SKKN NHỮNG NHÂN tố GIAO văn HOÁ ẢNH HƯỞNG đến kỹ NĂNG đọc HIỂU TIẾNG ANH của học SINH TRƯỜNG THPT TĨNH GIA i THỰC TRẠNG và GIẢI PHÁP

However, to my best teaching experience, most of English foreign language learners in Vietnam in generaland in Tĩnh Gia 1 high school in particular lack of cultural background knowledge

THANH HÓA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

TĨNH GIA 1 HIGH SCHOOL

-MINOR THESIS IN EDUCATION

CROSS-CULTURAL FACTORS AFFECTING TĨNH GIA I HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION:

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

(NHỮNG NHÂN TỐ GIAO VĂN HOÁ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH

CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT TĨNH GIA I: THỰC TRẠNG VÀ GIẢI PHÁP)

Researcher: NGUYỄN THỊ HÀ, MA Teacher at Tĩnh Gia 1 high school

Field: English

THANH HÓA, 2014

Reading comprehension is a complex process of the interaction between the writer’slanguage and the readers’ prior background knowledge or memory schemata In the readingcomprehension process, readers’ linguistic elements are very important, but sometimes wecan not read behind the lines except by the help of background knowledge of culture, becausethe meanings of words are often acquired in a certain circumstance of culture However, to

my best teaching experience, most of English foreign language learners in Vietnam in generaland in Tĩnh Gia 1 high school in particular lack of cultural background knowledge and that iswhy they have a lot of difficulties in achieving exact reading comprehension This has urged

me to carry out the present study

By describing and interpreting the data collected through action research conducted inTĩnh Gia 1 high school, firstly, I managed to investigate cross-cultural factors affectingreading comprehension, from these to find out cross-cultural barriers in English readingcomprehension skills, and then, gave some suggestions for both teachers and students toimprove the students’ RC skills

With detailed investigations and valid findings, I believe this study is a reliable anduseful source of reference for language classes in general and for any Vietnamese Englishforeign language learners and teachers who share the same concern

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract i

Tables of contents ii

A INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study .1

2 Aims of the study.… ……… 1

3 Research methods of the study 1

B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2

1.1 Reading comprehension 2

1.2 The relationship between culture and language 2

1.2.1 Language and culture: 2

1.2.2 The role of culture in language teaching and learning 2

1.2.3.The role of cross-cultural background knowledge in English reading comprehension 3

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 3

2.1 The subjects 3

2.2 The research method 4

2.2.1 The procedure of the action research 4

2.2.2 The instruments of data collection 5

2.3 The data collection procedures 5

CHAPTER 3: THE FINDINGS 6

3.1 Linguistic barriers in relation to cross-culture in the English RC 6

3.1.1 Vocabulary 6

3.1.2 Grammar 8

3.1.3 Pragmatics 9

3.2 The causes of the cross-cultural barriers 10

3.2.1 The external causes 10

3.2.2 The internal causes 11

CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR SOLUTIONS 11

4.1 Cross-cultural factor teaching and learning in foreign language instruction 11

4.1.1 When should the study of cross-culture begin?.… … 11

4.1.2 What aspects of cross-culture should be taught in the classrooms? 11

4.1.3 The principles for cross-culture teaching 12

4.1.4 Common approaches to the teaching of cross-culture 12

4.2 Supplementary activities for developing students’ cross-cultural awareness in reading lessons 12

4.2.1 Activities that focuses on creating an authentic classroom environment 13

4.2.2 Activities that focus on providing cultural information 13

4.2.3 Activities that focus on developing students’ cross-cultural awareness 14

C CONCLUSION 1 The application of this research on reading comprehension teaching 16

2 Some implications for a better reading comprehension lesson 17

2.1 To students: 17

2.2 To the teachers: 18

2.3 To the textbook compilers 19

3 Significance of the study 19

4 Limitation and suggestions for further study 20

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

In English learning, the linguistic knowledge elements play a vital role in readingcomprehension (RC) However, in the process of reading, many Vietnamese students havealready possessed the above knowledge but they still can not comprehend the textscompletely because the meanings of words are acquired in a certain circumstance of culture.Every social communication possesses its own certain thought pattern, value, ways of life Therefore, if a Vietnamese student does not know about the English culture, such as histories,values, mode of thinking, customs, religion and life style, he may fail to understand the exactmeaning of the texts so understanding the cultural content of what one reads is a crucialfactor in RC

