Nghiên cứu hành động về việc nâng cao nhận thức của học sinh về văn hóa anh quốc trong giờ dạy nói ở một trường trung học cơ sở tại quảng bình​

I, Hoang Thi Thu Giang, certify my authorship of the MA thesis entitled “An action research project on enhancing students’ awareness of British Culture in speaking lessons at a secondary

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST –

GRADUATE STUDIES *****************

HOÀNG THỊ THU GIANG

AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT ON ENHANCING STUDENT’S AWARENESS OF BRITISH CULTURE IN SPEAKING LESSONS AT

A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN QUANG BINH

(Nghiên cứu hành động về việc nâng cao nhận thức của học sinh về Văn hóa Anh quốc trong giờ dạy nói ở một trường trung học cơ sở tại Quảng Bình)

M.A THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01

Hanoi – 2020

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST –

GRADUATE STUDIES *****************

HOÀNG THỊ THU GIANG

AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT ON ENHANCING STUDENT’S AWARENESS OF BRITISH CULTURE IN SPEAKING LESSONS AT

A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN QUANG BINH

(Nghiên cứu hành động về việc nâng cao nhận thức của học sinh về Văn hóa Anh quốc trong giờ dạy nói ở một trường trung học cơ sở tại Quảng Bình)

I, Hoang Thi Thu Giang, certify my authorship of the MA thesis entitled “An action research project on enhancing students’ awareness of British Culture in speaking lessons at a secondary school in Quang Binh” The substance of the MA

thesis has not, wholly or in part, has been submitted for a degree in any otheruniversity or institution

Hanoi, July 2020

Hoang Thi Thu Giang

i

On the completion of this MA thesis, I would like, first of all, to express mydeepest gratitude and indebtedness to my supervisor- Dr Huynh Anh Tuan who hasalways been most willing and ready to give me valuable advice, inspiration andsupervision

I also wish to express my sincere thanks to the teachers of English and students

in the secondary school in Quang Binh for their great assistance and support duringthe process of conducting this MA thesis, without which my thesis cannot havebeen accomplished

It is a big mistake if I would not acknowledge here my special thanks to theauthors of methodology and cultural works whose ideas have inspired andstimulated my thinking and my writing of this thesis

Ultimately, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to my family, my friends fortheir encouragement and inspiration

This MA thesis has been completed to my best knowledge, however, mistakeand short-comings are unavoidable Hence, I look forward to receiving commentsand suggestions from teachers, students and any readers, for the perfection of thethesis

Hanoi, July 2020

Hoang Thi Thu Giang

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Regarding the importance of intercultural competence in second languageacquisition, progressive scholars today believe that culture and language areinseparable and culture elements must be an integral part of language learning The

study aims to investigate the extent to which the applied techniques of teaching culture enhance the students’ awareness about British Culture It also explores the students’ attitude towards the applied techniques The eight stated cultural elements

in the intensive course, the typical technique of teaching culture, namely cultural practices together with supportive activities like presentation, group works and role play have been proved effectively after the project The most noticeable merit for

students is that they could have more opportunities to enhance their awareness ofBritish Culture in speaking lessons via many cultural experiences They showedtheir positive attitude towards the course The research concludes that enhancingstudents’ awareness of culture of the target language is new to the teaching context

in Quang Binh It should be widely introduced to secondary schools there for suchkind of methods directly and highly benefit the teaching and learning English

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LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS

Figure 2.1 The cultural iceberg 7

Figure 3.1: Types of action research 20

Chart 4.1: Percentage of correct answers in Pre Intervention test 28

Chart 4.2: The data of questions 1 in the pre-intervention test 29

Chart 4.3: The data of questions 2 in the pre- intervention test 30

Chart 4.4: The data of questions 3 in the pre- intervention test 31

Chart 4.5: The summary of opened questions number 4 in the pre-intervention test .33

Chart 4.6: Percentage of correct answers for three closed questions in the posttest.36 Chart 4.7: The summary data of the opened questions in the posttest 36

Chart 4.8: The data of correct answers in closed questions of the pretest and posttest 37 Chart 4.9: The percentage of correct answers to questions number 2 & 3 in the posttest .38

Chart 4.10: The data of opened questions number 4 of the pretest and posttest 39

Chart 4.11: The data of the presentation part 40

Chart 4.12: The data of the practice part 41

Chart 4.13: The data of the production part 41

Chart 4.14: The summary data of the event observation 42

Chart 4.15: The summary data in the questionnaire 43

Chart 4.16: Further information from students in the questionnaire 45

LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Methods to enhance the students’ awareness of British Culture 34

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v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS iv

LIST OF TABLES iv

ABBREVIATIONS v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

CHAPTER: I INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and Objectives 2

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Methods of the study 4

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Structure of the thesis 5

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Culture and language teaching 6

2.1.1 Culture and its components 6

2.1.2 The relation of culture with cross-cultural, inter-cultural communication 8

2.1.3 Importance of culture in language teaching 9

2.2 An overview of Teaching Speaking and Teaching Culture 10

2.2.1 Goals of teaching culture in language classes 10

2.2.2 Classroom speaking activities 11

2.2.4 Applying cultural teaching techniques in speaking lessons 14

2.2.5 Some productive guidelines for teaching culture 15

2.3 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis 16

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Research approach: Action research 18

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3.1.1 Why Action research? 18

