REPRESENTATIONS OF VIETNAMESE ETHNIC MINORITIES IN NEW HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS = đại DIỆN các dân tộc THIỂU số VIỆT NAM TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA THÍ điểm môn TIẾNG ANH TRUNG học PHỔ THÔNG

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS & CULTURES OF ENGISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES

GRADUATION PAPER

REPRESENTATIONS OF VIETNAMESE ETHNIC
MINORITIES IN NEW HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH
TEXTBOOKS

Supervisor: Phạm Thị Hạnh, PhD
Student: Trịnh Thanh Bình
Course: QH2017.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI – 2021


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA NGƠN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HĨA CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH

KHĨA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ĐẠI DIỆN CÁC DÂN TỘC THIỂU SỐ VIỆT NAM
TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA THÍ ĐIỂM MƠN TIẾNG
ANH TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS Phạm Thị Hạnh
Sinh viên: Trịnh Thanh Bình
Khóa: QH2017.F1

HÀ NỘI – 2021


I hereby state that I: Trịnh Thanh Bình, class 17E1, being a candidate for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts (English Teacher Education) accept the requirements of the College relating
to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library
should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal
conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper.
Students’ signature

Date: 04/05/2021

Supervisor’s signature of approval


ABSTRACT
Vietnam is a multicultural country with 54 ethnic groups (Open
Development Vietnam, 2020). These include the major Kinh group and 53
ethnic minorities, who mostly reside in remote and mountainous areas. Due
to their special social background, Vietnamese government has issued
special policies. Among these is the establishment of boarding schools with
suitable programs. In these schools, ethnic students use the nationwide
applied textbooks. Since the targeted learners of these textbooks are mostly
Kinh students, the representations of Vietnamese people and culture in the
books may concentrate on this group. Therefore, representations of ethnic
minorities may be unfamiliar to ethnic students, which may reduce their
interest (Cunningsworth, 1995). Previously, representations of ethnic
groups in English textbooks have been identified to be problematic by
several international authors (Bassani, 2015; Kim & Ma, 2018; Yamada,

2006, 2010).
In the context Vietnam, except for the finding that the national
culture of Vietnam in old English textbooks is described as Kinh culture
(Dinh, 2014), the issue of representations of ethnic minorities has not
received full attention. To address this limit, this study aims to investigate
the representations of Vietnamese ethnic minorities in new high school
English textbooks and the accompanying teacher’s books. Both qualitative
and quantitative approaches are adopted. The fundamental procedure of this
study is Weninger and Kiss’ (2013) semiotic approach, in which texts, tasks
and images of an activity are analyzed in relation to each other based on
analytical frameworks suggested by several authors (Cunningsworth, 1995;
Dinh, 2014, Painter et al., 2012).
Findings of the study show underrepresentation of ethnic minorities
compared to Vietnamese people and culture, absence of some groups,
limited range of topics, and possess a certain potential for cultural learning
although it is limited. From these major findings, it is advisable that the
i


textbook designers increase the number of the representations, expand the
range of the topics and incorporate interaction among ethnic characters and
other groups.

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On completion of this study, I would like to express my gratitude to
the individuals and parties who have supported and guided me to
accomplish this challenging achievement.