From my experience as a teacher of English at Tĩnh Gia 1(TG1) high school for eightyears, I have realized that the cultural content is not really concerned while studying readinglessons in textbooks The cultural knowledge remains unexplored and neglected in Englishreading learning and teaching process in this school That is why the great efforts made byteachers to improve the quality of English reading lessons can not help to meet the teachinggoals and students have much trouble in comprehending of the reading texts This issue hasbrought me a great desire to conduct action research in order to examine cross-cultural factorsthat cause barriers in English RC for students at TG1 high school as well as to give somesuggestions for incorporating the cultural knowledge into reading lessons With this study,the researcher hopes to help students at TG1 high school to have a better RC skill

2 Aims of the study The study aims at:

- Investigating the cross-cultural factors in students’ English RC process at TG1 high schools

- Discovering students’ cross-cultural barriers to English RC in the classrooms,

- Suggesting some solutions to reduce and eliminate them in order to achieve the exact RC

3 Research methods of the study.

To get the goals of the study, this study is conducted action research that employs bothquantitative and qualitative approaches to collect data With this action research, thequantitative analyses are through the process of data collected from tests and questionnaire.The qualitative approach is employed to deal with the data gathered from follow-upinterviews All comments, suggestions, and conclusions in the study are based on the results

of the data analysis

B DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In short, RC plays a vital role in teaching and learning a foreign language This fact calls forsuitable teaching methods to help the students become more active in learning reading

1.2 The relationship between culture and language

1.2.1 Language and culture

Language is the product of culture One important instrument of cultural expression islanguage Language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it On the one hand,without language, culture would not be possible On the other hand, language is influencedand shaped by culture; it reflects culture The relationship between language and culture isdeeply rooted Language is used to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties “Culture is

in language, and language is loaded with culture” (Agar, [2001, pg 28])

1.2.2 The role of culture in language teaching and learning “Linguistic competence alone isnot enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language”(Krasner, 2004, pg132) Language is rooted in culture and culture is reflected and passed on by language fromone generation to the next From this, one can see that learning a new language involves thelearning of a new culture Consequently, teachers of a language are also teachers of culture Itcan be said that cultural content is a key to effective teaching and learning a second or foreignlanguage Necessarily, students cannot master the language unless they have mastered thecultural contexts in which the language occurs It is actually hard for language learners tocommunicate well without knowledge of culture such as codes of behaviors, and differentbeliefs, etc As a result, this is the reason why we can come to the conclusion that teachingand learning language are more than teaching and learning a system of syntax and lexicon

1.2.3 The role of the cross-cultural background knowledge in English RC

Schema theory, a psycholinguistic model, emphasizes that RC is an interactive processbetween the reader’s previous background knowledge and the text According to the theory,

EFL readers’ RC is not only due to how easy or difficult a text is for them but more depends

on the level of readers’ recall from their culturally familiar background knowledge and fromthe contextual clues about cultural origins (Carrell, 1984, pg :312)

For a long time, in Vietnam, English teaching has focused on the language forms such

as phonetics, vocabulary and grammar and ignored the effect of background knowledge ofculture As the carrier of culture, the cultural background of language is rather extensive.Lacking of the necessary cultural background may hinder people from comprehendinglanguage For instance, when the president Reagan took up his post, an American wrote to aVietnamese teacher: “the United States has gone from peanuts to popcorn” The syntax ofthis sentence is very simple However, the Vietnamese teacher did not understand thesentence at that time until her friend explained to her that former president Jimmy Carterowned a big peanut farm while the present president Reagan is an actor and people eatpopcorn while they watch TV She suddenly realized the real humorous meaning of thissentence From this case, we can see that to comprehend the language, not only depends onthe comprehension of vocabulary and grammatical structures, but also depends on thecomprehension of relevant background knowledge of culture

