Tài liệu An action research project on enhancing student’s awareness of british culture in speaking lessons at a secondary school in quang binh

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) M.A. THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 Supervisor : Huynh Anh Tuan, Ph.D Hanoi – 2020 DECLARATION 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 other university or institution. Hanoi, July 2020 Hoang Thi Thu Giang i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of this MA thesis, I would like, first of all, to express my deepest gratitude and indebtedness to my supervisor- Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan who has always been most willing and ready to give me valuable advice, inspiration and supervision. 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 during the process of conducting this MA thesis, without which my thesis cannot have been accomplished. It is a big mistake if I would not acknowledge here my special thanks to the authors of methodology and cultural works whose ideas have inspired and stimulated my thinking and my writing of this thesis. Ultimately, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to my family, my friends for their encouragement and inspiration. This MA thesis has been completed to my best knowledge, however, mistake and short-comings are unavoidable. Hence, I look forward to receiving comments and suggestions from teachers, students and any readers, for the perfection of the thesis. Hanoi, July 2020 Hoang Thi Thu Giang ii ABSTRACT Regarding the importance of intercultural competence in second language acquisition, progressive scholars today believe that culture and language are inseparable 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 of British Culture in speaking lessons via many cultural experiences. They showed their positive attitude towards the course. The research concludes that enhancing students’ 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 such kind of methods directly and highly benefit the teaching and learning English. iii 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 iv ABBREVIATIONS (in Tables and Charts) - DoE - The Duke of Edinburgh Award - BSC - The Bog Snorkelling Championship - FH The Fox- hunting - HF - Halloween festival - Chs - Christmas - LoRH - The Legend of Robin Hood - W.Sh - William Shakespeare - ThB - The Beatles - CQ - Closed question - OQ - Opened question - RH - Raising hand - BA - Being attentive - FT - Finishing the task in time - CA - Correct answer - PGA - Participating in group activities - V - Volunteering to make presentation WC/D - Wearing custumes/ disguising BAtV - Being attentive to the video JG/D - Joining the games/ dance 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 vi 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 vii CHAPTER: I INTRODUCTION Knowledge of the world’s languages and cultures is more vital than ever. In order to compete in the global community, we must be able to communicate effectively and to appreciate, to understand and to work effectively in the framework of other cultures. It seems obvious enough that to penetrate another language, one must understand what its people are saying and make oneself understood. 1.1. Rationale One naive assumption occasionally made by teachers is that a mastery of the linguistics patterns of a foreign culture leads itself to “thinking like a native”. As Lewald (1968) properly points out, this belief is unwarranted. Unless the student is learning the language in the target culture, the cultural referents necessary to understanding a native speaker must be learned in addition (cited in Seelye, 1974). Learning a language in isolation of its cultural roots prevents one from becoming socialized into its contextual use. Knowledge of linguistics structure alone does not carry with it any special insight into the political, social, religious, or economic system. Today, for educators and teachers of English, the culture of target language has been 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 culture elements have not been thoroughly exploited in language lessons. To be purposeful, teaching activities should integrate cultural elements in a reasonable way. In other 1 words, teacher as an instructor must be purposeful to lead learners to somewhere. It should be apparent- at least to the instructor- what the reason is for doing any given cultural activities. Fortunately, the important role of culture in mastering a second language has been 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 language teaching and learning. In fact, building productive language lessons in which both ensure language skills and nurture as well as support intercultural communication is a difficult process for most teachers. Methodologists and experienced teachers who have skills in working with the alterable aspects of second language acquisition often emphasize that there is actually no list of “things to do”, no single dramatic event that facilitate all the language lessons. Instead, as with so many of the executive function of teaching culture, success depends on a lot of “little things” well. As a teacher 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 as sharp as they previous were. How and why learners learn become as important as what they learn. And it is the learners who are the sources of information on and insight into educational process. This MA thesis aims to find out the effectiveness of the applied techniques on enhancing 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 2 investigates the extend to which the applied techniques enhance students’ awareness of British culture. In the intensive speaking course designed for 7th grade of the school year 2019-2020, I would like to apply the techniques to enhance the students’ awareness of British Culture. Obviously, some typical methods of teaching culture through speaking activities help to stimulate the motivation of students in experiencing British Culture. Secondly, the students’ attitudes towards the applied technique is uncovered. To make it clearer, how the students react towards the methods is put in my deep concern through the working on the data of questionnaire and 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 of wide-angle viewing and understandings the close relation between language and culture in general and findings techniques for integrating culture in language lessons to enhance students’ awareness of British Culture. To find out detailed information, I would like to specify my research only with the 7th form students. At this age, students have ability of proper cognition. In addition, most of them have high learning motivation as they have just started the new school level. Therefore, it is easy for teacher to stimulate and enhance their awareness of culture. Moreover, in order to make it easy to generalize the findings in my study, the course book is Solutions, Pre-intermediate student’s book, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Express. Actually, this course book is used in the extensive English lesson, namely speaking project, alongside with the new English text book of Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training. In fact, the structures and contents of 3 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 bring essential knowledge to students. The four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing are all interconnected. Proficiency in each skill is necessary to become a well-rounded communicator, however, the ability to speak skillfully provides the speaker with several 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 in Nunan (1992)’s action research cycle. The action project was proceeded in five main steps, namely problem identification, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, and evaluation. Research data was collected with a number of instruments including, pre-test, post-test, questionnaire and observation. After a preliminary investigation had been carried out, an intensive speaking course was designed, and then implemented with the participation of 38 7th grade students at a secondary in Quang Binh. After finishing the course, to gain the multiple perspective for the study, the students were requested to finish the posttest and questionnaire 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 will develop learners’ communicative competence in English and other areas of language learning. 