AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN MOTIVATING 11TH FORM ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON GIFTED h

The importance of American culture is undeniable in English language.Therefore, investigating new ways to motivate students to learn American culture isapparently necessary to gain effec

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

This minor thesis was carried out with an investigation into using Americanmovies in motivating 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted HighSchool - 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 relatedliterature reviews, on which the contents of the study are based

The second chapter focuses on developing the research methodology, in

English at Lam Son Gifted High School are chosen as main instruments

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

The fourth chapter aims at discussing the findings on how to use American

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

ABSTRACT i

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii

LIST OF TABLES iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

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, includinggrammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, aswell as a change in attitudes towards one’s own or another culture For scholars andlaymen 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 toincorporate the teaching of culture into the foreign language curriculum

In Vietnam, in recent years, English as a foreign language has gainedconsiderable attention It has become a compulsory subject in the syllabus of manyschools, colleges and universities However, the fact is that the combination ofculture and English teaching-learning process has not been effective yet, especiallythat 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 learningEnglish and cannot understand English-American culture

As a teacher of English at Lam Son Gifted High School, the researcher isconcerned about the teaching methods to promote her students' motivation inlearning 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 andlearning culture Language and culture are two factors that cannot be separated Inorder to learn a foreign language, we have to learn the culture along with perceivingthe language Among English – speaking countries, American culture is moreabundant than other cultures in England, Canada… Thus, the researcher decided

American movies presented in English class at Lam Son Gifted High School Also,

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

2 Aims of the study

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of usingAmerican movies in lessons to promote 11th form English gifted students at LamSon Gifted High School - Thanh Hoa province to learn and understand Americanculture

3 Scope of the study

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

4 Methodology

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

5 Structure of the thesis

The thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the development, andthe 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 teachingand 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 detailedresults of the surveys and a critical comprehensive analysis on the data collected arealso presented in this chapter

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

recommendations for motivating students to understand American culture throughusing 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 Americanculture

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 alsopresented 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 ofculture not because we necessarily want to teach the culture ofthe other country, but because we have to teach it If we teachlanguage without teaching at the same time the culture in which

it operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols towhich the student attaches the wrong meaning; for unless he iswarned, unless he receives cultural instruction, he will associateAmerican concepts or objects with the foreign symbols (p 85-86)

Concurrent with that, Brown (1994) emphasizes “… a language is a part ofculture and a culture is a part of a language The two are intricately interwoven sothat 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 aboutlanguage and language teaching

American history began with waves of immigrants, bringing their owncultures and traditions to a vast new country The trend of American culture istoward multiculturalism, not assimilation because immigrant populations within theUnited States are not being blended together but rather they are transformingAmerican Society into a truly multicultural mosaic Today, the American mosaic is

one of different cultures and regional identities, each with unique characteristics andflavors.

1.2 The role of culture in foreign language teaching

Language is a part of culture, and it plays a very important role in thedevelopment 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, cultureplays a very important part in language teaching, which is widely acknowledged byEnglish teaching circle Since the 1960s, studies of Hammerly (1982) wereconducted to demonstrate the close relationship between language learning and theperception 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 learnersneed to be aware, for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people,express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone They shouldknow that behaviors and intonation patterns that are appropriate in their own speechcommunity may be perceived differently by members of the target language speechcommunity They have to understand that, in order for communication to besuccessful, language use must be associated with other culturally appropriatebehavior

In many regards, culture is taught implicitly, imbedded in the linguisticforms that students are learning To make students aware of the culture featuresreflected 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 aredifferent 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 ofaddress is important in Indonesian culture and society Learning the vocabularywithout knowing the cultural background of the usage might bring hiccups incommunication.

In addition, students should be aware of the culture differences between theirown culture and that of the target culture Without this knowledge, awkwardsituations may arise In Indonesian culture, for example, it seems to be impolite andarrogant 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 culturalawareness (p.64) Byram and Morgan (1994) stated that cultural learning has to takeplace 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 culturalelements into lessons is very important Understanding these cultural factors helplearners acquire a foreign language and communicate in it effectively The languagelearning targets not only knowing what, that is knowing the contents contained inthese words, but more importantly, understand the deep meaning of the contents ofsuch 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 targetcountry, 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,” RobertWatson (1990, p.3.) stated, “the culture provided by all the mass media, but

particularly by movie and television, represents the most significant environmentalfactor 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 mechanicalaids to learning A movie is a means of expression, a language and an art, based onmodern technology By watching movies, not only are the students’ understandings