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

2.1 The subjects

The study was based on the content of 3 textbooks: “Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12” whichfollows the theme-based approach It was conducted with the participation of students ofthree grades 10th, 11th, 12th.(10A5, 11A4, 12A7) at TG1 high school It is known that it is notalways feasible to carry out the study with all the students from three classes Thus, theresearcher, who is in charge of teaching English for these classes, only chose 48 students atthe age of 16-18 (6 males and 10 females from one class) as the final sample of the study.They took part in data collection instruments: Tests, questionnaire and follow-up interviews

The subjects were divided equally into 2 groups (9 males and 15 females in each) thatare the control group and the experimental group 3 males and 5 females from one class were

in one group The other students in the three classes still attended the program but no datawere collected on these students With the aims at selecting two compatible groups for thetreatment, the subjects in this study were arranged in accordance with their level of Englishbased on the results of their placement test

2.2 The research method

The method employed in this study is action research, with the use of a number ofinstruments, namely tests, questionnaires and interviews

2.2.1 The procedures of the action research

This action research project was carried out as follows

Step 1: Problem identification

When working on reading lessons, the students as well as teachers often focus on somuch the linguistic forms They took linguistic knowledge of grammar, vocabulary,phonetics into consideration to comprehend the text In fact, they master them but can not getexact comprehension of the reading texts Perhaps, they needed some help to be aware ofhow important cross-cultural factors are to RC

Step 2: Preliminary investigation

I spent two weeks collecting baseline data through observation and recordingbehaviors of the students and teachers when they dealt with cross-cultural elements during thereading process to find out their reading behavior and the answer to the questions: “whetherthey appreciate cross-cultural elements in the reading process or not ” and “What are the truecross-cultural problems that they encounter? ” I asked them to do a reading test to measurethem I also designed the pre-questionnaire to investigate cross-cultural factors affectingreading

process, which factors lead to barriers and the reasons for them

Step 3: Hypothesis

After reviewing the initial data, I formed a hypothesis that the reason for students’ lowreading proficiency might be due to some cross-cultural elements causing barriers in readingprocess That is by giving some approaches, principles and activities to incorporate cross-cultural elements into reading lesson, the researcher gives some suggestions for solutions, it

is believed that the RC of my students would be improved

Step 4: Plan intervention

Following the hypothesis, some steps were taken to implement a plan: Firstly, teacherswere introduced to use some cultural-based activities in the reading lessons These activitieswere alternatively used every week in order to get over the barriers that might appear to them

Secondly, teachers and students were asked to record their behaviors after readinglessons They took notes positive things after using these activities It was really necessaryand useful for the students and teachers as well because they might feel motivated if they gotsome progress Then, the students were asked to do post-tests and fill in the post-questionnaire Some students and teachers were invited to take part in the follow-upinterviews

Step 5: Evaluation

In order to clarify to what extent the cross-cultural elements would affect RC and causeproblems, information and results from the post-tests, the questionnaire and interviews, werecollected, analyzed and interpreted

2.2.2 The instruments of data collection

Tests were administered to explore the subjects’ treatment and attitudes towards thereading lessons containing cross-cultural factors In this study, two separate tests, a pretestand a posttest, were used to collect data In fact, they are two versions of the same test Theuse of the same test before and after the experiment treatment was to measure exactly thedifference that may have been caused by that treatment

Questionnaires were delivered right after the subjects had finished the pre-test Thequestionnaires were collected to find out the cross cultural factors in English RC process ofteachers and students at TG1 high school, discover teachers’ and students’ cultural obstacles

to English RC in the classrooms All information collected helped the researcher to identifyresults of the study

Interviews were conducted with the subjects who had unclear or ambiguous answers tothe researcher in order to make sure once again about the data collected

The combination of various data collection instruments would provide acomprehensive overview of the research

2.3 The data collection procedures

It can be described in details as follows:The data collection procedures commenced inearly March and ended at the end of April 2014 All of the procedures involved the followingsteps

Step 1: In the first week of March, TG1 students were given a RC test considered to be

pre-test Based on the test scores , cross-cultural factors in reading lessons were classified

Step 2: Also in March, after doing the pre-test, only subjects in the control group were

piloted with the questionnaire From the answers to find out the results, all of this work wascompleted in the middle of March

Step 3: After that, the researcher taught the students for one month It is time the treatment of

principles, approaches, culture-based activities were tried out into the lessons to investigatethe solutions for the problems This lasted for four weeks between March and April

