Nghiên cứu cách sử dụng phim Mỹ trong dạy tiếng Anh nhằm tạo động lực tìm hiểu về văn hoá Mỹ cho học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh tại trường THPT chuyên Lam Sơn – Tha

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO USIN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN

MOTIVATING 11 TH FORM ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL - THANH HOA PROVINCE TO UNDERSTAND

AMERICAN CULTURE

Nghiên cứu cách sử dụng phim Mỹ trong dạy tiếng Anh nhằm tạo động lực tìm hiểu về văn hoá Mỹ cho học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh tại trường THPT

chuyên Lam Sơn, Thanh Hoá

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN

MOTIVATING 11 TH FORM ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL - THANH HOA PROVINCE TO UNDERSTAND

AMERICAN CULTURE

Nghiên cứu cách sử dụng phim Mỹ trong dạy tiếng Anh nhằm tạo động lực tìm hiểu về văn hoá Mỹ cho học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh tại trường THPT

chuyên Lam Sơn, Thanh Hoá

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: TRẦN HOÀI PHƯƠNG, PhD

Hanoi, 2014

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research, except where otherwise acknowledged, and that this thesis or any part of the same has not been submitted for a degree to any universities or institution

Signature

Nguyễn Thị Phương

I am also grateful to all lecturers and the staff of the Department of Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University for their useful lectures and guidance during my study

Post-at the Institution

I truly wish to thank all the colleagues and the students Lam Son Gifted High School for their assistance and co-operation in giving me valuable information

Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge my debt to my parents and

my husband, whose patient love enabled me to complete this work

ABSTRACT

The importance of American culture is undeniable in English language Therefore, investigating new ways to motivate students to learn American culture is apparently necessary to gain effective English teaching and learning and using American movies in the process is not exception

This minor thesis was carried out with an investigation into using American movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School - Thanh Hoa province to understand American culture

The minor thesis is organized in 3 parts:

Part A: presents the rationale, aims and significance of the study, research

questions, scope, method and design of the study

Part B: consists of 4 chapters

The first chapter concentrates on the background of the study and the related literature reviews, on which the contents of the study are based

The second chapter focuses on developing the research methodology, in which the two questionnaires for 11th form English gifted students and teachers of English at Lam Son Gifted High School are chosen as main instruments

The third chapter is to present the data collected from the two questionnaires and to analyze the data

The fourth chapter aims at discussing the findings on how to use American movies in English class as the best solutions in the hope to motivate 11th form English gifted students to understand American culture

Part C: summaries the study and offers some suggestions for further study

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LSGHS: Lam Son Gifted High School

AE: Advanced English

BA: Basic English

ESL: English as a Second Language

EFL: English as a foreign language

LIST OF TABLES

Figure 1: Students‟ awareness of having an understanding of American Culture 20

Figure 2: Students‟ awareness of the importance of American culture 21

Figure 3: Students‟ awareness of learning American culture 21

Figure 4: How interesting? 22

Figure 5: How difficult ? 22

Figure 6: Students‟ opinions on finding out more about American culture 23

Figure 7: Students‟ opinions about the methods of using American movies 23

Figure 8: Students‟ opinions about using American movies in English class 24

Figure 9: Students‟ participation in American movies 25

Figure 10: Students‟ feeling on American movies 25

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 2

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methodology 2

5 Structure of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Culture and American culture 4

1.2 The role of the culture in language teaching and learning? 5

1.3 The role of movies in teaching and learning culture 6

1.4 Previous studies on the use of movies in English teaching process 7

1.5 The use of cultural artifacts in teaching culture: Movies as cultural artifacts 8

1.6 What is motivation? 9

1.7 Relationships between teaching culture and students' motivation 10

1.8 Criteria to choose movies 11

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 13

2.1 The setting of the study 13

2.1.1 English teaching and learning situation at Lam Son Gifted High School 13

2.1.2 English teaching staff 13

2.1.3 English gifted students 13

2.1.4 The 11th form English gifted students 13

2.2 Research methodology 14

2.2.1 Research questions 14

2.2.2 Research design 14

2.2.3 Participants 14

2.2.3.1 The subjects 14

2.2.3.2 The participants 15

2.3 Data collection instrument 15

2.3.1 Questionnaire 15

2.3.1.1 Questionnaire for the students 15

2.3.1.2 Questionnaire for the teachers 16

2.3.2 Classroom observations 16

2.4 Data collection procedures 16

2.5 Data analysis 17

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS 18

3.1 Results 18

3.1.1 The 11th form English gifted students' motivation to understand American culture 18

3.1.1.1 Students‟ awareness of learning American culture 18

3.1.1.2 Students‟ awareness of the necessity and importance of American culture19 3.1.2 Students‟ perception of the use of American movies in English lessons 20