3.2 An action research project 21

3.3 Research context 24

3.4 Data collection instruments 24

3.4.1 Tests 24

3.4.2 Observation 25

3.4.3 Questionnaire 25

3.5 Data collection procedure 25

3.6 Data analysis procedure 26

3.6.1 Quantitative analysis 26

3.6.2 Qualitative analysis 27

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28

4.1 The extent to which the applied techniques of teaching culture enhance the students’ awareness of British culture 28

4.1.1 General pretest findings 28

4.1.2 Applied teaching techniques and practicing activities 33

4.1.3 Initial information of posttest 35

4.2 The students’ attitudes towards the applied techniques 39

4.2.1 Observation interpretation 40

4.2.2 Questionnaire interpretation 43

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 46

5.1 Recapitulation 46

5.2 Concluding remarks 46

5.3 Limitation 48

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 48

5.4 Reflection 49

REFERENCES 51 APPENDICES I

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CHAPTER: I INTRODUCTION

Knowledge of the world’s languages and cultures is more vital than ever Inorder to compete in the global community, we must be able to communicateeffectively and to appreciate, to understand and to work effectively in theframework of other cultures It seems obvious enough that to penetrate anotherlanguage, one must understand what its people are saying and make oneselfunderstood

1.1 Rationale

One naive assumption occasionally made by teachers is that a mastery of thelinguistics patterns of a foreign culture leads itself to “thinking like a native” AsLewald (1968) properly points out, this belief is unwarranted Unless the student islearning the language in the target culture, the cultural referents necessary tounderstanding a native speaker must be learned in addition (cited in Seelye, 1974).Learning a language in isolation of its cultural roots prevents one frombecoming socialized into its contextual use Knowledge of linguistics structurealone does not carry with it any special insight into the political, social, religious, oreconomic system

Today, for educators and teachers of English, the culture of target language hasbeen put much consideration in second language teaching The expected outcomes,however, seem to be far from satisfactory

Although aware of the role of culture as the key to a success in second language

acquisition, there are times when it is difficult for a guest in a new culture to adapt

the cultural norm of the host country As a result, sometimes, the terms culture shock or conflicting value systems have been much mentioned for appropriate

explanation of the failure in communication and social interaction

The way success works is not really easy to discover Obviously, the cultureelements have not been thoroughly exploited in language lessons To be purposeful,teaching activities should integrate cultural elements in a reasonable way In other

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words, teacher as an instructor must be purposeful to lead learners to somewhere Itshould be apparent- at least to the instructor- what the reason is for doing any givencultural activities.

Fortunately, the important role of culture in mastering a second language hasbeen acknowledged by most teachers everywhere, yet regrettably, they have not

benefited from much studies on the What, for better understanding about culture and the How, for further understanding on how to teach culture effectively in language

lessons, this shows a need for my research on British culture elements in languageteaching and learning

In fact, building productive language lessons in which both ensure languageskills and nurture as well as support intercultural communication is a difficultprocess for most teachers Methodologists and experienced teachers who have skills

in working with the alterable aspects of second language acquisition oftenemphasize that there is actually no list of “things to do”, no single dramatic eventthat facilitate all the language lessons Instead, as with so many of the executivefunction of teaching culture, success depends on a lot of “little things” well As ateacher of English, this fact stimulates my ambitions to undertake the thesis entitled

“An action research project on enhancing students’ awareness of British Culture

in speaking lessons at a secondary school in Quang Binh” in order to work-out

what the so-called “little things” are so that I will enhance my students’ awareness

of British culture and simultaneously improve their speaking skills

1.2 Aims and Objectives

These days, the distinction between content and methodology are no longer assharp as they previous were How and why learners learn become as important aswhat they learn And it is the learners who are the sources of information on andinsight into educational process

This MA thesis aims to find out the effectiveness of the applied techniques onenhancing the students’ awareness of British culture In order to reach the main aim,the two objectives are given simultaneously in detail by steps Firstly, the researcher

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investigates the extend to which the applied techniques enhance students’ awareness

of British culture In the intensive speaking course designed for 7th grade of theschool year 2019-2020, I would like to apply the techniques to enhance the students’awareness of British Culture Obviously, some typical methods of teaching culturethrough speaking activities help to stimulate the motivation of students inexperiencing British Culture Secondly, the students’ attitudes towards the appliedtechnique is uncovered To make it clearer, how the students react towards themethods is put in my deep concern through the working on the data of questionnaireand observation

1.3 Research questions

The research purports to address the following questions:

1 To what extent can the applied techniques enhance the students’ awareness

of British Culture?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards the applied techniques?

1.4 Scope of the study

In the hope of fulfilling my purpose, I would like to focus on providing a set ofwide-angle viewing and understandings the close relation between language andculture in general and findings techniques for integrating culture in languagelessons to enhance students’ awareness of British Culture

To find out detailed information, I would like to specify my research only withthe 7th form students At this age, students have ability of proper cognition Inaddition, most of them have high learning motivation as they have just started thenew school level Therefore, it is easy for teacher to stimulate and enhance theirawareness of culture

Moreover, in order to make it easy to generalize the findings in my study, thecourse book is Solutions, Pre-intermediate student’s book, 2nd Edition, OxfordUniversity Express Actually, this course book is used in the extensive Englishlesson, namely speaking project, alongside with the new English text book ofVietnam Ministry of Education and Training In fact, the structures and contents of