4 Furthermore, findings from the study would also be a reliable source of track for other studies on language and culture in all major area which are involved in learning 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 to conduct this thesis. The aims and objectives, the scope, the methods and the structure 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 research context, the data collection instruments, the data collection procedure and the data analysis 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 and reflection. This part gives an overview of the results and assists them in recognizing the significance of the thesis. 5 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter refers to theoretical background for further steps of the thesis in which 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 the previous studies related to the research area, which helps the researcher have a better 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) 6 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 on analyzing 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) 7 The in - depth knowledge of culture that shall be gained from the analysis of its components. Stephen Moore (1985) claims the components of culture as the followings: - 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 dictates who 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 may not 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 world around them differently because of the ways in which language influences a person’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 within many cultures. For better understanding, cross-cultural communication relates to a comparison of interactions among people from the same culture to those from 8 another culture. Consequently, cross-cultural comparisons are very useful for understanding cultural differences. The term inter-culture, used to describe the endpoints of the continuum, denotes the presence of at least two individuals who are culturally different from each other on such important attributes as their value orientations, preferred communication codes, role expectations, and perceived rules of social relationship. To make it clearer, the term intercultural communication closely relates to the degree of differences that can occur among people from dissimilar cultures. Intercultural communication is specified as a symbol process in which the degree of difference between people is large and important enough to create dissimilar interpretations and expectations about what are regarded as competent behaviors that should be used to create shared meaning. Therefore, competent interpersonal communication in intercultural interactions is a worthy and often elusive goal. Interpersonal competence is difficult objective to achieve, as because cultural differences create dissimilar meanings and expectations that require even greater levels of communication skills. Hence, for the sake of improving 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 that society. 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 the consideration 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 the social or philosophical content of the language. Gao (2006) shares the same opinion 9 “when it comes to the realm of teaching and learning, the independence of language learning and cultural learning is so evident that one can conclude that language learning is culture learning and consequently, language teaching is cultural teaching”. He means that foreign language teachers should be aware of the place of cultural 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 numerous changes in what and how foreign language to be taught and learnt. In 2008, the government of Vietnam launched a national foreign language education policy known as “teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education system from 2008 to 2020” (government of Vietnam, 2008). This policy advocates the teaching and learning foreign language for communicating across culture in a multicultural 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 relevant skills that can be developed in the classroom. Especially, these skills are closely related with six goals which help students to develop intercultural communication and understanding. Further, students will develop sophistication in evaluating some cultural elements. Below are these goals and skills: (1) Goal 1- Interest: The students show curiosity about other culture (or another segment or subculture of one’s own culture) and empathy toward its members) (2) Goal 2 - Who: The student recognizes that role expectations and other social variables such as age, sex, social class, religion, ethnicity, and place of residence affect the way people speak and behave. (3) Goal 3 - What: The student realizes that effective communication requires discovering the 10 culturally conditioned images that are evoked in the minds of people when they think, 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 they are using options their society allows for satisfying basic physical and psychological needs, and that cultural patterns are interrelated and tend mutually to support need satisfaction. (6) Goal 6 - Exploration: The student can evaluate a generalization about the target culture in terms of the amount evidence substantiating it, and has the skills needed to locate and organize 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 it comes to classroom activities, the real-life situation, authentic activities and meaningful tasks pertinently promote communication. To develop these productive skills, students need intensive and constant practice during the lesson. Obviously, there are some popular speaking activities in classroom which meet the aforementioned requirements such as pair/group work, role play, debate and student presentation. 2.2.2.1. Pair/group work Working in pairs/ groups is the most-loved set ups in language classroom. It is learners working together in pair/ groups. Working with others gives students more time and the opportunity to interact with a variety of people and learn from one another. It also encourages cooperation which will help students get along in class and could reduce the number of student outbursts too. 11