3.1.3 Challenges 23

3.2 Conclusion of the chapter 3 25

CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS ON USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN

MOTIVATING 11TH ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO UNDERSTAND AMERICAN CULTURE 27

4.1 Providing students with a full awareness of the importance of American culture

27

4.2 Improving students‟ background knowledge of American culture and Cross-cultural Communication 28

4.3 How to use American movies in English lessons 30

4.4 How to motivate 11th English gifted students to understand American culture through American movies 32

4.5 Conclusion of the chapter 4 33

PART C: CONCLUSION 35

3.1 Conclusion 35

3.2 Limitations of the study 36

3.3 Suggestions for further study 36

REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Foreign language learning is comprised of several components, including grammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, as well as a change in attitudes towards one‟s own or another culture For scholars and laymen alike, cultural competence, i.e., the knowledge of the conventions, customs, beliefs, and systems of meaning of another country, is indisputably an integral part

of foreign language learning, and many teachers have seen it as their goal to incorporate the teaching of culture into the foreign language curriculum

In Vietnam, in recent years, English as a foreign language has gained considerable attention It has become a compulsory subject in the syllabus of many schools, colleges and universities However, the fact is that the combination of culture and English teaching-learning process has not been effective yet, especially that in gifted high schools like Lam Son Gifted High School- Thanh Hoa province There are still many English gifted students who have low motivation in learning English and cannot understand English-American culture

As a teacher of English at Lam Son Gifted High School, the researcher is concerned about the teaching methods to promote her students' motivation in learning English and understanding American culture She also realizes that movie

is the product of a series of modern technology, containing elements of art, language and culture, so movies can be viewed as a useful tool for teaching and learning culture Language and culture are two factors that cannot be separated In order to learn a foreign language, we have to learn the culture along with perceiving the language Among English – speaking countries, American culture is more abundant than other cultures in England, Canada… Thus, the researcher decided

to introduce American culture to 11th form English gifted students through the American movies presented in English class at Lam Son Gifted High School Also,

among different teaching methods, using American movies into the lessons is considered a method that is worth trying and investigating

2 Aims of the study

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of using American movies in lessons to promote 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School - Thanh Hoa province to learn and understand American culture

3 Scope of the study

Although there are many different ways to motivate students to learn English and to understand American culture, they cannot be fully covered in the scope of a thesis Due to the word limit and the time frame of the study, the researcher only focused on investigating the use of American movies as a way of motivating 11th form English gifted students to understand American culture at Lam Son Gifted High School Besides, the target subjects that the study investigated were 40 students from 02 classes of grade 11 at this school

4 Methodology

This study was intended to be conducted as an action research study In this action research, the researcher used some different methods based on study quantitative and qualitative approaches: a survey questionnaire for students, a survey questionnaire for teachers of English and classroom observations

5 Structure of the thesis

The thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the development, and the conclusion

Part A: Introduction – presents the basic information including rationale, aims,

significance, research methods, scope, and the structure of the thesis

Part B: Development – consists of three chapters

Chapter 1: Literature Review – provides the literature concerning motivation

in second language learning, culture and the role of the culture in language teaching and learning, the relationship between teaching culture and students‟ motivation

Chapter 2: The study – reports the setting, the research hypothesis,

participants, instruments, data collection procedure and analysis The detailed results of the surveys and a critical comprehensive analysis on the data collected are also presented in this chapter

Chapter 3: Findings – shows major findings and discussions and offers

recommendations for motivating students to understand American culture through using American movies in English lessons

Chapter 4: Implications on using American movies in motivating 11th

English gifted students at Lam Son gifted high school to understand American culture

Part C: Conclusion – is a summary of the study in which conclusions of the study

are presented Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also presented in this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Culture and American culture

Why is incorporating culture in an ESL/EFL classroom inevitable? There are

at least three fundamental reasons we can put forth to answer this question First, culture and language are inseparable Politzer, (as cited in Brooks, 1968) points out:

