Integrating American Cultural Studies Into Teaching English To The Grade 11 Students At Tran Phu Gifted High School An Initial Investigation

Integrating American Cultural Studies Into Teaching English To The Grade 11 Students At Tran Phu Gifted High School: An Initial Investigation Trần Thị Tuyết Mai Trường Đại học Ngoại

Integrating American Cultural Studies Into Teaching English To The Grade 11 Students At

Tran Phu Gifted High School: An Initial

Investigation

Trần Thị Tuyết Mai

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English teaching methodology; Mã số: 60 14 10

Người hướng dẫn: M.A Vũ Thị Thu Thuỷ

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract Since the new series of English textbook were put into practice throughout

the country, a great number of researches have been carried out to investigate its effectiveness and its implementation Most of the attention was paid to the teaching and learning of the four macro skills, but there has been little research on how the aspect of culture in general and American Cultural studies in particular was treated in the actual classroom under innovation goals Therefore, this thesis was carried out to explore the reality of teaching and learning of American cultural studies in the classroom at Tran Phu Gifted high school In order to achieve the aim, three instruments were employed: survey questionnaires, class observation and interview The data revealed that both the teachers and the students have positive attitudes towards American Cultural studies teaching and learning and that not many of the teachers have integrated American Cultural studies in teaching English, which is so much supported by the students The study also pointed out some difficulties that the teachers and the students encounter in teaching and learning American Cultural studies in the classroom The paper concludes with several recommendations by the researchers for more effective integration of

American Cultural studies in actual classroom practice

Keywords Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Văn hóa Mỹ; Lớp 11; Hải Phòng; Phổ

thông trung học

Content

1 Rationale of the study

It cannot be denied that English has nowadays become a common means of communication of human being all over the world Perceiving that trend of the global integration, Vietnam has been more and more active to train active and dynamic Vietnamese, who can use English fluently for communicative purposes That is the reason why in 2002, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has set out new aims for English language teaching

for secondary education as well as introduced new series of English textbooks from grade 6 to grade 12

The new English textbooks for high school students are divided into two sets: the advanced and the standard Each unit in the new English textbooks consists of five parts: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus, among which the Language Focus sections are to consolidate students’ pronunciation and grammar They are claimed to adopt the latest teaching and learning approaches: communicative approach and learner-centered approach and aim at developing both language skills and language knowledge for students

Since their nation-wide implementation in the school year 2006-2007, a great number of researchers have been carried out to evaluate these new textbooks as well as to find out how these textbooks are actually implemented or the difficulties that teachers and students at high schools have to face when teaching and learning with the new textbooks Most of these studies have dealt with the teaching and learning of the four language skills which are believed to be new for both teachers and students However, there is still one more indispensable aspect which tends to be depreciated It is culture that turns out to be the fifth skill in language learning and tacked on to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and writing It always stays in the background to decide the good language learners when paid enough attention to It supports learners to achieve their communicative competence Nevertheless, the number of research on the teaching and learning of culture in general and America studies in particular in the classroom

is obviously limited It is necessary to carry out more research on how teachers and students teach and learn culture in the actual classroom

Besides, national examinations (national examinations for GCSE, university entrance examinations) have currently included some questions related to American cultural studies issues (for example: how to address certain situations, etc.)

On the other hand, there are various cultures that English language is getting connected with Among those, the United States has a leading economic, political and cultural force in the world Moreover, the United States is also the ideal destination for overseas students, which has resulted from its top-ranking education system Thus, learning about the culture of the United States appears to be a wise choice

Moreover, after two years of teaching English with the new English textbooks at Tran Phu Gifted High School, the researcher observed that the teachers and learners there faced a number of difficulties in teaching and learning American cultural studies in the classroom

According to Bada (2000: 101), “the need for cultural literacy in ELT arises mainly from

the fact that most language learners, not exposed to cultural elements of the society in question, seem to encounter significant hardship in communicating meaning to native speakers.” In

addition, nowadays the L2 culture is presented as an interdisciplinary core in many L2 curricula designs and textbooks (Sysoyev & Donelson, 2002)

Stimulated by the above reasons, the researcher has decided to conduct this study It is hoped that this study will discover the reality of teaching and learning American cultural studies

at Tran Phu Gifted high school in order to contribute some immediate solutions

2 Aims of the study

The aim of this study is to examine the current teaching and learning of American cultural studies in the high school classroom at Tran Phu Gifted High School

In order to achieve the aim, the study seeks to find out:

(1) The teachers’ and students’ perceptions on the importance of American cultural studies teaching and learning

3 Research questions:

To achieve the aim and objectives of the study, the following research questions were proposed:

1 How do the teachers and the students at Tran Phu Gifted High School perceive the importance of American cultural studies teaching and learning?

2 How do the teachers teach and the students learn / expect to learn American cultural studies in high school classroom?

3 What method and techniques do the teachers and the students use / expect to use?

4 What are the difficulties in teaching and learning American cultural studies as perceived

by the teachers?

4 Scope of the study

This study is limited to the teaching and learning reality with regard to teaching and learning American cultural studies in the classroom

This study is a detailed survey at Tran Phu Gifted High School in Hai Phong Therefore, the findings of the study are not intended to be generalized to other school contexts Indeed the findings may not apply beyond the actual participants in this particular study

5 Significance of the study

This study helps to identify the problems and suggests ways of improving them; therefore, it is hoped that this study will be beneficial in many ways First, participants in the study (the teachers and the learners at Tran Phu Gifted High School) will benefit immediately from the experience of reflection Secondly, the findings of the study will contribute information

to textbook writers and educators to determine curricula and program direction

6 Method of the study

The study was designed to use both quantitative and qualitative methods Then, various instruments were used to collect the data for the study from different sources:

- survey questionnaires to investigate the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards American cultural studies, their teaching and learning habits and their difficulties in teaching and learning

American cultural studies in the classroom

- class observations to get information about both the teachers’ methods of teaching and students’ ways of learning American cultural studies in the classroom

- interviews with the teachers to get in-depth information about the teachers’ and the grade 11 students’ suggestions to improve the teaching and learning of American cultural studies in the classroom

7 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

The Introduction presents an overview of the study including the rationale, aims, scope,

significance, methodology and design of the study

The major part of the study, the Development, is divided into three chapters Chapter one

provides theoretical background for the study Chapter two presents the methodology of the study and the last chapter is devoted to analyzing and discussing the findings of the study

The Conclusion part provides a brief summary of the findings in correspondence with

the four proposed research questions as well as offering some recommendations for better American cultural studies teaching and learning The limitations of and suggestions for further study are also discussed in this chapter

Besides, the survey questionnaires for the teachers and students and the suggested lesson plan are included in the Appendices

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