First, my greatest gratification goes to Dr Pham Thi Hanh, the
supervisor of this study. With her knowledge and valuable critique, she has
guided me through this whole study from the very first steps to the end.
Working with Dr Hanh has broadened my academic knowledge on this field
as well as brought me a critical and proper mindset when conducting
academic research.
Having an important role in the completion of this study is Mrs
Hoang Thi Hanh, head of Intercultural communication Division and the
lecturers of the division. Together with the supervisors, Mrs Hanh and the
division have provided constructive feedback, in-depth knowledge and
orientation to my work throughout the process.
I would also love to express my gratitude to the authors of the new
high school English textbooks for designing the objects of this study.
Overall, their work has been of great contribution to English teaching and
education to Vietnamese students. Also, the study would not be completed
without the theory and framework proposed by scholars of the concerned
fields. They are the ones who lay the theoretical foundation of this study.
To my beloved friends of class 17E1 and FELTE Fast-track
program, I would love to express my greatest thankfulness to you. You
have been of great mental and technical support. We have obtained so many
memorable achievements and I am lucky to have you guys complete this
last step of our journey with me. Wish you guys good luck with this final
challenge.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends who gave me
great support to help me come to this big step of my university time.
iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................ i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................iii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ........................................................................................ vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................. vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1
1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale of the study........................................................ 1
1.2 Aim and objectives of the study ....................................................................................... 2
1.3 Scope of the study ............................................................................................................ 3
1.4 Significance of the study .................................................................................................. 3
1.5 Structure of the study ....................................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................... 5
2.1 Definitions of key concepts .............................................................................................. 5
2.1.1 Representation ........................................................................................................... 5
2.1.2 Ethnic group and ethnic minority .............................................................................. 6
2.1.3 Culture ....................................................................................................................... 7
2.2 Representation of groups in language textbook evaluation ............................................. 9
2.2.1 The main roles of textbooks and teacher’s books in language teaching ................... 9
2.2.2 Textbook evaluation in language teaching .............................................................. 10
2.2.3 Representation of groups in language textbook evaluation ..................................... 10
2.2.4 Semiotic approach to studying cultural representation in language
textbooks........................................................................................................................... 12
2.3 Research in representation of ethnic minorities in textbooks ........................................ 14
2.3.1 Representation of ethnic minorities in non-English language textbooks ................ 14
2.3.2 Research in Representation of ethnic minorities in English language
textbooks........................................................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................................................................... 22
3.1 Data collection ............................................................................................................... 22
3.1.1 Vietnamese new high school English textbooks ..................................................... 22
3.1.2 Data collection ......................................................................................................... 23
3.2 Data analysis .................................................................................................................. 24
3.2.1 Quantitative approach: Descriptive statistics .......................................................... 24

3.2.2 Qualitative method: semiotic analysis of pedagogical activities ............................. 25
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ..................................................................... 29
iv


4.1 The frequency of representations of Vietnamese ethnic minorities .................................. 30
4.2 How are Vietnamese ethnic minorities represented in new high school
English textbooks? ............................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.2.1 What ethnic minorities are represented? ................................................................. 32
4.2.2 Topic and subject contents in which ethnic minorities appear ................................ 35
4.2.3 How are Vietnamese ethnic minorities represented culturally? .............................. 41
4.3 Is there any opportunity for students to learn about ethnic culture through
the analyzed activities? ........................................................................................................ 47
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 51
5.1 Major findings ................................................................................................................ 51
5.2 Suggestions for educators .............................................................................................. 51
5.3 Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 52
5.4 Suggestions for future studies ........................................................................................ 52
REFERENCES
APPENDIXES

v


LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Table 1: Previous studies on representations of ethnic minorities in non-English language
textbooks............................................................................................................................ 15
Table 2: Previous studies on Representations of ethnic minorities in English language
textbooks............................................................................................................................ 18
Table 3: Analytical frameworks used in the study and adaptation ................................... 26

Table 4: Frequency of representations of Vietnamese ethnic minorities in New high
school English textbooks ................................................................................................... 30
Table 5: Analyzed data in specific units ............................................................................ 31
Table 6: Ethnic minorities represented and number of direct specification of their origins
........................................................................................................................................... 34
Table 7: Topics in which ethnic minorities appear ........................................................... 35
Table 8: Number of activities in the topics........................................................................ 36
Table 9: The purposes of the content in activities ............................................................. 38
Table 10: Number of activities representing culture ......................................................... 41
Table 11: Types of ethnic culture represented .................................................................. 42
Table 12: Number of activities with language of feeling .................................................. 44
Table 13: The focus on denotation and connotation of activities...................................... 47
Table 14: The potential for ethnic culture learning of activities ....................................... 47
Figure 1: Cunningsworth (1995)’s quick and detailed checklists on topic, subject content
and social values for student’s book and teacher’s book.................................................. 11
Figure 2: Representations of ethnic minorities in general and representations of specific
minorities .......................................................................................................................... 33
Figure 3: Task G10-U10-Cu-2 .......................................................................................... 33
Figure 4: Task G10-U10-S-2 ............................................................................................. 34
Figure 5: Task G10-Rv4-S-3.............................................................................................. 37
Figure 6: Exercise G11-U5-P-1 ........................................................................................ 37
Figure 8: Exercise G11-U5-W-1 ....................................................................................... 38
Figure 9: Task G11-U8-Pr ................................................................................................ 39
Figure 10: Task G11-U8-Pr .............................................................................................. 40
Figure 11: Task G12-U5-S-3 ............................................................................................. 40
Figure 13: G12-U5-Cu-1 ................................................................................................... 43
Figure 15: Task G11-Rv3-P-1 ........................................................................................... 44
Figure 16: Exercise G12-U5-V-2 ...................................................................................... 44

vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
MOET: Ministry of Education and Training
U: Unit
Rv: Review
G: Grade
V: Vocabulary
P: Pronunciation
Gr: Grammar
R: Reading
S: Speaking
W: Writing
Co: Communication
Cu: Culture
Pr: Project
LB: Looking Back

vii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter states the research problem and rationale of the study. First,
background information of the study is described. Next, the aim and objectives of this
study are set out based on the research questions. Finally, the scope of the study,
significance of the study and a summary of the structure of this research paper are
presented.
1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale of the study
Vietnam is a multicultural country with 54 ethnicities recognized by the
government. According to the General Statistics Office (n.d), Kinh people account for

the vast majority of the population, with the members living across the territory. Other
53 minorities. mostly residing in mountainous and remote areas, are termed “ethnic
minorities”. (Open Development Vietnam, 2020). In these areas, multiple minorities
live together and become the major ethnic groups, shaping the local culture. Some
people of minor ethnicities live in urban areas together with Kinh people.
To improve the living conditions of ethnic minorities, the Vietnamese
government has issued special policies (Nguyen, 2021). Educationally, boarding
schools for students of ethnic minorities have been established, including schools of
districts and of provinces (Ministry of Education and Training, 2016). They teach
secondary and high school programs respectively. These programs are designated to
be suitable for local students. Official statistics from the MOET (2018) recorded that
there were 59 provincial schools, 256 district schools and three state schools managed
by the MOET with 109,245 students in total. On average, there were 600 students in a
boarding school.
Despite the designated mission, the textbooks in those schools are national
textbooks used nationwide, including English. In the study on cultural representations
in the old grade 10 and 11 textbooks, Dinh (2014) discovered the Vietnamese social
and cultural content mainly depict the major Kinh group. Other representational
problems have been identified internationally, including underrepresentation Bassani
(2015), stereotypes (Chu, 2015; Liew, 2007), absence from the textbooks (Yamada,

1


2006) and from daily context (Yamada, 2010). Therefore, representations of
Vietnamese ethnic minorities need analyzing to see whether these problems exist.
With a view to contributing to the government’s policies on education for the
ethnic minorities, especially in the area of English learning and teaching, I decided to
study representations of Vietnamese ethnic minorities in new high school English
textbooks. This study is expected to provide education managers with further insights

into educating ethnic students so that they can issue suitable adaptations to the
policies. For English teachers, it can be a source of suggestion for material adaptation
and in-class procedures. Such adaption may change Kinh students’ negative
viewpoints towards ethnic minorities and enhance ethnic students’ engagement and
their English proficiency.
1.2 Aim and objectives of the study
The aim of this study is to analyze representations of Vietnamese ethnic
minorities in new high school English textbooks. The fundamental methodology is
Weninger and Kiss’ (2013) semiotic approach, which treats texts, tasks and images of
a pedagogical activity as a unit. Several frameworks proposed by other authors are
combined with the procedure, which are discussed in detail in Chapter 3. To
implement the aim, I set out the objectives, which is answering the following research
questions and sub-questions:
1. How are Vietnamese ethnic minorities represented in the textbooks?
1a. How many activities featuring Vietnamese people and culture represent the
ethnic minorities?
1b. Who are the minorities represented in the textbooks?
1c. In what topics do ethnic minorities appear?
1d. How are the minorities represented culturally?
2. Is there any opportunity for students to learn about ethnic culture through the
analyzed activities?

