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In today’s modern world, learning foreign languages becomes more and more popular because of globalization, so it is common that people go abroad to other countries for working and language teaching. Therefore, in the context of intercultural communication, culture shock is believed to be unavoidable. For that reason, a research on how a visiting teacher encounters culture shocks to adapt a foreign culture would be beneficial to the researcher’s future career as an English teacher. There is no doubt that English becoming the international language for communication leads to a rise in English speaking teacher recruitment in many universities in Vietnam. However, it is a matter of fact that cultural barrier is one of the biggest problems in communicating in general and teaching in particular. Therefore, this study with the focus on the way an American lecturer encounters culture shock and her adaptation to Vietnamese culture helps the researcher raise an awareness of intercultural communication areas including American culture, Vietnamese culture as well as human culture. Furthermore, in the position as an undergraduate student at the Faculty of English language teacher education, the researcher realizes that effective teaching is one of the most important factors in the process of developing future career. After four years observing and working with local as well as foreign teachers in the context of intercultural communication, the researcher finds out that American lecturers’ teaching is very effective, attractive and interesting. Therefore, it motivates the researcher to involve their teaching in the thesis in order to make a useful and practical impact on the profession of teaching after graduation. Through the study, the researcher could create and develop personal career benefits as well as gain pedagogical experience from the professional American lecturer. All of these become the motivation that stimulates the researcher to conduct a research on “A case study of an American lecturer teaching speaking to the second year fast track classes at ULIS, VNU” from a perspective of Intercultural communication.
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER A CASE STUDY OF AN AMERICAN LECTURER TEACHING SPEAKING TO THE SECOND-YEAR FAST-TRACK CLASSES AT ULIS, VNU (From a perspective of intercultural communication) Supervisor: Ngơ Hữu Hồng, PhD Student: Vũ Thị Thu Lý Course: QH2010.F1.E2 Hanoi, May 2014 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ MỘT GIÁO VIÊN NGƯỜI MĨ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN CHẤT LƯỢNG CAO NĂM THỨ HAI TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Ngơ Hữu Hồng Sinh viên: Vũ Thị Thu Lý Khóa: QH2010.F1.E2 Hà Nội - 2014 ACCEPTANCE I hereby state that I: Vũ Thị Thu Lý, E2K44, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) 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 or the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature Vũ Thị Thu Lý Date: May 5th 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of this work, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Ngơ Hữu Hồng, who gave me the benefit of his wisdom, advice and patience, who made valuable suggestions and careful critical comments that helped me to carry out this study Besides, I want to express my gratefulness to Ms X, who is the American teacher participating enthusiastically in my research as the direct participants I am also indebted to 25 second- year students of Fast- track program for agreeing to participate in my paper Finally, I want to express my love and gratitude to my beloved friends and family for supporting me wholeheartedly i ABSTRACT As one of the first attempts to raise an awareness of Intercultural communication, the paper aims at investigating the cultural problems, cultural adaptation of a visiting American lecturer who is teaching English in Vietnam as well as the attitudes of the students towards her behaviors To fulfill this primary aim, qualitative method with two research instruments including interviews and observations were adopted The participants of the study were an American lecturer and 41 second-year students of Fast-Track Program The most significant finding of the research was that in spite of short-term living in Vietnam with a lot of culture shocks, the visiting American lecturer was successful to adapt Vietnamese culture and demonstrated high teacher credibility thanks to her strategies and the globalization going on in Vietnam The paper, therefore, would serve as a good reference for both English language teachers and foreign language specialized students who desire to have a closer look at this issue or to improve their Intercultural sense ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY .13 2.5.1 Participants 19 2.5.2 Data collection 19 CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY .23 Findings from the observations .39 REFERENCES 44 APPENDIX 1: GUIDED QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEW 48 iii INTRODUCTION The first part of the study discusses the rationale, the aims, the scope as well as the significance of the study together with a brief overview of the research The two research questions, in particular, are clearly identified to work as the guidelines for the whole paper I Rationale of the study In today’s modern world, learning foreign languages becomes more and more popular because of globalization, so it is common that people go abroad to other countries for working and language teaching Therefore, in the context of intercultural communication, culture shock is believed to be unavoidable For that reason, a research on how a visiting teacher encounters culture shocks to adapt a foreign culture would be beneficial to the researcher’s future career as an English teacher There is no doubt that English becoming the international language for communication leads to a rise in English speaking teacher recruitment in many universities in Vietnam However, it is a matter of fact that cultural barrier is one of the biggest problems in communicating in general and teaching in particular Therefore, this study with the focus on the way an American lecturer encounters culture shock and her adaptation to Vietnamese culture helps the researcher raise an awareness of intercultural communication areas including American culture, Vietnamese culture as well as human culture Furthermore, in the position as an undergraduate student at the Faculty of English language teacher education, the researcher realizes that effective teaching is one of the most important factors in the process of developing future career After four years observing and working with local as well as foreign teachers in the context of intercultural communication, the researcher finds out that American lecturers’ teaching is very effective, attractive and interesting