of the target culture enhanced, but also their interest in other fields of the targetculture is nurtured Groves quoted Thorold (1964, p 12) on the result of hisexperiment, “it was only while exploring the extent of cinema that the use ofmovies to enhance language learning and cultural understanding that we foundstudents 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 theadvantages of using movies to teach culture, and the entertainment value moviescan bring to students’ learning, the researcher believes movies will bring goodimpact to students’ process of learning Thus, movies should be incorporated intothe language class to motivate students’ interest in learning, to make lessons moreinteresting 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 thelearners’ 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 onstudents’ listening comprehension The final results of the statistical analysesindicated that student’s listening skill “did improve” through the instruction ofusing DVD movies in a motivating learning environment with “lower level ofanxiety” after a whole school year (Luo, 2004, p.43)

Herron and Seay (1991, p 62) conducted research on using videos inteaching listening comprehension for EFL students The study has providedevidence that the experimental group performed significantly better on the finaltests of listening comprehension with both the video and the audio than did thecontrol group in which no strategy training occurred.

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

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 offorms As well as movies, other examples of popular culture used as teaching aidsare comics, cartoon, music, and television shows (Marshall, 2002, p.77) As anexample, clipping a relevant comic strip from the Sunday paper and using it at thestart of class is one way to get students’ attention and move into a topic Movieclips can be used in this way, even if they represent the opposite of what is beingtaught

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

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

Popular culture artifacts, including movies, may be one of the mostcommanding 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 thosecultures, 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 visualelement of cinema gives motion pictures a universal power of communication.Some movies have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing orsubtitles that translate the dialogue

1.6 What is motivation?

Motivation has been differently defined from various perspectives ofpsychology, sociology and linguistics Some psychologists defined motivation interms of certain needs Ausubel (1968 p 164) identified some main needs whichhelp 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 (Goodand Brophy, 1990) or the need to process and internalize the results of exploration,manipulation, activity, and stimulation, to resolve contradiction, to search forsolutions 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 socialpsychology In cognitive psychology, two types of motivation are instrumental andintegrative motivation (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) In social psychology, twomain types of motivation are intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Harmer, 1991)

The concept of motivation came from social psychology (Harmer, 1991) andconnected closely to students’ effort, desire as well as their positive attitudestowards 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 thelanguage and favorable attitudes towards learning the language”.

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

1.7 Relationships between teaching culture and students' motivation

Many teachers sometimes hesitate to incorporate cultural studies in theirlanguage syllabus because they are afraid of wasting time which can be allocatedfor 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 hislanguage course?’’

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

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

More than a decade passed, Lafayette (1998, p 25) presented the view thatmany teachers are not aware of the important role of cultural integration in theclassroom to teach foreign languages Teachers could overcome boredom in theclassroom 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 toteach and facilitate the students in learning the culture.

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

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

It is the teacher’s responsibility within or outside of the classroom, toexplicitly take on the role of culture educator and deliberately assist students withtheir process of culture analysis It is believed that nurturing student’s culturalawareness is the responsibility of a language teacher

Motivation is closely connected to students’ studying; therefore, theproblems relating to learner motivation have often intrigued educators andmotivation researchers for years As defined by Lumsden (1994, p.37), learningmotivation can be considered as students’ desire to participle in the languageprocess Hence, learner motivation can be inferred from a student’s behavior orconsidered 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 aperson’s success or failure in learning a foreign language Obviously, unmotivatedstudents are insufficiently involved and therefore unable to develop their potentialL2 skills As a result, motivation is one of the determining factors in the success offoreign or second language learning