2


1.3 Scope of the study
This study covers the activities in the new high school English textbooks and
teacher’s books, currently in use in public schools, including boarding schools for
ethnic minorities. The use of these books in the boarding schools is the
implementation of Clause 3, Article 29 of 2005 Law of Education, stating that the

Minister of Education held the right to choose textbooks in use in public schools. In
each grade, there are two volumes. Grade 10 textbook is written by Hoang, Hoang,
Dang et al. (2014a, 2014b); grade 11 textbook is written by Hoang, Phan (2014a,
2014b) and grade 12 textbook is written by Hoang, Hoang, Phan (2014a, 2014b).
Detailed structures of the textbooks are described in Chapter 3.
1.4 Significance of the study
The study is expected to make multiple contributions to the related fields both
practically and academically.
First, the study can be a review for Vietnamese textbooks authors, helping them
to make necessary modifications that the textbooks will become more suitable for
learners of ethnic minorities. Suitable portrayals can raise their interest in learning,
contributing to solving problems with education for ethnic minorities.
Second, the findings of the study can be applied to future textbooks of multiple
subjects. Future authors may also consider whether other minor groups such as
women, the disabled and the elderly are represented fairly to avoid students forming
inappropriate mindset towards these groups.
While the above advantages may undergo long-term discussions, in terms of inclass lessons, teachers can use this study as a source of reference to make relevant
adaptation to the materials and class activities. If they are modified to meet students of
ethnic minorities’ needs and interests, they can raise their engagement and result in
better academic performances.
Academically, this study contributes to the literature on textbook evaluation
and representation of minor groups in educational publications. The findings of this

3


study are obtained in the context of Vietnam, where the number of studies of these
fields is still limited. Therefore, it can narrow the research gap in Vietnam.
1.5 Structure of the study
This study consists of five chapters. After this chapter is Chapter 2, Literature

Review, providing a review of key definitions related to this study, issues related to
representations of groups in textbook evaluation and the findings of previous studies.
From these findings, I have identified research gaps and propose methods to address
them.
Following Chapter 2 is Chapter 3, Methodology. In this chapter, research
method, including the instrumental used, are described. The chapter also reports the
steps of data collection and data analysis.
Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion first presents the data analyzed in order of
the research questions. After each research question are the further discussions which
compare the findings with previous studies, suggest the possible effects on students’
learning process and attempt to provide explanations to the findings.
Chapter 5: Conclusion includes summary of findings as well as suggestion for
the educators. It also addresses the gaps of this study and suggests feasible directions
for future researchers
Summary:
This chapter introduces basic information of this study. In the next chapter, I
will give a review of past literatures on key definitions of related concepts, relevant
issues on textbook evaluation and the result of past studies on the problem. The gaps
of past studies are also addressed and I suggest how this study aims to address those
gaps.

4


CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, key concepts related to the research topic are discussed,
including representation, ethnic minority and culture. In addition, certain viewpoints
of past authors on representation in textbook evaluation are discussed. The primary
approaches to be applied in this study are also reviewed and explained. Finally, the
results of previous studies on similar problems are reported and the research gaps are

identified.
2.1 Definitions of key concepts
In this section, definitions of key concepts related to the research topic, namely
representation, ethnicity and culture are discussed.
2.1.1 Representation
According to Oxford English Dictionary (n.d), “representation” is the
“description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.” It is carried
out through the process of communication, including messages used to represent
meanings. While a message is merely delivered from one to another, the process of
communication includes the sender’s intention, ways of sending and receiving and
interpretation of the message (Miller, 2005). These messages include languages, signs
and images creating and exchanging meaning between people (Hall, 1997). According
to this author, there are three different approaches to study representation. First, the
“reflective approach” views representation as a mirror, reflecting the true meaning of
the world. Meanwhile, the intentional approach believes meaning is put onto the world
by the message carrier. However, the creation of meaning needs to be in accordance
with common rules of the carrier’s culture. The third approach, constructivism, argues
that meaning does not exist in the world but is constructed by people through a
“system of signs” (p. 42). From this approach, two branches of studying
representation are derived. The first one is the “discursive approach,” considering
representation as the production of knowledge, rather than meaning and is produced
through discourse rather than through language (Foucault, 1972). He also supposes
that discourse can determine how people think about what they know. Therefore,
meaning is created within discourse.