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the new English text book is systematic as to move from practice to theory and back

to practice in a cycle of development of understanding of the topic in each unit.However, the culture realization is not very clear and sufficient enough to bringessential knowledge to students

The four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing are allinterconnected Proficiency in each skill is necessary to become a well-roundedcommunicator, however, the ability to speak skillfully provides the speaker withseveral distinct advantages The capacity to put words together in a meaningful way

to reflect thoughts, opinions, and feelings provides the speaker a perfect image.Therefore, I choose speaking lessons to conduct my study

1.5 Methods of the study

To successfully and effectively reach the aims of the thesis, I adapt steps inNunan (1992)’s action research cycle The action project was proceeded in fivemain steps, namely problem identification, preliminary investigation, hypothesis,intervention, and evaluation Research data was collected with a number ofinstruments including, pre-test, post-test, questionnaire and observation After apreliminary investigation had been carried out, an intensive speaking course wasdesigned, and then implemented with the participation of 38 7th grade students at asecondary in Quang Binh After finishing the course, to gain the multipleperspective for the study, the students were requested to finish the posttest andquestionnaire to check the outcome of the technique implement

1.6 Significance of the study

This thesis has its significance in many ways Firstly, the thesis would provide

information on the intensity and understanding of knowledge of language and

culture Secondly, it will give readers and teachers significant insights about the importance of enhancing students’ awareness of British culture Thirdly, the thesis

has immense possibility to offer teachers with some techniques to enhance students’awareness of British culture The most significance is that all these benefits willdevelop learners’ communicative competence in English and other areas oflanguage learning

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Furthermore, findings from the study would also be a reliable source of trackfor other studies on language and culture in all major area which are involved inlearning a second language.

1.7 Structure of the thesis

Within the aforementioned scope, the thesis is divided into five chapters

Chapter one is the introduction to the thesis In this part, I would like to give a

glimpse at language and culture in second language acquisition, the reason toconduct this thesis The aims and objectives, the scope, the methods and thestructure of the thesis are also included in this chapter

Chapter two, literature review, refers to theoretical background for further steps

of the thesis

The next chapter is the methodology This chapter deals with detailed

information about the research questions, the research approach, the researchcontext, the data collection instruments, the data collection procedure and the dataanalysis procedure

Chapter four is findings and discussion in which shows the results from the tests,

observations, questionnaire and findings discussion

Chapter five is the conclusion which summarizes the major findings of the

thesis along with its limitations, proposes suggestions for further studies andreflection This part gives an overview of the results and assists them in recognizingthe significance of the thesis

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter refers to theoretical background for further steps of the thesis inwhich three related areas will be presented: culture and teaching culture through in-class speaking activities In addtion to this, the researcher will review results of theprevious studies related to the research area, which helps the researcher have abetter understanding about the issue

2.1 Culture and language teaching

2.1.1 Culture and its components

Culture is a far- reaching dynamic concept and an elaborate, ever-changing

phenomenon The word culture has many different meanings As a matter of fact, to

set precise definition for what is to be abstract and universally different perception

is sometime out of question Personally, I adopt some ways of defining Culture as

follows:

“…that complex whole which include knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Edward B Tylor, 1871)

“Culture is an intergrated system of learned behavior patterns that are characteristic of the members of any given society Culture refers to the total way of life of particular groups of people It includes everything that a group of people thinks, says, does and makes – its systems of attitudes and feelings Culture is learned and transmitted from generation to generation” (Robert Kohls (1996)

“Culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, life style, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (The United Nations Educational Scientific

and Cultural Organization, 2002)

“Culture is the totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work and thought” (Peterson, 2004)

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It can be seen that the aforementioned definitions sufficiently cover the content of

the concept “Culture” Each definition has brought its own perspective to the way that people think about culture These days, the term culture has acquired new meanings

over time without losing the older meaning along the way Knowledge based onanalyzing collected materials paves me way to interpret culture as detailed below:Culture is a full range of learned human behaviour patterns In other words,culture incorporates multiple elements Very often what people see culture is only

the surface of the culture “Comparing culture with an iceberg, that part people can observe of others’ culture is usually the tip of the iceberg, which include the language, architecture, food, population, music, clothing, art and literature, peace

of life, emotional display, gestures, leisure activities, eye contact and sports”

(Peterson, 2004) Below, there are still some hidden aspects like opinion,viewpoints, attitudes, philosophies, values, beliefs, assumptions, all of which cannot

be perceived with our senses, but they are foundation for what people see at the top

Figure 2.1 The cultural iceberg

Obviously, culture does not contain fixed rules It varies among individuals or

societies Learning to communicate well across cultures means being aware of the hidden parts of the culture regarded as the submerged part of the iceberg (Levine

and Adelman, 1992)

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The in - depth knowledge of culture that shall be gained from the analysis of itscomponents Stephen Moore (1985) claims the components of culture as thefollowings:

- Beliefs: These are general, vague opinions held about the world and about the

nature of society They vary by society and sometimes by subcultures

- Values: These are vague beliefs about what is right and correct in the world They

imply that there are certain appropriate forms of action which ought to be taken

- Norms: These are socially expected patterns of behavior.