As language teachers we must be interested in the study of culture not because we necessarily want to teach the culture of the other country, but because we have to teach it If we teach language without teaching at the same time the culture in which

it operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols to which the student attaches the wrong meaning; for unless he is warned, unless he receives cultural instruction, he will associate American concepts or objects with the foreign symbols (p 85-86)

Concurrent with that, Brown (1994) emphasizes “… a language is a part of culture and a culture is a part of a language The two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language

or culture” (p 164) Hence, it is natural to talk about culture when we talk about language and language teaching

American history began with waves of immigrants, bringing their own cultures and traditions to a vast new country The trend of American culture is toward multiculturalism, not assimilation because immigrant populations within the United States are not being blended together but rather they are transforming American Society into a truly multicultural mosaic Today, the American mosaic is one of different cultures and regional identities, each with unique characteristics and flavors

1.2 The role of culture in foreign language teaching

Language is a part of culture, and it plays a very important role in the development of the culture Some sociologists consider it as the keystone of culture They believe, without language, culture would not be available At the same time, language is influenced and shaped by culture, reflecting culture Therefore, culture plays a very important part in language teaching, which is widely acknowledged by English teaching circle Since the 1960s, studies of Hammerly (1982) were conducted to demonstrate the close relationship between language learning and the perception of national cultural development that language was born In summary, the reference literature shows that the language and culture cannot be separated The learner must learn and induce culture of the language

Linguists and anthropologists have long recognized that the forms and uses

of a given language reflect the cultural values of the society in which the language

is spoken Linguistics competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to

be competent in that language (Kramsch, 1993; Krasner, 1999) Language learners need to be aware, for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone They should know that behaviors and intonation patterns that are appropriate in their own speech community may be perceived differently by members of the target language speech community They have to understand that, in order for communication to be successful, language use must be associated with other culturally appropriate behavior

In many regards, culture is taught implicitly, imbedded in the linguistic forms that students are learning To make students aware of the culture features reflected in the language, teachers can make those cultural features an explicit topic

of discussion in relation to the linguistic forms being studied For example, there are different terms of address, depending on his/her age, gender, and degree of intimacy between the person addressed and the speaker The usage of the correct term of address is important in Indonesian culture and society Learning the vocabulary

without knowing the cultural background of the usage might bring hiccups in communication

In addition, students should be aware of the culture differences between their own culture and that of the target culture Without this knowledge, awkward situations may arise In Indonesian culture, for example, it seems to be impolite and arrogant if one stands with arms akimbo Learning the body language and gestures

is important to avoid any misunderstanding Byram (1989) placed „cultural studies‟

at the core of foreign language learning and proposes a model of four related parts, namely language learning, language awareness, cultural experience, and cultural awareness (p.64) Byram and Morgan (1994) stated that cultural learning has to take place as an integral parts of language learning and vice versa (p.97)

As mentioned above, culture is an integral part of foreign language teaching Culture plays an important role towards the goal of "communicative competence" for the school In the process of foreign language teaching, incorporating cultural elements into lessons is very important Understanding these cultural factors help learners acquire a foreign language and communicate in it effectively The language learning targets not only knowing what, that is knowing the contents contained in these words, but more importantly, understand the deep meaning of the contents of such information

1.3 The role of movies in teaching and learning culture

If students do not have the chance to experience the culture in the target country, one of the ways to teach culture to them is by asking them to watch movies

of the target culture In his book “Movie and Television in Education,” Robert Watson (1990, p.3.) stated, “the culture provided by all the mass media, but particularly by movie and television, represents the most significant environmental factor that teachers have to take into account.”

Groves (1996, p.18), in his book “Movie in Higher Education and Research”, wrote that movies represent one group in a whole „family‟ of modern mechanical aids to learning A movie is a means of expression, a language and an art, based on modern technology By watching movies, not only are the students‟ understandings

of the target culture enhanced, but also their interest in other fields of the target culture is nurtured Groves quoted Thorold (1964, p 12) on the result of his experiment, “it was only while exploring the extent of cinema that the use of movies to enhance language learning and cultural understanding that we found students discussing the range of interests, historical, philosophical, linguistic, psychological, sociological, geographical, architectural aspects that could be found

in one movie.”

