How to integrate cultural values into English speaking classes for communicative competence

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c ngo i ng trong xu th h i nh p

Tháng 11/2014

ĐƯA CÁC GIÁ TRỊ VĂN HÓA
VÀO TRONG LỚP HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH
NHẰM MỤC ĐÍCH NÂNG CAO NĂNG LỰC GIAO TIẾP CHO SINH VIÊN
Nguy n Th Thu, Thi u Ng c H
ng
Trường Đại học Cảnh sát Nhân dân
Tóm t t: Văn hóa là một khái niệm quan trọng
trong giảng dạy tiếng Anh, không thể tách rời khỏi việc
giảng dạy ngôn ngữ. Một thực tế mà nhiều người thừa
nhận là việc thiếu hiểu biết kiến thức văn hóa thường
dẫn tới việc sử dụng những chiến lược giao tiếp không
phù hợp và hậu quả là khả năng giao tiếp hạn chế,
ngay cả những người nắm vững ngữ pháp và có vốn từ
vựng tương ñối. Chính vì thế trong những năm vừa qua,
việc ñưa vấn ñề văn hóa vào trong chương trình giảng
dạy ngoại ngữ nói chung, tiếng Anh nói riêng, ñặc biệt
là các lớp học giao tiếp ñược quan tâm. Bài viết này
báo cáo về kết quả một nghiên cứu về việc lồng các
giá trị văn hóa vào dạy nói tiếng Anh cho sinh viên
ngành tiếng Anh tại Trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội
và Nhân văn, Đại học Quốc gia Tp. Hồ Chí Minh.
Nghiên cứu này ñược thực nghiệm ở hai lớp dạy kỹ nói
mà tác giả trực tiếp giảng dạy. Kết quả thu ñược từ các
phiếu khảo sát cho giáo viên và giảng viên và từ chính
quan sát của giảng viên trong quá trình giảng dạy cho
thấy việc ñưa các giá trị văn hóa vào trong lớp học nói
tiếng Anh ñã mang lại hiệu quả là tăng cường ñộng cơ
học nói và khả năng nói tiếng Anh cho sinh viên ngành

tiếng Anh. Như vậy, nghiên cứu này sẽ hữu ích cho
những ai quan tâm tới việc tìm kiếm những phương
pháp cụ thể ñể lồng ghép những hoạt ñộng mang tính
văn hóa vào trong lớp học tiếng Anh mà mục ñích là
nâng cao năng lực giao tiếp.
T

tiếp, sinh viên ngành tiếng Anh
Abstract: Culture is such a crucial concept in
language teaching that it cannot be separated from
language teaching. It is widely acknowledged that the
lack of cultural awareness often leads to inappropriate
speaking

strategies,

communicative

which

competence

results
of

in

English

limited

learners

including those with good grammar and a wide range of
vocabulary. Thus, the integration of culture in second
language curriculum has been widely discussed in
recent years, particularly if the course is for English
majors or for communicative language learning. This
article describes how cultural values were employed in
teaching oral English to English major students at
University of Social Science and Humanities (USSH).
Experimental teaching was done in two speaking
English classes at the USSH. The findings from
questionnaires

and

observation

show

that

the

integration of cultural values was successful in
increasing English majors’ motivation and speaking
competence. Thus, this study would also be useful for
those who are interested in finding specific ways to
employ culture-related activities in English classes for
successful communication.

Key words: culture, cultural values, communicative
competence, English majors

khóa: văn hóa, giá trị văn hóa, năng lực giao

HOW TO INTEGRATE CULTURAL VALUES INTO ENGLISH SPEAKING
CLASSES FOR COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
1. Introduction
The integration of culture in language
classrooms has been prevalent for the past years,
especially in the course whose purpose is
communicative competence. Thus, language
teachers have been attaching increasing

importance to the improvement of students’
cultural understanding. However, not enough
attention has been paid to students’ own-bound
behavior or to the preparation required for
opening students’ minds to new experiences. Thus,
in order to improve students’ communicative
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competence, teachers not only need to help
students revise their linguistic and cultural
patterns but also prepare students for acculturation.
Laying this groundwork requires an understanding
of a necessary preparation and of how meaningful