5


The second constructionist approach is the semiotics approach. It is generally
associated with the author Ferdinand de Saussure (Culler, 1976). Particularly,

language can be considered a system in which there exists a “form” (signifier)
“signifying” an “idea” (signifié). In the area of cultural representations, the semiotic
approach studies the signs in a culture with the application of a rule-governed system.
Besides text and images, it also analyzes objects as message carriers (Hall, 1997). In
the context of this study, the textbooks are considered a carrier of messages about
Vietnamese ethnic minority from the authors to the learners. Therefore, I decided to
adopt this approach as a major research approach of this study. The procedure of this
study is based on that proposed by Weninger and Kiss (2013), explained in section
2.2.4.
2.1.2 Ethnic group and ethnic minority
In 1975, “ethnicity” was considered a new term by Glazer and Moynihan
(1975) as it had not appeared in any dictionary prior to 1972, when the word was
recorded in the Supplement of the Oxford English Dictionary by Burchfield (1972).
Earlier, A.Theodorson and G.Theodorson (1969) defines the term as a group sharing a
common culture existing as a subgroup of a larger community. Bell (2014) agrees
with this definition and adds “a sense of place, ancestry, a common history, religion,
cultural practices, ways of communicating, and often a language” (p. 173). Language
is viewed as a key tool for construction of ethnic groups’ identity by Mooney and
Evans (2015). It is language that distinguishes ethnicity from “race”, associated with
biological traits such as skin color. Besides what constitutes an ethnic group, what the
group do with the elements is also covered. Gould and Kolb (1964) believe in a
community where multiple ethnic groups exist, one may display certain traits and
claim their status based on those.
While the previously discussed definitions do not specifically refer to any
group of ethnic minorities, the terms “ethnicity” or “ethnic group” is usually
employed to refer to these groups. The reason is members of the majority overlooking
that they have an ethnicity, except when asked for personal background information
(Mooney & Evans, 2015). According to these two authors, a majority group is

6

considered “unmarked” (p. 134), which means they become the norm in a country.
The “unmarkedness,” not the number of population, defines the major ethnic group.
How majority and minority are defined “depends on political, social and historical
factors” and “on the conception of nation” (p. 134). Despite how various these factors
are, as the authors point out, when the word “ethnicity” is used, it often only means
the “marked” minor groups.
In the context of Vietnam, the government defines an ethnic minority as a
group that accounts for less than 50% of the population. As the major Kinh group
makes up for nearly 80% of the population, 53 other groups are ethnic minorities.
Based on the concept of unmarked ethnicity suggested by Mooney and Evans (2015),
Kinh people in Vietnam can be considered unmarked. Meanwhile, the words “ethnic”
and “ethnicity” refer to the minor groups. Among the ethnic minorities, according to
Decree 05/2011/NĐCP (2011), the 16 groups having the population under 10 000 are
termed “ethnic minority groups that have a very small population.” This study, with
its setting based in Vietnam, adopts the government’s definition. Based on the use of
the word “ethnicity” and “ethnicity” pointed out by Mooney and Evans (2015), in this
paper, these terms are sometimes used to refer to the ethnic minorities.
2.1.3 Culture
Although “ethnicity” is different from “culture”, these two concepts have close
relations (Miller, 2005). Therefore, despite not being directly stated in the research
topic, culture needs to be discussed. Culture, together with language and religion,
identifies ethnicity (Herbst, 1997). Furthermore, as discussed above, ethnicity is
associated with one’s heritage, including culture (Bell, 2014). Therefore, ethnic
culture is an important part of this study.
As communication is the main tool for representation, definitions of “culture”
are discussed with regards to communication. First, culture is defined as a group of
people by Winkelman (1993). More specifically, it can be synonymous with the way
of life that a group share together (Williams, 1981). While these two authors regard

culture as related to a group, it is considered to be more sophisticated with multiple
elements by some others. These elements vary from “values, norms and beliefs”
7