In other words, movie is also an instrument for research Knowing the advantages of using movies to teach culture, and the entertainment value movies can bring to students‟ learning, the researcher believes movies will bring good impact to students‟ process of learning Thus, movies should be incorporated into the language class to motivate students‟ interest in learning, to make lessons more interesting and to nurture students‟ understanding of the target culture

1.4 Previous studies on the use of movies in English teaching process

Many scholars have revealed that movies used in EFL classroom can become

an important part of the curriculum They have also found that movies catch the learners‟ interest and they can positively affect their motivation to learn (Kusumarasdyati, 2004; Luo, 2004)

Luo (2004, p 23) in his study examined the influence of DVD movies on students‟ listening comprehension The final results of the statistical analyses indicated that student‟s listening skill “did improve” through the instruction of using DVD movies in a motivating learning environment with “lower level of anxiety” after a whole school year (Luo, 2004, p.43)

Herron and Seay (1991, p 62) conducted research on using videos in teaching listening comprehension for EFL students The study has provided

evidence that the experimental group performed significantly better on the final tests of listening comprehension with both the video and the audio than did the control group in which no strategy training occurred

As a culture educator, the teacher plays a vital role in choosing the appropriate movies and preparing class activities after students have watched the movies

1.5 The use of cultural artifacts in teaching culture: Movies as cultural artifacts

The use of aspects of popular culture in the classroom, in a variety of forms,

is one way to foster student understanding and long-term memory (Mc William,

2008, p.82) Popular culture artifacts can be used as teaching aids in a variety of forms As well as movies, other examples of popular culture used as teaching aids are comics, cartoon, music, and television shows (Marshall, 2002, p.77) As an example, clipping a relevant comic strip from the Sunday paper and using it at the start of class is one way to get students‟ attention and move into a topic Movie clips can be used in this way, even if they represent the opposite of what is being taught

The notion of popular culture artifact usage is nothing new to educational methods However, as stated by, Petracca and Sorapure (2009, p 102), popular culture is difficult to define, yet easy to identify, and is something that we are bombarded with on a daily basis They identified popular culture, also referred to as

“common culture”, as a conceptual category representing a commonly used term that though readily used, holds different meanings to different individuals Such defining points generally depend on the context of use

Popular culture artifacts, including movies, may be one of the most commanding teaching aids at educators‟ disposal (Petracca & Sorapure, 2009, p.14) Movies are part of society‟s social fabric They illustrate, although not always accurately, history, social movements and other facets of culture (Turner, 1999, p.45)

Movies are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them Movie is considered to be an important art form,

a source popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating The visual element of cinema gives motion pictures a universal power of communication Some movies have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue

1.6 What is motivation?

Motivation has been differently defined from various perspectives of psychology, sociology and linguistics Some psychologists defined motivation in terms of certain needs Ausubel (1968 p 164) identified some main needs which help construct learner motivation which include:

(1) the need for stimulation or the need to be stimulated by the environment, by other people or by ideas, thoughts and feelings;

(2) the need for knowledge, which is defined as the need for achievement (Good and Brophy, 1990) or the need to process and internalize the results of exploration, manipulation, activity, and stimulation, to resolve contradiction, to search for solutions to problems and for self-consistent systems of knowledge;

(3) the need for ego enhancement, for the self to be known and to be accepted and approved by others

In L2 acquisition, the types of motivation came from cognitive and social psychology In cognitive psychology, two types of motivation are instrumental and integrative motivation (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) In social psychology, two main types of motivation are intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Harmer, 1991)

The concept of motivation came from social psychology (Harmer, 1991) and connected closely to students‟ effort, desire as well as their positive attitudes towards learning As stated by Gardner (1985, p.10), “motivation of L2 acquisition refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language and favorable attitudes towards learning the language”

In short, motivation is essential to success in learning in general and in language learning in particular In other words, success in learning is due to the fact that learners are motivated

1.7 Relationships between teaching culture and students' motivation

Many teachers sometimes hesitate to incorporate cultural studies in their language syllabus because they are afraid of wasting time which can be allocated for teaching grammar or other language skills, as stated by Brooks (1968, p 206),

“Will special emphasis upon culture not be wasteful of precious class time and end

up giving the student less rather than more of what he is entitled to expect from his language course?‟‟

Byram and Morgan (1994, p 105) also noted that in most language courses the greatest amount of time and energy is still devoted to the grammar and vocabulary aspects of language

Lafayette (1998, p 19) mentioned that among the three major components of the curriculum (language, literature and culture), the greatest amount of time and energy is still devoted to the grammar and vocabulary aspects of language Culture remains the weakest component due to its uneven treatment in textbooks and the lack of familiarity, among teachers, with the culture itself and with the technique needed to teach it