- Roles: Social roles are patterns of behavior expected of certain people

according to the occupation or position they hold in society

- Role conflict: There are innumerable social roles All of us occupy a number of

roles, which are generally complementary, but sometimes they may conflict

- Status: This refer to the position of a person or social role in society according

to the amount of prestige received from others In different societies/ cultures,status varies

2.1.2 The relation of culture with cross-cultural, inter-cultural communication

“Culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only dictateswho talks to whom, about what and how the communication proceeds, it also helps

to determine how people encode massages, the meanings they have for messages,and the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or maynot be sent, noticed, or interpreted…Culture is the foundation of communication(Samovar, Porter & Jain, 1981, cited in Abisamra, 2009)

Crucially, speakers of different languages perceive and express the worldaround them differently because of the ways in which language influences aperson’s thinking and behaviour Language serves as a filler of its speaker’perception and influences the way that a cultural group categorizes experience.The term cross-culture refers to the study of a particular idea or concept withinmany cultures For better understanding, cross-cultural communication relates to acomparison of interactions among people from the same culture to those from

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another culture Consequently, cross-cultural comparisons are very useful forunderstanding cultural differences.

The term inter-culture, used to describe the endpoints of the continuum, denotesthe presence of at least two individuals who are culturally different from each other

on such important attributes as their value orientations, preferred communicationcodes, role expectations, and perceived rules of social relationship To make itclearer, the term intercultural communication closely relates to the degree ofdifferences that can occur among people from dissimilar cultures Interculturalcommunication is specified as a symbol process in which the degree of differencebetween people is large and important enough to create dissimilar interpretationsand expectations about what are regarded as competent behaviors that should beused to create shared meaning

Therefore, competent interpersonal communication in intercultural interactions

is a worthy and often elusive goal Interpersonal competence is difficult objective toachieve, as because cultural differences create dissimilar meanings and expectationsthat require even greater levels of communication skills Hence, for the sake ofimproving language competence, the main purpose of the second language class is

to have the students’ chances to communicate with different hue of target culture

2.1.3 Importance of culture in language teaching

It is commonly acknowledged that language and culture is closely related.Language used in certain society reflects the values shared by the people in thatsociety Precisely understood, culture finds its expression in language Therefore,learning a target language without familiarity with its culture remains incomplete.Considering the importance of culture in language teaching, it is also meant theconsideration of the relation between language and culture According to Bennet(1993) learning a language without its culture is said to be turning people into a

“fluent fool”, or someone who speaks a language well but does not understand thesocial or philosophical content of the language Gao (2006) shares the same opinion

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“when it comes to the realm of teaching and learning, the independence of languagelearning and cultural learning is so evident that one can conclude that languagelearning is culture learning and consequently, language teaching is culturalteaching” He means that foreign language teachers should be aware of the place ofcultural studies in foreign language classroom and attempt to enhance students’cultural awareness and improve their communication competence.

The history of language education in Vietnam has experienced numerouschanges in what and how foreign language to be taught and learnt In 2008, thegovernment of Vietnam launched a national foreign language education policyknown as “teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education systemfrom 2008 to 2020” (government of Vietnam, 2008) This policy advocates theteaching and learning foreign language for communicating across culture in amulticultural context

2.2 An overview of Teaching Speaking and Teaching Culture

2.2.1 Goals of teaching culture in language classes

To set the light for teaching culture, Seelye (1993) present culturally relevantskills that can be developed in the classroom Especially, these skills are closelyrelated with six goals which help students to develop intercultural communicationand understanding Further, students will develop sophistication in evaluating somecultural elements Below are these goals and skills:

(3) Goal 3 - What:

The student realizes that effective communication requires discovering the

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culturally conditioned images that are evoked in the minds of people when theythink, act, and react to the world around them.

(4) Goal 4 - Where and When:

The student recognizes that situational variables and convention shape behavior

in important ways

(5) Goal 5 - Why:

The student understands that people generally act the way they do because theyare using options their society allows for satisfying basic physical andpsychological needs, and that cultural patterns are interrelated and tendmutually to support need satisfaction

(6) Goal 6 - Exploration:

The student can evaluate a generalization about the target culture in terms of theamount evidence substantiating it, and has the skills needed to locate andorganize information about the target culture from the library, the mass media,people, and personal observation

2.2.2 Classroom speaking activities

Speaking skills are a vitally important method of communication When itcomes to classroom activities, the real-life situation, authentic activities andmeaningful tasks pertinently promote communication To develop these productiveskills, students need intensive and constant practice during the lesson Obviously,there are some popular speaking activities in classroom which meet theaforementioned requirements such as pair/group work, role play, debate and studentpresentation

2.2.2.1 Pair/group work

Working in pairs/ groups is the most-loved set ups in language classroom It islearners working together in pair/ groups Working with others gives students moretime and the opportunity to interact with a variety of people and learn from oneanother It also encourages cooperation which will help students get along in classand could reduce the number of student outbursts too

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There are three kinds of pair/ groups work which are open teacher/ student pair/ groups work, open Student/ student pair/ groups work and closed pair/ group work

In order to get effective pair/ group work, the following tips shall be considered:

- Choosing the right sort of activity

- Giving clear instructions

- Choosing partners creatively

There shall be some tips for teacher to keep in mind when using role- play forstudents:

- Bring situational to life

- Keep role real and relevant

- Feed-in language in need

In classroom, there are four main types of roles plays which often overlap eachother or being combined together in particular situations

There are four kinds of role – play, namely the conflict role play, thecooperative role plays, information gap role play and task- based role play

2.2.2.3 Debate

A debate is a structured argument Two sides speak alternately for and against aparticular contention usually based on a topical issue It is a formal informationexchange where only two opposing sides of students participate in

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There are three kinds of debate which are public forum debate, spontaneousargumentation and roundtable Discussion.