Step 4: In the third week of April, students were asked to do the post-test Then, the students

in the experimental group were given the questionnaire Test score from this test and theanswers of these questions were analyzed and compared with the pre-ones to find out howeffective culture-based activities were to students’ RC

Step 5: Individual interviews were conducted with 10 students in mid April All of the

interviews were tape-recorded and then transcribed All of this work was finished at the end ofApril

CHAPTER 3: THE FINDINGS

3.1 Linguistic barriers in relation to cross-culture in the English RC

Language seems to be woven into the very fabric of every human culture; and to such

an extent that it is hard to imagine what human culture would be like without language Aproper understanding of a language is impossible without a full awareness of the culturalcontext in which it is used Since RC and culture are closely interrelated to one another,Vietnamese learners encounter some difficulties when they tend to achieve the exact Englishreading passages comprehension in textbooks The barriers of culture to language can beroughly explored in three major domains of language system: Vocabulary, sentences andtexts The following is the detail identification of cross-cultural elements causing barriers forstudents in reading lessons in high school textbooks

3.1.1 Vocabulary

As the basic element of language, vocabulary is the backbone of the whole languagesystem It certainly reflects the differences of culture most obviously and extensively On theone hand, some English words can have their equivalents in Vietnamese, so during theprocess of reading, readers from different cultures may not experience culturally relatedcomprehension barriers However, there may be many words in one culture, for which theequivalents can not be found in other cultures; in other words, “vocabulary vacancy” On theother hand, although we can find the equivalent word, the meaning extent of a word and theconnotation of culture are not complete equivalent between different cultures The differences

of culture in vocabulary in the high school textbooks can be reflected in the following:

Many English words can find the equivalents in Vietnamese while the culturalconnotations of them are different Three aspects will be concerned: the quantity of theequivalents, the meaning extent of the equivalents and the cultural association of theequivalents

The quantity of the equivalents: The numbers of equivalents of English and Vietnamese are

not the same

- One English word has many Vietnamese equivalent meanings

For example:

- One Vietnamese word has many English equivalent meanings

For example:

English Viewer Audience Spectator

- One English word has many Vietnamese equivalent meanings which are different, even opposite

Vietnamese Kỳ vọng (positive meaning) Dự kiến (negative meaning)

- The storm is expected to hit Thanh Hoa (negative meaning)

- He is expected to get the first prize (positive meaning)

- One English word has one Vietnamese equivalent translation but different meaning

English On the other hand (showing contrast)Vietnamese Mặt khác (additional idea)

The meaning extent of the equivalents: There is one equivalent word in Vietnamese to an

English word, but the meaning extent of two words are not exactly the same One reason may

be is that the meaning extent of English vocabulary is larger than that of Vietnamesevocabulary For instance:

- “Morning” in English refers to time section from 0 hour to twelve o’clock in twenty-four

hours’ system, but in Vietnamese, morning refers to the time section from dawn to noon

– To Vietnamese students, “dinner” means “bữa tối” but in English, besides this, it is also

used to refer to formal parties, even at noon A Vietnamese student is shocked at being

invited to “Christmas Dinner at 2.00 ” If you invite an English to enjoy “tea”, surely that, he

will wait to be serevd something to eat

Another situation is that the meaning extent of English vocabulary is smaller than that

of Vietnamese vocabulary For instance:

- In English culture, “family” usually refers to the family of two generations including

parents and children, even refers to the family of a couple, which does not want children

However, in Vietnamese, the “family” often refers to the family of three generations

including grandparents, parents and children; sometimes it even refers to the family of fourgenerations

The cultural association of the equivalents

English words can find the equivalent in Vietnamese but these two kinds of cultures give each word different cultural association within society.