culture teaching can be integrated into the foreign
language classroom. When culture is presented, it
must be employed in a gradual way and
coordinated across levels. The gradual approach
means that a culture-integrated course must take
for granted the need to start with an awareness of
one’s own patterns of behavior and proceeds from
there to the examination of foreign patterns of
behavior. Such a course will enable students to
build a cultural framework and extend the new
understanding to cultural differences. Following
this procedure, practical activities will be
presented with skill-building culture teaching in a
foreign language class.
This article describes how cultural values were
employed in teaching oral English to English
majored students at USSH. Experimental teaching
was done in two speaking English classes at
USSH. In the experimental teaching, a modified
course syllabus with the integration of cultural
values was employed to teach first year English
majors. The instruction of the expression of
cultural values (attitude towards challenges,
completion and cooperation, relationships,
individuals, money, health and leisure, etc. which
are the unit topics of the course book Mosaic
Speaking and Listening 1) and the reinforcement
of the speaking skill are incorporated in the
language classroom. The findings from
questionnaires and observation show that the

integration of cultural values was successful in
increasing English majors’ motivation and
speaking competence. Thus, this study would also
be useful for those who are interested in finding
specific ways to employ culture-related activities
in oral English classes for successful
communication.
2. Literature
2.1. Culture
Culture is a very broad term which is very
difficult to define. "Culture is a social system that
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represents an accumulation of beliefs, attitudes,
habits, values, and practices that serves as a filter
through which a group of people view and
respond to the world in which they live." This is
the definition of Culture given by Nobles in one of
his textbooks in 1990. “Culture is a system of
shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and
artifacts that the members of a society use tocope
with. Their world and with one another, and that
are transmitted from generation to generation
through learning”; “Culture consists of all the
shared products of human society” (Robertson,
1981:67). To simplify, culture refers to the entire
way of life of a society, “the ways of a people.”
2.2. Cultural values
Values are: concepts or beliefs; about desirable
states or behaviors; that transcend specific

situations; guide selection or evaluation of
behavior and events; and are ordered by relative
importance.” (Schwartz &Bilsky, 1987, p.551).
Cultural orientations differentiate fundamental
ways of defining reality, or worldviews.
2.3. Culture and language teaching
It is pointed by Politzer (1959) that “If we
teach language without teaching at the same time
the culture in which it operates, we are teaching
meaningless symbols or symbols to which the
student attaches the wrong meaning”. Politzer also
states that unless the students are warned or unless
they receive cultural instruction, they may
wrongly associate cultural concepts or objects
with the foreign symbols. Moreover, “Learning
culture while learning language can be more
enjoyable for the students, since they must read,
speak, or write about something, and listen to
something, why should not that something have a
cultural content?” (Valdes, 1992:121)
2.4. Cultural introduction into English
classes
Methodological framework
Dickinson (1987) offers a framework for the


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teacher’s role in FLL whose main aspects cover
the methodological approach of culture teaching

in which there are two essential function attributed
to the teacher: to help students develop their
communicative competence and their competence
as learners. Since cross-cultural understanding
must necessarily rely on communication, the
development
of
students’
communicative
competence is closely related to culture teaching.
The communicative approach is based on two
main principles: language is mainly considered as
a vehicle of communication, so that the
importance of message and content are
emphasized; the selection of content requires
taking a decision on the semantic fields involved
and real communication take place, as well as on the
specific functions of communication (Sanchez, 1987).
Taking into account both the psychological
preparation and the communicative methodology
as guidelines for culture learning, three initial
steps in teaching cultural concepts are presented
(Seelye, 1987). First, teachers must identify the
skills involved in cross-cultural understanding and
communication. These skills become the goals of
cultural instruction. The second step consists of
the development of performance objectives that
are goal-related and, finally, goal-related learning
activities for cultural instruction are to be
integrated in the FL classroom.

Approaches of cultural value integration into
English classes
- Specialized course on culture introduction
Nowadays more and more universities in
Vietnam have been aware of the importance of the
culture introduction into college English.
Specialized courses on culture introduction are
adopted nationwide. Thus, besides the basic
knowledge about words and grammar, students
also have access to a variety of cultures, which
enriches their knowledge and inspires them to
communicate more. Thus, their cross-culture
communicative ability will gradually be improved.
- Culture introduction with English language
teaching.