Debate is like an intellectual sport where students have to learn skills to win It

is the activity that brings the art of reading, critical thinking and speaking together

in one place

2.2.2.4 Student presentation:

A presentation is the process of presenting a topic to an audience It is a greatway to have students practice all language competence and skills It actually buildsconfidence Students who are good presenters are better communicators all round,since they are able to structure and express their ideas clearly Presentations come in

a lot of different forms basing on a variety of purposes

There are six kinds of presentation which are providing information, teaching askill, reporting progress, selling a product or service, making a decision and solvingproblem

2.2.3 Cultural teaching techniques

To be purposeful, the activities can be made goal-related Following are sometypical cultural teaching techniques suitably with speaking activities as shown in thebooks teaching culture (Seelye, 1993; Moran, 2001; Ann C and Joe McVigh, 2011).(1) Cultural mini-drama: Consisting of three or five brief episodes, each of which

contains one or more examples of miscommunication Additional information ismade available with each episode, but the precise cause of the misunderstandingdoes not become apparent until the last scene Each episode is followed by adiscussion led by the teacher

(2) Culture assimilators: The students are provided with many episodes of target

cultural behavior Each episode describes a “critical incident” of cross- culturalinteraction, a puzzling or conflictful situation that they are likely to misinterpret orcan be interpreted in a fairy unequivocal manner The students are asked to choosethe correct response from some plausible explanations After that, the teacherprovides feedback then gives sufficient knowledge about the others’ culturementioned in the episode

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(3) Cultural practices: Practices tend to be ritualized and followed a certain

procedure Indeed, cultural practices can be seen as an art form, a play, a dance, apublic speech The two typical components of cultural practices are scenarios andlives

- Scenarios: They are considered as extended communicative practices,

following an expected sequence of practices within particular settings and socialcircumstances According to Moran (2001) there are five types of scenarios: time-based, event-based, group- based, institution- based, life-cycle-based

- Lives: They are stories of members of the culture which can be looked through

biography and drama

To a certain extend, all of the above techniques are productive They offersuggestions on engaging students in culture-oriented lessons With regard to my

lessons in the study, the main technique will be cultural practices.

2.2.4 Applying cultural teaching techniques in speaking lessons

In order to aspire my students to function effectively in their new culture of target language, I mainly apply scenarios/ lives in cultural practices technique, that

productively promote discussion in the speaking lessons

In the presentation part, the teacher uses video/ slides to introduce the statedcultural element The students can be set cuturally conditioned images of thecultural element via the content of video/ slides After watching video/ slide thestudents are requested to answers some questions relating to the video/ slides’contents or simply to share their feelings This is a guided/ controlled activity inspeaking lesson

In Practice part, the students continue to explore the stated cultural element inthe text book Considered as the cultural context, the further information in thetextbook help students widely understand about the culture The students work inpairs/ groups to discuss and finish the selected tasks in the text book The speakingactivities are less controlled and students feel free to disscuss and practice speakingskills

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In Production part, the students make presentation This is a free/ productiveactivity However, in some lessons, the students will also role play or debate Itdepends on the content of the stated cultural elements.

2.2.5 Some productive guidelines for teaching culture

The important point about teaching culture through speaking activities is thatculture elements are at the core of life in the lesson process and influence greatlyboth the behavior and decision of speaking activities of teacher for learners.Knowledge based on the theoretical framework of various scholars like Bock (1970),Seelye (1975), Hall (1990) and Moran (2001) enlighten me as to some productiveguidelines that the teachers should bear in mind as follows:

Firstly, the teacher needs to identify culture learning outcomes Outcomes vary

greatly depending on the educational context Essentially, the intended outcome isthat the learners be able to recognize then exhibit certain attitudes toward a specificcultural phenomenon

Secondly, teaching culture targets to guiding learners through the cultural

experience to develop their cultural knowing Actually, cultural experience shall beconsidered the practices or even ritualized practices where learners immersethemselves in the culture of the target language to gain their cultural knowing

Thirdly, every learner goes through the culture learning process in a unique way.

Because of these individual variations, the teacher should be versatile enough toenter learners’ worlds by listening, empathizing, and sharing his/her ownexperiences as culture learners which urge learner to step out of their worlds intoanother language, another culture

Lastly, the teacher needs to be learners of culture He/She need to go through the

cultural experience that he/she proposes for learners in his/her language classes.Such experiences will help teacher to be able to present or elicit cultural information,coach and model cultural behaviors, guide and conduct cultural research andanalysis in the most effective ways

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2.3 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis

In foreign language learning, learners need to have much understand about thecultural background knowledge of the target language Over two dacates, Agar

(1994) proposed the term languaculure Each language consists certain cultural

elements that are universal to all languages and other cultural elements that areparticlar only to that specific language In the world, there are countless number ofstudies on culture issue in second or foreign language learning

In Turkey, Genc and his colleagues (2003) conducted a study on culture inlanguage learning and teaching The researchers tried to find down what studentsthink about the effects of the culture class they attented in the fall semester of 2003-

2004 academic year The findings of the study suggest that a culture class issignificantly beneficial in terms of language skills, raising culture awareness,changing attitudes towards native and target sociaties, and contribution to theteaching profession