For example, the red color, in English culture, red stands for danger, but in Vietnamese, red for blood, victory and fortune The blue color, in English, means depression

or sorrow such as “in a blue mode” “a blue outlook” but in Vietnamese blue implies hope

For students who are learning English, it is essential that know not only the conceptualmeaning of vocabularies, but also the cultural information, the vocabularies have with themand otherwise serious misunderstanding can occur in comprehension of the text meaning

3.1.2 Grammar

Cross-cultural barriers not only exist in the abundant vocabulary, but also exist in theaspect of grammar English is language governed by strict rules and regulations However,Vietnamese grammar is very flexible

The typical cross-cultural barriers can be seen in comparing the English passive voiceand the English tenses with the Vietnamese equivalents In English, the passive sentence,itself does not convey the negative or positive meaning This causes barriers for Vietnamesestudents when they want to comprehend a reading text containing a lot of passive sentences

They do not know how to interpret the sentence towards negative form “bị” or positive form

“được” if they do not understand the certain context as well as cultural senses hidden inside

that context

3.1.3 Pragmatics

` In term of pragmatics, the meaning of the sentence is often implied inside theunwritten one This is the contextual meaning, that depends a lot on the readers’ background

knowledge In English, although the word and its meaning are almost the same, the sentencethat is composed of the vocabulary expresses different meaning This is very hard forVietnamese students to understand

For example, He is a professional / She is a professional.

From the angle of language, the two sentences above describe a person who is engaged

in a kind of specific profession Actually, from the perspectives of region, sex, profession andsociety, the first sentence means that he is a professional boxer, but the later may mean thatshe is a prostitute Vietnamese students often meet comprehension barriers while readingEnglish idioms and proverbs because they contain abundant connotations of culture

For example, “A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them, the better they

be.”

In this proverb, according to English culture, we know that in ancient Britain, awoman’s status was very low, such that they were considered to be tractable just like a dog.But how the walnut tree be such an integrated part of this proverb? It is because there was asuperstition in ancient Britain People considered that if they beat the trunk of the walnut tree

in spring, the tree would bear many more walnuts in that year Take English idioms asexamples:

1 As red as a beetroot (Đỏ như củ cải đường)

But, in Vietnamese culture, students do not know what the beetroot is, even in their thinking, a beetroot is white, not red, so they translate it into “đỏ như gấc”

2 As quiet as a mouse, ( Lặng im như chuột)

In English, people use a mouse to compare with silence On the contrary, in

Vietnamese, people use as quiet as a rice to express the same meaning (Im như thóc)

Texts are another aspect of cultural phenomenon There are many differences betweenthe texts of English and Vietnamese Firstly, in English, as texts are influenced by thoughtpatterns, there are logic and coherence relationships between the sentences and paragraphs,such as the sentences that express time relationship, space relationship, comparison anddiversion, inference and conclusion Secondly, language forms (including the using of repeat,synonym and the parallel structures), the means of connection (such as substitution, ellipsisand anaphora) and logic arrangement combine together to influence the structures of texts,and these three aspects are different from Vietnamese

Vietnamese culture is an example of subjectivity while English speaking countrieshave objectivity In Vietnamese culture , the ego is at the center of universe When reading,the reader knows where the speaker is In English speaking culture, the ego is among otherthings in the universe When reading, do not care or know where the writer is:

For example: - Đi lên bộ/ Đi xuống cơ sở Đi lên /Đi xuống : Go to

From what has been discussed above, cross-cultural barriers conceal many aspects oflanguage Understanding the social culture of English language is helpful for comprehendingEnglish texts The more Vietnamese students understand English culture, the lesscomprehension barriers they will meet in English reading

3.2 The causes of the cross-cultural barriers

3.2.1 The external causes

To explain the cultural barriers appearing in vocabulary, language determinism inSapir-Whorf Hypothesis (cited in Brown [1986, pg 104]) pointed out that language shapes orinfluence our thinking in different way to some extents The strong version in theconstructive analysis hypothesis also showed that we are prisoners of our language we canonly think and imagine what our language allows The constructive analysis hypothesisclaimed that the principal barriers to second language acquisition are the interference of firstlanguage system with second language system

For example: Vietnamese does not eat much bread everyday so have only word “bánh mỳ” while the western have many names to call it or the Eskimo have 12 words to call

“snow” because they are familiar with it.