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It is therefore indispensible to integrate college
English with culture introduction. A good
introduction of culture will help students
understand the teaching material better, and
motivate them to work harder. For example, when
we are working on the text about George
Washington, it is necessary for us to know the
relevant knowledge about the great man involving
US history and politics. And then we can make a
comparison with the Vietnamese great leaders.
Thus, it will be an easier and much more
interesting task for the college students to learn

English.
- Create meaningful activities
The background and culture of the target
language is essential to English learning and
teaching. So it is important for the learners of,
who are members of a particular culture to interact
with knowledgeable people in the society or the
authentic context. However, thereal world
environment that employs the context in which
learning is relevant is rare in Vietnam. It is thus
the teachers’ duty to create meaningful activities
both in class and after class. There will be
meaningful activities such as role-play, situation
talk and classroom presentation, etc. The more
they get involved in the real world environment,
the better and faster they will master the cross culture communicative ability.
Necessity of cultural background knowledge
in oral comprehension
There are a number of cultural factors
influencing English learners’ failure in successful
communication, some of which are: lack of
background knowledge of words and phrases,
inadequate of daily expressions, ignorance of nonverbal language, neglect of different values, etc.
Likewise, speaking is not merely concerned with
pronunciation and intonation. Students can only
improve their oral English and reach the aim of
communication by means of enormous reading,
mastering rich language material and acquaintance
of western culture. Therefore, in oral training,
teachers should lay stress on factuality of

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language and adopt some material approaching to
daily life, such as daily dialogues with tape,
magazines, newspapers and report etc., because
the material is from real life, and it helps students
to be well acquainted with standard pronunciation
and intonation, to speak English appropriate to the
occasion, to understand western way of life and
customs etc. Otherwise, misunderstanding and
displeasure are inevitably aroused.
3. Methodology
3.1. Research questions
1) How are students at USSH aware of the
importance of culture in their English learning?
2) To what extent is culture integrated in
teaching English by teachers at USSH?
3) How is culture integrated in the teaching of
speaking to English majorsin Language 4.1 course
at USSH and how effective was it?
3.2. Research design
This is a qualitative research. In order to find
out the answer the research questions, the
following instruments were used: questionnaires
for students and teachers, and class observation.
3.2.1. Questionnaires
- Questionnaire

for
students:
A
questionnaire of 20 questions were deliver 120
first year students in two English classes at USSH
in order to find out students’ experience and
attitude towards the integration of culture into
their classes (10 questions) as well as their cultural
awareness and understanding (10 questions).
- Questionnaire
for
teachers:
A
questionnaire of 20 questions were deliver 15
teachers of English, Faculty of Foreign Languages
to find out: their experience with the integration of
culture in their teaching (10 questions in part 1);
their awareness, understanding and attitude
towards the integration of culture in their teaching
(10 questions in part 2)
3.2.2. Teacher’s observation
- The group discussions enable students to
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cooperate with each other and to pay attention to
various opinions when other students express their
opinions. Meanwhile, the teacher can observe how
individual student participate in the discussion
(Graves, 2000). Moreover, through observing, the
teacher can judge students' interests and learning

preferences (Graves, 2000). When observing the
group discussions, the teacher can fill out the
following sheet.
- The role-play activity is employed in order
to assess if students absorb the classroom content
and to evaluate each student's speaking ability.
The use of role play activities can be regarded as
an on-going and communicative assessment tool
(Kodotchigova, 2002). While students engage in the
role-play activity, the teacher observes each group
of students and fills in the sheet (Lambert, 2003).
4. Findings and discussion
4.1. Results of questionnaires to the students
and teachers:
Responses to the two questionnaires to students
and teachers at USSH help to answer Research
question 1 and 2. The results are briefly described
as followed:
- Based on the percentage of correct answers
to questionnaire about cultural knowledge, it can
be concluded that the students’ knowledge about
the target culture is rather limited. Although it
may be argued that information about the other
culture should not be the aim of the teaching of
culture, it cannot completely ignored. For
language students, it means that this “core
information” is crucial if they are to understand
the other culture.
- The results of the two questionnaires reveal
that both teachers and students considered the

teaching of culture important. However, when
being asked to define culture, they did not appear
to have a clear perception of concept as most of
them (80%) defined culture by listing its elements.
Few teachers described culture as an integrated
system of various components.