In Albani, Egmen (2016) examined the impact of culture in languageteaching in EFL classes The study analysed the New Headway Advanced text bookabout the cultural context The seven - question survey about the cultural context inthe book was done by high school students The researcher concluded in his studythat language learners, starting from the very early level, should be aware of theimpact of culture on language learning in order to understand the proper meanings

of the language they learn

In Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Caoudhury (2014) undertook a study on therole of culture in teaching and learning of English as a foreign language The studyfound out to what extent cultural background knowledge influences languagelearning and teaching To account for the essential roles culture palys in secondlanguage aquision, the researcher demonstrated the functions it may perform in thecomponents of language learning and teaching, such as listening, speaking, readingand traslating The reseacher concluded that the teachers should keep in mind

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theimportance of culture and must have a prior knowledge of the culturalknowledge of the chapter or lesson he/she is going to teach the students.

Given the teaching and learning situations, the researcher is fully aware ofthe importance of culture in foreign language learning Consequently, the researcherdecided to conduct a study to enhance student’s awareness of British culture inspeaking lessons at a secondary school in Quang Binh

In conclusion, in the first chapter, the literature on the research topic wasreviewed for the theoretical basis of the whole study On a more practical side, thenext chapter will provide a detailed picture of the methodology as the researchcontext, participants, instruments as well as the procedure of data collection, dataanalysis are also discussed in detail

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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

As it is indicated in the title, this chapter will introduce the research questions,research approach, research context, data collection instruments, the data collectionprocedure as well as the data analysis procedure

As mentioned, and discussed in the introduction chapter, the study aims atinvestigating the answers to two research questions below:

1 To what extent can the applied techniques enhance the students’ awareness

of British Culture?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards the applied techniques?

In order to find the most reliable answers to the above research questions, thefollowing research approach was applied

3.1 Research approach: Action research

3.1.1 Why Action research?

3.1.1.1 What is action research?

Action research is deliberate, solution- oriented investigation that is group orpersonally owned and conducted It is characterized by spiraling cycles of problemidentification, systematic data collection, reflection, analysis, data -driven taken,and, finally, problem redefinition The linking of the terms “action” and “research”highlights the essential features of this method: trying out idea in practice as ameans of increasing knowledge about and/or improving curriculum, teaching, andlearning (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982)

As the name implies, action research includes “action” meaning to change/ improve and “research” leading to understand.

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Action Research Action + Research

Change/ Improve Understand

In this sense, action research is a professional strategy to achieve both action(change or improve) and research

3.1.1.2 Types of action research

Action research is a process in which participants examine their owneducational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research.Basing on the participants involved, Ferrance (2000, p.6) categorized actionresearch into four types

(1) Individual teacher research: There is an individual teacher seeking solutions to

educational problems It usually focuses on a single issue in the classroom

(2) Collaborative action research: It may include few teachers or a group of several

teachers sharing the common educational matters which may address to a specificclassroom or many classrooms

(3) School- wide research: It requires team work of the whole schools’ staffs and

teachers, leaders to overcome the educational problems It focuses on issuescommon to all classes

(4) District- wide research: It utilizes more resources outside a specific school.

In details, these types are described in terms of main sections as follows:

Focus

Possible support needed

Potential impact

Side effects

3.1.1.3 Steps in action research

Action research is situational, the research is initiated by practitioner andderived from a real problem in the classroom Therefore, action research is an on-going cycle which consists of several steps Nunan (1992) specifies seven steps asfollows:

- Step 1: Initiation (Identify the problem)

- Step 2: Preliminary investigation (Collect data through a variety of means)

- Step 3: Hypothesis (Develop research questions)

- Step 4: Intervention (Devise strategies and innovation to be implemented)

- Step 5: Evaluation (Collect data again and analyze it to work out the findings)

- Step 6: Dissemination (Report the result by running workshop or issuing a paper)

- Step 7: Follow-up (Final alternative methods to solve the same problem)

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3.1.1.4 Advantages of Action research

In fact, action research is undertaken in a school setting and it can be used toinvestigate any issue of concern Often, it is a collaborative activity as well asreflective process among colleagues searching for real problems happened daily atschools, finding educational solutions to improve students’ achievement

In addition to this, action research does not deal with the theoretical, it leads theparticipants to address the matters that are the most concerns to them, over whichthey can exhibit certain influence and make innovation

Moreover, action research is carried out within the context of the teacher’senvironment or a specific school environment in other words, so it is more likely tosucceed as the participants deal with educational matter at hand

Implicit in the term of action research is the educational circles that teachersstart a cycle by posing questions, gathering data, and decide a series of actions.When the actions change the classroom environment, a different concerning issueappears, which requires a new look, innovative solutions and may lead into otherareas of study

3.2 An action research project

The study was conducted during 8 weeks of the first semester of school year2019-2020 Adapting steps in Nunan (1992)’s action research cycle, the actionproject was proceeded in five mains steps as follows:

Step 1: Problem identification

The school where this thesis was carried out belongs to a multilevel educationalinstitution English has been considered the main subject as well as the secondlanguage in the institution The students here are familiar with English lessons withboth native and Vietnamese teachers As a teacher of English at the school, I haverealized that my students are good at written test, but hardly get high evaluationfrom the foreign examiners With the purpose to improve students’ result inspeaking skills, some native teachers have shared their view with me In theiropinion, almost of our students have difficulties in developing the conversation withthe examiners, they normally get stuck after a few minutes with the topics relating

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to culture and society of the target language Regardless their fluency in Englishspeaking skills, it is the fact that the students have not much understanding aboutthe topics to share.