3.2.2The internal causes

Besides the external causes including reader’s vocabulary and the knowledge ofgrammar and pragmatics, this study will also examine the internal causes This includesthought pattern and value as the two most essential ones Moreover, individualism andcollectivism, iIndependence and dependence are considered as the internal causes

In conclusion, as language and culture combine together, Vietnamese students meetcross-cultural barriers of every aspect in the process of English reading Obviously,fundamental to text comprehension is the reader’s ability to master the language knowledgeand understand the culture of the language

CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR SOLUTIONS

4.1 Cross-cultural teaching and learning in foreign language instruction

4.1.1 When should the study of culture begin?

Should culture be postponed until students can study it in the target language? Willspecial emphasis upon culture be wasteful of precious class time? Should cultural materials

be postponed until students have greater maturity and greater language competence? Ideally,the study of culture should begin on the very first day of class and should continue every day.The concept of culture should be communicated to students in the earliest phases of theirinstruction in order to lessen their difficulties in mastering the language

4.1.2 What aspects of culture should be taught in the foreign language classroom?

According to Valette, [1986, pg 179], there are two main components of culture in thelanguage classroom "One component is the anthropological or sociological culture: theattitudes, custom, and daily activities of a people, their ways of thinking, their values, theirframes of reference Since language is a direct manifestation of this phase of culture, a societycannot be totally understood or appreciated without knowledge of its language The othercomponent of culture is the history of civilization Traditionally representing the “culture”element in foreign language teaching, it includes geography, history, and achievements in thesciences, the social sciences, and the arts This second component forms the framework forthe first: it represents the heritage of a people and as such must be appreciated by the studentswho wish to understand a new target culture"

4.1.3 The principles for culture teaching

Like teaching other aspects in foreign language instruction, culture teaching requiressystematic development of its teaching principles Principles for culture teaching arementioned in a number of studies and Kramsch’s [1998, pg 290] list may be considered one

of the most noticeable Her principles of teaching culture led to a new way of looking at theteaching of language and culture These include:

- Establishing a sphere of inter-culture, which means that teaching culture is not transferringinformation between cultures but a foreign culture should be put in relation with one’s own.The intercultural approach includes a reflection on both cultures

- Teaching culture as an interpersonal process, which means replacing the teaching of factsand behaviors by the teaching of a process that helps to understand others

- Teaching culture as difference, which means considering the cultures and ethnicity of modern societies and looking at various factors like age, gender, regional origin,ethnic background, and social class In other words, cultures should not be seen asmonolithic

multi Crossing disciplinary boundaries, which means linking the teaching of culture to otherdisciplines like anthropology, sociology and semiology

4.1.4 Common approaches to the teaching of culture

In the history of culture teaching different approaches have been observed Some ofthem have lost ground, others have had and still have dominant positions Approaches to theteaching of culture can be classified in different ways Traditionally, they can be divided intotwo broad groups: the mono-cultural approach (which mostly focuses on the culture of thecountry whose language is studied) and the comparative approach (which is based oncomparing learners’ own and the other culture)

4.2 Supplementary activities for developing students’ cross-cultural awareness in reading lessons

There is a great variety of activities for teaching culture in English classes, such as

cultural aside, slice-of-life activity, culture assimilator, audio-motor unit, micrologue, drama, web quest, As teaching culture is not the primary objective in English classes in

Vietnam and it is aimed at developing students’ cross-cultural awareness, the activitiesselected in this study are supposed to help integrate culture into language teaching.Supplementary activities for culture teaching in reading lessons may fall into the followingthree groups:

4.2.1 Activities that focus on creating an authentic classroom environment

These activities are supposed to be simple and may be conducted at the beginning ofEnglish learning They are designed to set a more memorable learning, especially in thesituation where language and culture are taught far away of the target country Students may

be asked to collect or make by themselves posters, wall charts, maps and realia that areconnected to the cultural topics in the syllabus and can create a visual presence of the otherculture

From the first day of English classes the teacher should prepare a cultural environment

in his/her classrooms He/she may ask the students to collect and bring to the class objects(things, books, pictures, ) related to some aspects of life in English-speaking countries.Posters, pictures, maps, signs and realia of many kinds are essential in helping studentsdevelop a mental image about target language countries The objects may be put in theEnglish language corner in the classroom if the classroom is large enough or hung on thewall The collection may be carried out by groups of students and according to some commontopics chosen by themselves For example: - School life which may correspond with

“School talks”(unit2, Tiếng Anh 10)