More than a decade passed, Lafayette (1998, p 25) presented the view that many teachers are not aware of the important role of cultural integration in the classroom to teach foreign languages Teachers could overcome boredom in the classroom by asking students to watch the movie after class hours He believed that

if the teachers work in class, they help students understand that a language cannot

be separated from learning the future And teachers must be responsible of incorporate culture into the language class Teachers must find the best methods to teach and facilitate the students in learning the culture

Besides overcoming time constraints, the teacher should also find suitable materials which can be used to teach the culture, and develop materials in such a way that students can benefit from it The teacher‟s knowledge, attitudes and beliefs

of the importance of nurturing cultural understanding play an important role in deciding the instructional and methodological choices

It is the teacher‟s responsibility within or outside of the classroom, to explicitly take on the role of culture educator and deliberately assist students with their process of culture analysis It is believed that nurturing student‟s cultural awareness is the responsibility of a language teacher

Motivation is closely connected to students‟ studying; therefore, the problems relating to learner motivation have often intrigued educators and motivation researchers for years As defined by Lumsden (1994, p.37), learning motivation can be considered as students‟ desire to participle in the language process Hence, learner motivation can be inferred from a student‟s behavior or considered learning motivation which cannot be seen, heard or felt and accordingly

it is difficult to be deeply understood due to the nature of the concept itself Lumsden (1994, p.38) believes that motivation is important in influencing a person‟s success or failure in learning a foreign language Obviously, unmotivated students are insufficiently involved and therefore unable to develop their potential L2 skills As a result, motivation is one of the determining factors in the success of foreign or second language learning

Clearly, there is close relationship between teaching culture and students motivation Teachers have important duties that create the conditions in which learning can take place To sum up, communicative method will be an appropriate attitude towards this objective So, if using movies in the class can be one of the best way to motivate the learners to study a foreign language

1.8 Criteria to choose movies

An important factor when planning the movie lessons is choosing the movie

It can be based on thematic content to reinforce and consolidate topics treated

within the language syllabus, such as discrimination, moral issues, mass media, ecology, education, and work, or to illustrate language functions and grammatical patterns in real use Here are also other important points that need to be made sure before using movies in foreign language teaching These are, for instance, copyright matters, the teaching environment in which to use movies and the proficiency level

of the learners

Moreover, according to Stoller (1988, p 66), also the length of the movie is a useful thing to consider It is important to choose movies that are long enough to convey meaningful content, yet short enough to allow classroom time for pre-viewing and post-viewing activities

There are many kinds of movie available such as Thriller, Comedy, War movies, Action movie, Romance, Documentary, Walt Disney movie, etc Those are the reason why the researcher in this study decides to choose the video “Tom and Jerry” to present to her students as a teaching aid instrument

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

2.1 The setting of the study

2.1.1 English teaching and learning situation at Lam Son Gifted High School

Lam Son Gifted High School has been in operation for over 50 years Training gifted students of basic subjects is an important duty of the School Therefore, English is one of the subjects taught to every student There are two syllabuses for students of English: Basic English (BA) for non-major students and Advanced English (AE) for gifted students English gifted students have to learn English as an important advanced subject in their training course

2.1.2 English teaching staff

Lam Son Gifted High School has 8 teachers of English at the age from 25 to

45 Two of them have Master degrees of English from Hanoi University of Languages and International studies and the rest hold Bachelor degrees in English language teaching There are four young teachers who take charge of teaching Basic English; the others are responsible for both Basic English and Advanced English They enjoy teaching and spend all of their enthusiasm and effort making their teaching lessons interesting and attractive to the students However, during the Advanced English teaching process, teachers have to face many difficulties in promoting students' motivation in understanding English-American culture

2.1.3 English gifted students

In the school, there are about 160 students majoring in English, including three classes of 10th form, one class of 11th form and one class of 12th form

2.1.4 11th form English gifted students

The study is carried out with the survey among 40 English gifted students of 11th form There are 10 questions for students from which I can find out the real situation of their motivation in learning American culture through American movies, their attitudes towards this issue, the factors that make the students find it difficult when learning American culture through American movies All of English

gifted students in Lam Son school have been learning English for 5 or 6 years, but only English gifted students of 11th form of this school are taught American culture through American movie Therefore, students doing the survey are very good at grammar and doing exercises in writing and have enough knowledge of English to answer the questions given

2.2 Research methodology

2.2.1 Research questions

The study is seeking the answers to two questions below:

1 What are the students’ attitudes towards using American movies in EFL

classroom?