Recently, the institution has welcomed some groups of foreign students, and Isaw my students’ demerits in speaking skills revealed via exchanging activities.Obviously, it is the same problem that they face with in speaking test with foreignexaminers For a more in-depth consideration, the students need to be well-educated

in cultural competence in the international integration time

The students’ unsatisfying result in speaking seriously urged me to work out thereasonable solutions as for intensive speaking course in the school year 2019-2020

My students really need some food for thought

Step 2: Preliminary investigation: Using pretest

Admittedly, the root cause of the problem in students’ speaking skills is thelacking of sufficient understandings of the target culture And the question raised inthe step 1 above is “What can be done to enhance the students’ awareness of Britishculture?” To find out the reliable answer to the question, the students wererequested to do a pretest including thirty-two closed and opened questions abouteight different cultural features of British For each closed question, the studentswere asked to choose the correct answer among four options Whereas, for eachopened question, the students felt free to give their answer

The result from the participants’ responses in the pretest was analyzedquantitatively in terms of frequency The information from the pretest result wasused to form a hypothesis in the next step

Step 3: Hypothesis

The students were asked to realize only eight British cultural features and some

of which are quite popular, however, the percentage of correct answer was not veryhigh Actually, the students have not got sufficient knowledge about the Britishculture because they had not seen the essential role and close relation betweenlanguage and culture in improving their communication competency Consequently,they were not aware of the importance of cultural and social information in learning

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the language Furthermore, the method of teaching culture may not be effective enough.Obviously, in culture sections, the form and content are designed appropriately forcommunication with lots of speaking and listening activities, that how the teacherdesigns the lesson creatively in order to change a dry text on British culture into alively cultural feature is crucial If students have chances to study and experienceculture themselves, they will be more motivated and aware of British culture Thestudents’ ability to communicate cross- culturally is much developed as well.

Basing on the reliable findings in the first three steps, I designed a trialintensive speaking course for the students in which some culture sections in theirextra book namely Solutions pre- intermediate were introduced with the distinctiveteaching techniques In order to verify the cultural fields, the students were also

introduced two cultural elements outside their book (Please see Appendix 6 for the details of an intensive speaking course)

Step 4: Intervention: How to conduct a trial intensive speaking course

The trial intensive speaking course lasted eight weeks The students had a lessonper week During the time of implementing the syllabus, the teacher acted like aguide Hence, the students were unconsciously more active before and during thelesson Rather, the teacher applied some cultural teaching techniques combined withstudents’ speaking practice activities which stimulates students much in lessons.Especially, there were two events of months, namely Halloween festival andChristmas for the student to enjoy the cultural elements relating to festival

Step 5: Evaluation

At the end of intervention, the students were required to finish a posttest Theform of the posttest is like the pretest and the content also relates to eight culturalfeatures in the intensive speaking course In addition, the students finished aquestionnaire for further information about their attitude towards the teachingactivities Besides, during the the culture- oriented lessons were also observed.The data collected from the pretest, posttest, observation and questionnaire wasquantitatively analyzed Consequently, the information on the students’ awareness

of British culture and their attitude toward the applied techniques were worked out

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The data analysis is obviously the reliable source for discussion of researchquestions.

3.3 Research context

The study is conducted at a private secondary school in Quang Binh province.Established in 2010, the school is equipped with modern teaching and learningfacilities It has 08 classes with over 20 teachers of all subjects Regarding to itseducational orientation, the school immerse its students in an educationalcommunity that develops the essential qualities of passion, gratitude and humanity.Especially, the board of leader put much consideration on constructing a curriculumthat encourages learners to engage the world as global citizens valuing internationalconnections and an appreciation for diverse viewpoints In this sense, English hasbeen considered the main subject here In this school, 150 students ranged fromgrade 6 to grade 9, have five English lessons every week Currently, there are 4teachers of English and 2 native teachers

In accordance with the targeted research questions and instruments of datacollection, there is one group of 38 participants involving in this research Thesestudents are from class 7A1 and 7A2 at aforementioned private secondary school inQuang Binh province These participants are supposed to be in the age range from

12 to 13 and their English competence is Intermediate level

3.4 Data collection instruments

3.4.1 Tests

Pretest: The pretest makes great contribution to the initiation and preliminary

investigation steps of my research problem definition

A ninety-minute pretest with thirty-two multiple choice questions had been designed

to investigate the students’ awareness of eight stated British cultural elements beforethese elements were officially taught to students The content of the pretest’questions was around the main cultural items in the book Solutions (pre-intermediate) The perception of students about the eight stated cultural elementswas uncovered from students’ respond to the questions The findings from

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the pretest were used as the constructive tool to design a trial intensive speakingcourse.