(Keesing, 1981, pp. 42-67) to “meanings, artifacts, behaviors and social systems”
(Savomar & Porter, 2003, p. 53). The nature of these systems is argued to be dynamic
and constantly changing by Markus et al. (1996) and Street (1993), an argument
agreed by Baldwin et al. (2013). While some scholars discuss culture within a group,
Moon (2002) puts it in the context of multiple groups. In such contexts, culture is a
zone where a major group act, think and define issues from their point of view.
Groups that act and think differently have less opportunity to express their ideas. Such
major and minor groups of ethnicities exist in a country. Minor groups, who do not
hold the power, may experience problems with representation by the major group
(Mooney & Evans, 2014). An example is the difference between what is portrayed
and their actual lives (Baldwin et al., 2014). In the context of Vietnam, the major Kinh
group live with 53 ethnic minorities. Therefore, representational problems may occur
with high school English textbooks, which is the scope of this study. Investigating
whether there exist any problems with representation of ethnic minorities in new high
school English textbooks of Vietnam is an aim of this study.
In this study, as the textbooks, which are used by ethnic students, are written by
a group of authors in which Kinh people are the majority, definitions of culture in the
field of intercultural communication need to be discussed. Baldwin et al. (2014),
suggest culture in the field of intercultural communication as follows:
“the way of life of a group of people, including symbols, values,
behaviors, artifacts, and other shared aspects, that continually evolves
as people share messages and is often the result of struggle between
different groups who share different perspectives, interests, and power
relationships” (p. 55)
As can be seen, multiple elements are incorporated. These elements include

“concepts,

behavior, artifacts and systems” (p. 55), which are related to each other.

For example, an artifact may carry meaning; the concepts are constituted by the values
(what is important to a culture), beliefs (ideas about things) and “rules, norms and
mores (expectations of one’s behaviors in certain situations, governing one’s
behavior)” (p. 55). Regarding behavior, they argue it to carry meanings that are or are

8


not symbolic. As for the “systems”, there exist multiple kinds. The type of system
concerning the field of communication is the media, which carries ideas across a
culture and is constructed by a complex level of behaviors and meanings.
Section 2.1 provides a review of key definitions on essential foundational
concepts of this research paper. In the next section, certain issues on textbooks,
textbooks evaluation and representations of groups in textbooks are presented.
2.2 Representation of groups in language textbook evaluation
The scope of this study is high school English textbooks, which make
reviewing certain viewpoints on textbooks, textbook evaluation and representation of
ethnic groups in language textbooks necessary. Authors’ viewpoints on these three
key aspects are discussed in this section. Also, the procedure of applying semiotic
approach in researching culture in English textbooks is described.
2.2.1 The main roles of textbooks and teacher’s books in language teaching
Textbooks are agreed to play pivotal roles in a language program. Richards
(2001) defines the role of textbooks as major language input and basic content in the
classroom. The content, skills and practice activities to be taught are in textbooks.
Among the discussed contents, activities with “text, tasks and images” facilitate
students’ learning (Weninger & Kiss, 2013 p. 696). These activities include exercises

(activities focusing on linguistic aspects) and tasks (activities focusing on linguistic
skills), as categorized by Richards (n.d) (see detailed explanations of these two types
of activities in section 3.2.1, Chapter 3). In certain contexts, textbooks are learners’
only source of the target language. To the inexperienced teacher, they suggest the
main activities and instructions. Another role of textbook is students’ source of
motivation (Tsiplakides, 2011). If a set of textbooks is properly designed, it can help
students to make progress and improve their proficiency. Therefore, it is virtually
impossible to teach a language program without the use of commercial textbooks
(Richards, 2001).
Accompanying textbooks in a material package is teacher’s books. Their role,
according to Cunningsworth (1995), is also essential as they provide guidelines on