Clearly, there is close relationship between teaching culture and studentsmotivation Teachers have important duties that create the conditions in whichlearning can take place To sum up, communicative method will be an appropriateattitude towards this objective So, if using movies in the class can be one of thebest 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 treatedwithin the language syllabus, such as discrimination, moral issues, mass media,ecology, education, and work, or to illustrate language functions and grammaticalpatterns in real use Here are also other important points that need to be made surebefore using movies in foreign language teaching These are, for instance, copyrightmatters, 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 auseful thing to consider It is important to choose movies that are long enough toconvey 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, Warmovies, Action movie, Romance, Documentary, Walt Disney movie, etc Those arethe reason why the researcher in this study decides to choose the video “Tom andJerry” 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 twosyllabuses for students of English: Basic English (BA) for non-major students andAdvanced English (AE) for gifted students English gifted students have to learnEnglish 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 ofLanguages and International studies and the rest hold Bachelor degrees in Englishlanguage teaching There are four young teachers who take charge of teaching BasicEnglish; the others are responsible for both Basic English and Advanced English.They enjoy teaching and spend all of their enthusiasm and effort making theirteaching lessons interesting and attractive to the students However, during theAdvanced English teaching process, teachers have to face many difficulties inpromoting 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 threeclasses 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 of11th form There are 10 questions for students from which I can find out the realsituation of their motivation in learning American culture through Americanmovies, their attitudes towards this issue, the factors that make the students find itdifficult 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, butonly English gifted students of 11th form of this school are taught American culturethrough American movie Therefore, students doing the survey are very good atgrammar and doing exercises in writing and have enough knowledge of English toanswer 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 thisstudy, the researcher depicted the results she got from introducing the video “ Tomand 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 11thform 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 imbalancedratio between male and female students in all English major classes, and in thesegroups, it was approximately 1/7 which can well be a representative ratio of thepopulation

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

Students’ durations of learning English were also different Many of them

were 6thform pupils They had all finished secondary school and passed entranceexams into Lam Son Gifted High School

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 thisclass became the subjects of the research and all information about them will begathered and analyzed in the next section

2.2.3.2 The participants

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

The researcher and four teacher participants arranged to meet and discussabout methods, contents, and time allocation for the research Teachers developedplans for almost all aspects of implementing a project such as the purposes, thetopic 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 throughseven years of experience as a teacher of English at Lam Son gifted school, a surveyquestionnaire was designed to identify the reasons why 11th form students have littlemotivation 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 Thequestionnaire for students is in simple English so as to make sure that there is nomisunderstanding Questions 1, 2, 3 aimed at finding out students’

awareness of leaning American culture Questions 4, 5, 6 focused on the challengesfaced by students when they watched the movies Questions 7, 8, 9, 10 asked forstudents’ 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 learningAmerican culture through American movies and the efficiency of using Americanmovies 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 atLam Son Gifted High School Question1 referred to the frequency of theintroduction of the movies done by teacher in English class Question 2, 3 weregiven to understand students’ willing to take part in the movies and their attitudestoward American culture presented in the movies Question 4 was teachers’ ideasabout the difficulties met by students when they watched the movies Questions 5, 6concentrated on teachers’ methods of using American movies in English class inmotivating 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 secondsemester of the school year 2013 – 2014 Because it was the time students weregoing to complete the second year of learning English at Lam Son gifted school.Before delivering questionnaires to students and teachers of English, the researcherand her colleagues ever used some American movies in the lessons This program

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

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

In the second week of September, 2013, 04 copies of another questionnairewere delivered to 04 teachers who are teaching Advanced English oral to 11th formEnglish 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 ofEnglish at Lam Son gifted school in response to the questionnaires wereconsolidated and categorized by the researchers The results from the ten questionsfor students and the six questions for teachers were subsequently tabulated andconverted to the percentages for the conveniences of analysis Along with theinformation via survey questionnaires, information gained through classobservations were added to assist interpretation

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS

In this chapter, the results of the study are presented The data has beencollected from the questionnaires for teachers and students The results will bepresented in forms of tables

3.1 Results

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

3.1.1.1 Students’ awareness of the necessity and importance of American culture

Figure 1 showed that a large number of students did not have goodawareness of understanding American culture Indeed, 5% of them found it verynecessary and 08% responded they needed to have an understanding of Americanculture According to the diagram, a large percentage (57%) of students thought itwas unnecessary to understand American culture in English classes and 30%believed that it was somewhat necessary

Very necessary Necessary Somewhat necessary Not necessary

5%

8%

Figure 1: Students’ awareness of having an understanding of American culture

The other answers to a question about the importance of American culture alsoproved that students had a very low awareness of understanding it

Very Important Somewhat Not important

Figure 2: Students’ awareness of the importance of American culture

According to Figure 2, the importance of American culture was deniedbecause only 3% and 6% of students confirmed that American culture was veryimportant and important to them respectively Meanwhile, 27% said it wassomewhat important and a large number of students, 64%, chose the answer “notimportant at all” Students did not know truly that if they wanted to master thelanguage, they had to understand the cultural contexts in which the language

towards their American culture in English class

3.1.1.2 Students’ awareness of learning American culture

20%

71%

very much much

not much not at all

Figure 3: Students’ awareness of learning American culture