring satisfactoryresults to fill the gap

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter is written in order to present the methodology applied inthe research Selection of the subjects, research instrument, procedure of data collection and analysis are discussed thoroughly

1 Discussion of participants

1.1 Selection of participants

This research is conducted to understand the reverse culture shock inVietnamese students, who spent years in America and then returned toVietnam In order to have trustful result, the research should analyzedifferent aspects of the returnees’ reverse culture shock Therefore, thesubjects should be students in different groups with different characteristicssuch as: age, working and studying environment, time living in Americaand age of moving oversea By this way, the feature would vary from eachparticipant

In order to be involved in this research, the participants must satisfythe compulsory condition: having at least five months living in America.Due to the assumption of the researcher, the longer the students liveoversea, the more influence of the reverse culture shock they wouldexperience Therefore, all of the participants of the research are chosencarefully and they all satisfy the requirement of the research

1.2 Sampling method

This research applied the purposive sampling method According toTongco (2007), purposive sampling method should be chosen when timeand resources are too limited for random sampling Besides, he also

mentions that this kind of sampling method should be used when “theinformation is held by only certain members of the community”, (p.151)

In this research, there are total 16 students chosen to be the sample.All of them are at the age ranging from 18 to 39 These students could bedivided into two main groups The first group consists of the ones whofollowed their family to live and study in the U.S at the early age Thesestudents spent many years in America; they mingled with the Americancitizens They just had five to ten years living in Vietnam In contrast, thesecond group includes the students who got the scholarship to study abroad

in around some months to several years These students mostly moved tothe U.S at the age of over 18 years old They had years living and growing

up in their home culture

Among the participants, some are chosen directly thanks to therelationship of the researcher, some are friends and relatives of theresearcher’s friends

In short, all of the respondents satisfy the compulsory requirement ofthe research In spite of the small size of the sample, the respondents arequite ideal for the researcher to conduct a study about them when there aretwo contrast groups of returnees

2 Research design

Due to the limitation of the research as well as its features, the design

of quantitative study is preferred By using this type of research design, themeasurement is objective and statistically valid According to Anderson,quantitative research generates reliable population based and generalizable

data and is well suited to establishing cause-and-effect relationships Beingaware of the similarity between the advantage of quantitative study and thefeatures of the research, the researcher decided to choose it as the design ofstudy and a tool to explore reverse culture shock encountered

As the purposive sampling method was chosen, this quantitativeresearch design is totally suitable It lets the researcher have closer look atthe phenomenon of reverse culture shock Because of the feature of theresearch, no generalization would be made As what Mackey and Gassstated in their study, the matter of generalization would be less concernedbecause the amount of participants in this type of research design is not aslarge as in a quantitative study

There are some ways to approach qualitative study such asapplication forms, questionnaires, IQ tests and measurement Because ofthe shortage of participants and time limitation together with the research’sfeatures, the sample is expected to be small and methodology applied isquestionnaire The results are expected to understand the reverse cultureshock in each group of students and also to find out the relationshipbetween some aspects such as: the age of moving oversea, time of livingoversea and the influence level of reverse culture shock affecting thereturnees’ process of readjustment

3 Data collection

3.1 Data collection instrument

In this study, self-administered questionnaire is designed and applied

as the data collection instrument This form of data collection instrument

encourages the researcher to quickly get the answer from the respondents(Le, 2012) Besides, questionnaire also helps the researcher with its feature

of time saving as well as financial matter (Le, 2012) Moreover, it is “morecost effective to administer than personal (face-to-face) interview” (Eiselen

& Uys, 2005) It is also easier to administer and analyze In addition, byconducting survey with self-administered questionnaire, the study wouldreduce the possibility of bias which may occur in interview (Eiselen &Uys,2005) Besides, the respondents will more readily respond truthfully tosensitive questions

The questionnaire was designed carefully and sent to the participants

of the research Thanks to the relationship and the chances to contact withVietnamese students who have just returned from the U.S, the researcherinvited them and their friends to involve in the research Because thequestionnaire is carefully prepared and highly structured, and theparticipants are very willing to join, the study reached the response rate of100% The researcher, hereby, have more convenient condition to analyzethe data as well as answer the research questions

3.2 Construction of data collection instrument

Self-administered questionnaire is employed in this research In order

to construct the questionnaire, the researcher based on the knowledgegained from process of doing literature review The questions in thequestionnaire are designed with different forms and the content concerned(see Appendix)

3.3 Data collection procedure

The data collection procedure was conducted with steps as illustratedbelow:

Illustration 1: Steps of data collection procedure

Firstly, some returnees were invited to join the research After gettingthe acceptance from the returnees, the researcher sent sheets ofquestionnaire to each of them Some of the questionnaire sheets weredelivered directly to the participants, some were delivered online Aftersome days, all of the answer sheets were sent back These answer sheetswere used to analyze

4 Data analysis method

In this research, statistical analysis was applied to analyze the datacollected This kind of data analysis is suitable with the research designemployed which is quantitative method Statistical analysis is mathematicalmethods of interrogating data This scheme was employed in this researchdue to the compability with the research context and the data collectioninstrument

Inviting the returnees to

participate in the research

Sending questionnaire

Receive answer sheets

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the results of the study The results will bediscussed to answer the research questions stated in chapter 2 includingaspects of reverse culture shock, the reason of reverse culture shock andeffect of reverse culture shock

1 Findings

1.1 Aspects of reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students

Basing on the result from the questionnaire, the researcher calculatedand gave out the figures which were shown via tables and charts below

With six suggested aspects of culture that the returnees couldencounter in their process of reverse culture shock, the answer receivedvaries, which depends on the age at which the students moved to the U.Sand the time living and studying there Among 16 participants of theresearch, the number of students moving to the U.S at the age of under fiveyears old accounts for 6.25% The age of 6-10 accounts for 18.75% Thereare 2 out of 16 students left their home country at the age of 11-18 yearsold, which accounts for 12.5% The number of students moving to America

at the age of over 18 years old is 10, which is equal to 62.5% (see Figure

3).

1.1.1 Language

It is clearly to see from the Table 1 that the returnees mostly hadreverse culture shock in working style, traffic culture, language and cuisine.Half of the respondents get the shock with the matters of language afterreturning to Vietnam Among them, 12.5% of the returnees did not expectthis kind of culture shock before coming back to Vietnam meanwhile 25%

of the returnees expected this reverse culture shock but they still experience

it (see Table 2) As what one respondent explained, the long time of living

abroad makes her feel that Vietnamese language is strange to her, especially

pronouncing and using words The rest of students (62.5% - see Table 2)

also expected reverse culture shock in language however their ability ofusing Vietnamese language together with the appearance of some newwords are the reasons lead to their shock These students are the ones wholeft Vietnam at the early age ranging from 5- 18 years old The period ofimmigration in the U.S gives them the feeling that Vietnamese language is