9


teaching a course effectively. At lesson level, they suggest detailed lesson plans and
keys of the activities. In the context of this study, I pay attention to the role related to
culture in a teacher’s book, which is explaining cultural context to teachers so that
they are familiar with the situations in the textbooks.
2.2.2 Textbook evaluation in language teaching
When a set of textbooks is used in a language program, textbook evaluation is
vital (Richards, 2001). There are two purposes of evaluating textbooks:
“retrospective” and “predictive”, evaluation after and before the textbooks have been
implemented respectively (Tsipkilades, 2011). As the new high school English
textbooks have been applied nationwide, my analysis is retrospective. There are two
ways retrospective evaluation can be conducted: “impressionistic”, evaluation
including an assessment for the whole course and “micro-evaluation”, the review of
textbooks in specific teaching situations. As the research subject is the specific aspect
of representation of Vietnamese ethnic minorities to the students, this study is a microevaluation.
To evaluate language textbooks, a variety of aspects need to be considered,

which are presented in the Quick reference checklist by Cunningsworth (1995) .This
study considers the representations of ethnic minorities, which belong to two specific
categories: “Topic and Subject content” and “Social and cultural values” and cultural
criteria of the checklists on teacher’s book.
2.2.3 Representation of groups in language textbook evaluation
As mentioned above, in Cunningsworth’s (1995) checklists, representation of
groups is categorized into the general aspect “Topic” and non-linguistic aspects
“Topic and Subject Content” and “Social and cultural values”. (See Figure 1).
Particularly, the former one deals with the question of whether authentic topics such
as “geography and history” are included in lessons besides plain linguistic elements.
Topics included also need to meet students’ interest; otherwise they may decrease
their attention. In practical terms, Richards (2015) points out English textbooks tend to
depict a “middle-class lifestyle” (p. 614) with strong focus on “travel and
consumption” while avoiding students’ actual issues. As he explains, this is an effort
10


of the writers to present a neutral content that every student can relate to. However,
this intention neglects the fact that students come from diverse backgrounds and may
have conflicting viewpoints with the authors. In some serious situations, content may
be inappropriate and imply hidden messages (Cunningsworth, 1995). Together with
the topic, the content within each lesson need to have authenticity. Authentic materials
are the ones that can do what real language does, for example: “informing,
challenging and stimulating” instead of being random incidents appearing without
context. Beside the checklists for student’s book, he also provides general and specific
checklist for teacher’s book. In this study, the criteria related to culture are extracted
and present in Figure 1.
The second non-linguistics aspect, Cultural and social Values, needs to be
understandable and recognizable. These values are incorporated into elements such as
location, social mores and age group. Recognizing them can help students produce the

language suitable different social contexts. Through the subject content, social and
cultural values are delivered to students, which can be defined as a hidden curriculum.
This curriculum is not officially stated but can influence the students’ viewpoints. It
can imply the official curriculum, which is not neutral (Cunningsworth, 1995). Since
these values are not usually stated, the evaluator needs to examine certain aspects to
uncover them.
Figure 1: Cunningsworth (1995)’s quick and detailed checklists on topic, subject
content and social values for student’s book and teacher’s book.

11


2.2.4 Semiotic approach to studying cultural representation in language
textbooks.
As previously discussed in section 2.1.3, culture is the “marker” of ethnicity
(Herbst, 1997). Hence, the semiotic approach in studying culture in language
textbooks is reviewed in this section. The principles of this approach and its
application in cultural studies are previously introduced in section 2.1.1.
With an aim to introducing a new research method to highlight the dynamic
nature of culture, Weninger and Kiss (2013) employed the semiotic approach. Their
research subjects were the two Hungarian English textbooks Bloggers and Steps. To
answer the question of how meaning-making process takes place based on the texts,

12


tasks and images in these textbooks, they analyzed the “activities” – the units
including texts, tasks and images as a whole. They adopted the fundamental theory
proposed by Peirce (1980), a model of three elements interconnected to each other: a
sign, the object (it represents) and an interpretant (what is created in the mind of the