Posttest: After eight British cultural elements had been officially taught for

students, a ninety- minute posttest was designed to investigate the students’awareness of these eights British culture In the posttest, the content was muchwidened in comparison to those in the pretest The students were asked not onlyabout the cultural hue in the textbook, but also further cultural information relating

to eight stated cultural elements Thankfully, viewed as a panorama, the posttestplaced the extent to which the awareness of students being enhanced the mostnoteworthy position

3.4.2 Observation

An observation checklist for in-class lesson was designed with differentassessment criteria for two colleagues to observe three main parts, namelypresentation, practice and production of my speaking lessons in two classes toexplore the students’ attitude towards the teaching activities

Besides, another observation checklist for events of months was also designedand carried out by myself The students were observed through the participation inthe cultural activities during the events

3.4.3 Questionnaire

Basing on the Likert scale, the questionnaire was designed with seven guidedquestions and an opened question The questions directly investigated students’ideas about the intensive course content and teaching activities via the scales fromunuseful to very useful It helps the researcher to carefully double check theinformation collected from the quantitative data and supports the research findings

3.5 Data collection procedure

Data collection endured two months Firstly, the students took part in the pretest.Then during eight weeks, they learnt eight intensive speaking lessons relating to theeight stated British cultural elements The observation was proceeded in all lessons.The data collection ended with the posttest and questionnaire done by 38 participantsafter finishing eight intensive lessons

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3.6 Data analysis procedure

3.6.1 Quantitative analysis

Pretest: Served as the first constructive tool to the preliminary investigation, the

result of pretest was analyzed question by question in term of the percentage ofcorrect and incorrect answers The first three closed questions uncovered thestudents’ general understanding of the eight stated cultural elements The percentage

of correct and incorrect answers for each closed question was presented in chart andcompared among cultural elements Basing on the percentage of giving information

or left behind each item to consider, the last opened questions explored the furtherunderstanding among students about the stated British cultural hue The majorfindings were written basing on the frequencies of each item response

Posttest: Its data is the reliable tool in illustrating the extent to which the

applied techniques of teaching culture enhance students’ awareness of Britishculture The first closed questions in the posttest were the summary of all thestudents’ general understanding in the first three closed questions of the pretest Thepercentage of correct answers of these first closed questions was worked out toreveal the positive change in the students’ awareness The next two closed questionswere analyzed in order to find out the percentage of correct answers for theadditional cultural information in each culture element The number of correctresponses to these questions showed the enrichment in students’ awareness ofBritish culture The last opened questions were analyzed in percentage of studentssharing opinion and left behind in comparison with those in the pretest

Questionnaire (close- ended questions): In an attempt of soliciting information

about the students’ attitude toward the applied teaching techniques, thequestionnaire was designed with seven closed questions in which scales range fromvery useful to unuseful and an opened question The percentage analysis of response

to different scales made a great help in generalizing the students’ certain attitudetowards the checked items The last opened question, like in the pretest and posttest,was analyzed in term of the percentage of sharing opinion or leaving it blank The

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information provided by students was also beneficial to the researcher ingeneralizing the major findings.

3.6.2 Qualitative analysis

Observation: In accordance with the questionnaire, observation was a

purposeful and selective way of watching the students’ real attitude towards theapplied teaching activities Since the observation was conducted, the researcher hadconverted the qualitative activities and interactions between the teacher and studentsduring a class lesson into robust quantitative data In order to explore students’attitude toward the applied techniques, the set of assessment criteria was made toobserve the students’ involvement in three main parts of speaking lessons

For presentation part, the data was analyzed in terms of the percentage ofstudents raising hand to answer the questions and being attentive to the video/ slide.For practice part, the data was analyzed basing on the number of students whofinish the task in time and have correct answers to the cultural content

At last, for production part, the data collected from the number of studentsparticipating in the group activities, volunteering to make the presentation and beingattentive to their friends’ presentation Ultimately, the students’ attitude to theapplied teaching activities was interpreted, analyzed and generalized

The observation was also proceeded in two events of months The number ofstudents involving in the events’ activities revealed the effectiveness of the appliedcultural teaching techniques to students

Questionaire (open- ended question): The students felt free to give their

opinion towards the intensive speaking course The majority of them gavecomments

In conclusion, this chapter has presented in some detail the methodologicalframework of the study to seek the answer for the two researched questionsmentioned again at the beginning of this chapter

In the next chapter, there will be a presentation of the findings of the study and

a discussion of the two researchs question in detail

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CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter is the presentation of data collection, its analysis and

interpretation.

4.1 The extent to which the applied techniques of teaching culture enhance the students’ awareness of British culture

4.1.1 General pretest findings

The researcher gains a reliable result from the pre-intervention test With bothopened and closed questions, the pretest reveals the students’ general knowledge ofeight cultural elements Hopefully, the realization of their knowledge would help theresearcher of this thesis to apply techniques with effective results To serve thepurpose of a successful research, it is necessary to explore the data of correctanswers in the pre-intervention test shown below:

Chart 4.1: Percentage of correct answers in Pre-Intervention test

As can be seen from the table, there is a significant gap among the percentage ofcorrect answers among the eight cultural elements Let's have a look at thefollowing analysis for more details

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4.1.1.1 Common information about the eight cultural elements

With regards to the first questions, the statistics received from the studentsshows the need to consider

Chart 4.2: The data of questions 1 in the pre-intervention test

For all closed questions number 1, the data indicates the significant tendencyamong the rate from 37% to 84% of the respondents giving the correct answers.Surprisingly, the percentage for the correct answers is less than 50% for items I, II,III, VI, VII (accounting for 37%; 32%; 39%; 42% and 47% respectively).Meanwhile, the number of students giving the correct options for items IV, V andVIII is quite high (accounting for 74%; 84% and 66% respectively) These findingscould be explained that these students may not have full knowledge about all thestated cultural elements Actually, all of these first closed question aim at testing the