2 To what extent does the use of American movies in the lessons motivate students

to understand American culture?

2.2.2 Research design

The thesis was done as an action research in the researcher‟s class In this study, the researcher depicted the results she got from introducing the video “ Tom and Jerry” to students in English lessons

2.2.3 Participants

2.2.3.1 The subjects

The subjects involved in this study were 40 English gifted students of 11th form coming from one at Lam Son Gifted High School These students were young, aged from 15-16, and were mostly female There has always been an imbalanced ratio between male and female students in all English major classes, and in these groups, it was approximately 1/7 which can well be a representative ratio of the population

Students varied a lot as they were from different places Generally, students coming from big cities like Thanh Hoa city were better at English than those who came from other districts These students were more active and confident in participating in class activities

Students‟ durations of learning English were also different Many of them had learnt English since they were 10th form pupils; others had learnt since they were 6thform pupils They had all finished secondary school and passed entrance exams into Lam Son Gifted High School

To sum up, the researcher only taught Advanced English to 11th form English gifted students so she had a deep understanding about these students‟ level

of English as well as their attitudes towards learning English So 40 students of this class became the subjects of the research and all information about them will be gathered and analyzed in the next section

2.2.3.2 The participants

The researcher and four teacher participants took part in the study Teacher participants had been teaching Advanced English to English gifted students for many years at Lam Son Gifted High School The researcher set up and controlled the situations, monitored the treatments, and managed instruments

The researcher and four teacher participants arranged to meet and discuss about methods, contents, and time allocation for the research Teachers developed plans for almost all aspects of implementing a project such as the purposes, the topic questions, assessment, and management for the project

2.3 Data collection instrument

2.3.1 Questionnaires

2.3.1.1 Questionnaire for the students

Basing on certain knowledge about the students‟ problems gained through seven years of experience as a teacher of English at Lam Son gifted school, a survey questionnaire was designed to identify the reasons why 11th form students have little motivation to understand American culture The questionnaire including 10

questions (see Appendix 1) and 40 copies of a questionnaire were given to 40

English 11th form students Lam Son Gifted High School who agreed to answer the questionnaire The questionnaire for students is in simple English so as to make sure that there is no misunderstanding Questions 1, 2, 3 aimed at finding out students‟

awareness of leaning American culture Questions 4, 5, 6 focused on the challenges faced by students when they watched the movies Questions 7, 8, 9, 10 asked for students‟ ideas about teacher‟s methods of using American movies in the class

2.3.1.2 Questionnaire for the teachers

To get teachers‟ opinions about the challenges faced by students in learning American culture through American movies and the efficiency of using American movies to motivate 11th form students to understand American culture, another set

of questionnaires including six questions (see Appendix 2) were distributed to 04

teachers who have been teaching Advanced English to English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High School Question1 referred to the frequency of the introduction of the movies done by teacher in English class Question 2, 3 were given to understand students‟ willing to take part in the movies and their attitudes toward American culture presented in the movies Question 4 was teachers‟ ideas about the difficulties met by students when they watched the movies Questions 5, 6 concentrated on teachers‟ methods of using American movies in English class in motivating students to understand American culture

in the classroom observation checklists (see Appendix 3)

2.4 Data collection procedures

The time for data collection lasted during the fifth month of the second semester of the school year 2013 – 2014 Because it was the time students were going to complete the second year of learning English at Lam Son gifted school Before delivering questionnaires to students and teachers of English, the researcher and her colleagues ever used some American movies in the lessons This program

aims at gathering information about the efficiency of understanding American culture by watching American movies

In the first week of September, 2013, the questionnaires were delivered to 40 English gifted students The students had 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire The purpose and importance of the study were explained While students were completing the questionnaires, any questions were clarified by the teacher

In the second week of September, 2013, 04 copies of another questionnaire were delivered to 04 teachers who are teaching Advanced English oral to 11th form English gifted students The time for them to complete it was 05 days

2.5 Data analysis

The opinions given by 11th form English gifted students and teachers of English at Lam Son gifted school in response to the questionnaires were consolidated and categorized by the researchers The results from the ten questions for students and the six questions for teachers were subsequently tabulated and converted to the percentages for the conveniences of analysis Along with the information via survey questionnaires, information gained through class observations were added to assist interpretation