interpreter). This model was used to analyze how the relationship among texts, tasks
and images impact students’ meaning-making process. As the two authors argued,
they adopted a qualitative approach as potential for culture learning is contextual and
depends on the relationship among the texts, tasks and images. As all three elements
accompany each other in guiding students to interpret the content in textbooks, the
process that they termed “guided semiosis” (p. 704), they should be analyzed as a unit.
The two authors found the textbooks heavily guided students’ meaning-making
process and the opportunity for cultural learning is limited. Also, the tasks which
focused on culture acted as a supplement for linguistics content and may create fixed
stereotypes.
In activities bearing cultural representation, there exist images portraying
people in a community, whose social relation is an analytical aspect (Cunningsworth,
1995). To interpret the relation of these people, Painter et al. (2012) propose the
model of interpersonal meanings developed based on Kress and van Leuween’s
(2006) aspects of interpersonal meanings between the characters and the viewer. In
this model, characters’ body orientation towards each other can help realize whether
“power” (pp. 15-16) over others, which can help interpret their social relation.
Additionally, the social setting in which the characters appear is another
Cunningsworth’s (1995) concerns. This aspect can be realized through Kress and van
Leuween’s (2006) aspect of “social distance” (p. 124). In detail, if the characters are
of medium to long distance from the viewer, they are likely to be put in a community
while close distance indicates portrayal of individuals. Nevertheless, according to
Weninger and Kiss (2013), the accompanying texts, which can tell more about these
aspects, also need to be analyzed with images as a unit to achieve the fullest
understanding of the social setting.

13


While the aforementioned authors introduced methodological frameworks to

study culture, Dinh (2014) analyzed the types of cultures represented with the
framework of Big Culture (Big C) and small Culture (small c). Big C includes cultural
products such as songs, houses, clothes and small c culture includes practices,
perspectives and persons. In this model, “persons” (p. 148) means the real people, not
literary characters.
In section 2.2, a review of aspects related to studying representation of ethnic
minorities and ethnic culture are discussed. In the next section, a review on previous
findings with representation of ethnic groups in textbooks is presented.
2.3 Research in representation of ethnic minorities in textbooks
This section presents a review on the findings related to the main topic of this
study: representation of ethnic groups in textbooks. Surveying past literature, I realize
there are two categories of textbooks covered: English and other subjects, which are
the two categories of works reviewed in this section.
2.3.1 Representation of ethnic minorities in non-English language
textbooks
The issue in non-language textbooks has attracted the interest of multiple
scholars. Reviewing American works related to textbooks in the late 20th century,
Banks (2013) discovered during the 1960s, a hierarchy of ethnic groups was
presented, as a result of them being written by the “powerful mainstream groups” (p.
2063). Caucasian people were depicted to be superior to other races in terms of social
status, politics and economy. Later, the situation changed positively but the extent was
small. In China, Chu (2015) found the values and beliefs of Han people, the major
ethnic group, were primarily depicted while minorities were marginalized.
While these two authors treat whole sets of textbooks, textbooks of specific
subjects have also been studied. The problems are mostly discovered in social
sciences. In China, results similar to Chu’s (2015) have been found by Bing (2006)
and Chu (2018). Chu (2018) realizes Chinese cultural symbols in Chinese elementary
textbooks originate from Han culture. In Canada, Bing (2006) pointed out Chinese

14

history textbook depicts Chinese culture and people from a tourist perspective. This
tourism approach was likely to oversimplify the actual issues of China’s history and
society. Marginalization of ethnic minorities and normalization of the majority were
also seen in Sri Lanka’s history (Gaul, 2014) and Norway’s secondary music
textbooks (Ronningen, 2015).
Additionally, this problem exists in textbooks of other languages. In Malaysia,
the Malay and Chinese textbooks are discovered to portray ethnic minorities
stereotypically and to not accurately present the actual structure of the ethnics groups
(Liew, 2007). Besides stereotype, description of culture as “monocultural,
monolingual and static” is another issue Kwon and Sun (2018) found.
Summaries of the findings previously discussed are presented in table 1.
Table 1: Previous studies on representations of ethnic minorities in non-English
language textbooks
Study
Author(s)
Major findings
Textbook treatments of Banks (2013)

- American textbooks in the 1960s

ethnic groups

presented a hierarchy of ethnic
groups

with

Caucasian

being

superior to other groups
-

Ethnic

minorities

were

not

portrayed accurately
The power of knowledge: Chu (2015)

- The values and beliefs of the Han

a critical analysis of the

people

depiction

of

ethnic

Chinese culture

minorities

in

China’s

-

elementary textbooks

Ethnic

primarily

minorities

represented

experienced

marginalization with incomplete and
stereotypical representations
-

The

knowledge

on

ethnic

minorities were described and taught

15