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- A major problem concerning the teaching of
culture seems to be finding time to do it. No
teacher admitted that the never mention culturerelated issues in their teaching, only one quarter of
them responded that they did it in almost every
lesson. Interestingly, it was agreed by many
researchers that culture should be an integral part
of every language class. Up to 90% of the students
also thought that, they would like to know more
about Britain and the best place to learn its culture
is in the class.
- The teachers’ and students’ preferences
concerning the way culture is integrated into their
English classes is not much different.
+ Both groups regarded talking about current
events and discussions of cultural similarities and
differences the most important.
+ Most of the teachers agreed that they use the
Internet and newspapers to find out the sources for
talks and discussions.
+ Not surprisingly, watching videos was also

the most popular choice with both the students and
teachers.
+ The students ranked songs were the third
place. It means that the teacher s have not made
full use of students’ interest.
+ Listening to radio received relatively low
scores by the learners.
It can be concluded from the responses to the
questionnaires that little attention is paid to the
integration of cultural factors into the teaching of
English at the USSH. Besides, the students should
more realize the significance of the native culture.
The teachers should rethink what is to be taught
and how it is to teach in an English speaking class.
The teachers should make the lesson useful and
meaningful for the students so that English
learners are able to experience a sense of pride
and achievement in successful second language
communication.
Information from the two questionnaires to
realized the necessity of the integration of cultural

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values in the teaching speaking. The description of
the Language 4.1 course at USSH and how the
course is modified with the integration of cultural
values in teaching speaking is briefly described.
(see APPENDIX 1)
4.2. Results of teacher’s observation

Observation students’ communication activities,
the teacher and also the researcher have
lotsinformation about the students’ speaking
performance, which can be summarized as
followed:
- To a great extent, the integration of cultural
values in the course has enrichedstudents’
awareness and understanding of cultural values of
western people, similarities and differences in
comparison with Vietnamese ones.
- Students have been more and more active,
motivated and self-confident in role-plays or
groups discussion due to the frequent exposure to
such types of activities.
- Students’ communication or language
mistakes have decreased remarkably with the help
from the teacher.
- Students’ vocabulary range used by
Americans when expressing and responding in a
conversation related to the speaking topic of the
unit has been enriched.
- More attention has been paid to the cultural
values of the target culture in pair and group
conversations, for example: giving complements,
doing apology, expressing thanks, etc.
- Students have increasingly connected
specific language items to cultural ways of
thinking, feeling and acting.
- The majority of the students (71%) in the
two classes of Language 4.1 got band C or above

for their speaking performance, 25 needs
improvement (band D), and 4 required (band E).
In short, the reflection papers of the teacher
signal students’ positive improvement in students’
speaking motivation, communicative competence,
cultural knowledge and some other skills.
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5. Conclusion and recommendation
The lack of culture may lead to the failure in
real communication. Thus, it is highly important
to abandon the practices of teaching
phenomenalistic descriptions and to limit
activities intended to reveal information
concerning institutional question in an English
course whose purpose is communicative
competence.
Teachers
should
encourage
comparison and discussion with the students about
how these options may be similar or different
from their own. For that matter, awareness of
students´ own cultural identity before introducing
a foreign culture is a necessity. Generally said,
there are many skill-getting and skill-using
activities, which encourage students to explore

patterns of everyday life, examine cultural
behaviour, and discuss the values and attitudes of
British and US people. Language teachers may
use different kinds of realia such as souvenirs,
postcards, or stamps, poem, literature, proverbs,
songs, radio broadcasting, role-plays, etc. To
observe cultural behaviour, activities such as
watching video, listening to radio broadcasting,
role-plays are for that purpose. What more, the use
of Internet for videoconferencing is the most
modern teaching supplement, which supports the
cross-cultural communication. Finally, it is
difficult to set a detailedsyllabusfor the teaching
of culture in the language classes. It is, thus,
teachers’ responsibility to set such goals, which
the students can reach, and also to evaluate and
control the students´ work to see the students
‘growth. In order to achieve set goals teachers
need to plan their lessons carefully and choose
good activitieswith a regardto students’interest
and abilities. The lesson plan of a cultureintegrated unit should follow the procedure as
followed: 1. Pre-teaching: conduct some warmup activities in which T can combine culture with
the lesson content, always provide the background
at the beginning of each units through many
techniques; 2. While- teaching: explore all
aspects of culture mentioned in the lessons; 3.
Post-teaching: check if students understand and
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are aware of culture mentioned in the lessons or

not, design activities for students to practice
communication with culture.
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