Therefore, it motivates the researcher to involve their teaching in the thesis in order to make a useful and practical impact on the profession of teaching after graduation Through the study, the researcher could create and develop personal career benefits as well as gain pedagogical experience from the professional American lecturer All of these become the motivation that stimulates the researcher to conduct a research on “A case study of an American lecturer teaching speaking to the secondyear fast- track classes at ULIS, VNU” from a perspective of Intercultural communication II Aims of the study This study aims at discovering the difficulties, attitudes as well as strategies of an American lecturer when she comes to a foreign country namely Vietnam for language teaching Also, the study investigates the way how Vietnamese students identify the cultural differences, their attitudes towards a foreign culture through the teacher’s behaviors as well as how they are influenced by the foreign teacher III Research questions In the implementation of this research, the researcher tries to answer these following research questions: 1) What cultural problems does she_ the visiting American lecturer_ encounter when living and teaching in Vietnam? 2) How well does she adapt herself in Vietnamese culture? IV Significance of the study As a future English teacher, the researcher realizes that a good teaching method does not include only the teaching of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Suffice it to say that it is necessary to achieve the Intercultural sense in order to gain professional development from the American lecturer through this kind of research In other words, it could be beneficial for the researcher’s future career by training the Intercultural sense thanks to the teaching of the visiting lecturer Also, it is clearly seen that the current research into the area of English speaking teaching from a perspective of Intercultural communication is highly limited Therefore, this study will partly help fill the gap in the literature Although the study is carried out as a small scale one, the researcher hopes that its results could be a good source for both teachers and students who are concerning about English teaching and intercultural communication V Scope of the study Although there are many other lecturers in the English Department of ULIS, VNU, the researcher choose Ms X for several reasons She is responsible for teaching speaking to two second-year fast-track classes Therefore, all the students from class 12E1 and 12E15 and their American speaking teacher are included in this study The decision to focus on two cases of the visiting American lecturer and her students was made based on the purpose of referencing their problems, attitudes and strategies to adapt a foreign culture VI Design of the paper The study consists of three main parts: INTRODUCTION – includes the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the significance and the scope of the study DEVELOPMENT: CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW - provides the background of the study and related studies on the issue CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY - describes in details the participants, instruments of the study as well as the procedure which the research follows CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY - analyzes data found out and discusses the outcomes of the study CONCLUSION – summarizes the main issue of the paper, the limitations of the research and gives some suggestions for further studies The REFERENCES and APPENDICES include a list of references that the researcher used for the research, guided questions for interview and interview transcript it was noticeable that the situation was different All students of two classes came to class very on time with all members It may probably means that not only the culture affected the teacher, but she also did affect her students in some ways She demonstrated high teacher credibility so that the students accepted herself, her culture and her teaching 38 CONCLUSION This last part of the research paper chapter will summarize the major findings of the study and some pedagogical implications from them Also, in this part the researcher points out some limitations and contributions of the current study as well as gives suggestions for further study I Major findings of the study On seeking the answers to two research questions, the researcher conducted some interviews with the target American lecturer and her students as well as observed her speaking classes Findings from the interviews The data collected from the interview with the visiting American teacher showed that she encountered a lot of cultural differences, mainly in terms of the differences in receiving gifts from the students, the protection of privacy and the course syllabus The interviews with the students showed that at first she had some misbehaviors, but in the end she proved to be very credible and adapted well to Vietnamese culture Findings from the observations The researcher noticed that the visiting American lecturer both adapted to Vietnamese culture and made positive impacts on Vietnamese students’ verbal and non-verbal language Respectively, the Vietnamese students were more active, more punctual and more professional after a time working with the American lecturer They were used to polite expressions and common gestures as well as postures of American and applied them in their daily conversation naturally 39 An explanation of the adaptation The reason why students considered the teaching of the American domestic was probably because of the globalization going on in Vietnam Those students who found no exotic in her teaching were those who had experience working with foreign teachers When they came to Vietnam to teach Vietnamese students, they did also bring their culture to Vietnam and affected the students to some extent through their teaching Students were more dynamic in their styles, more active to express themselves in speaking lessons with the American teacher In general, the high teacher credibility that the teacher demonstrated as well as her successful adaptation to Vietnamese culture meant that the cultural border line between the teacher and the students and that between American and Vietnamese culture somehow faded away Therefore, it could be concluded that the more cultural assimilation is created, the better they adapt to the other culture In this case, both the American teacher and the Vietnamese students’ intercultural communication characteristics were close to each other because they were all in the process of cultural integration II Contributions of the study As mentioned in the significance of the study, it provided language teachers in general and English majored students in particular with an insight into a successful adaptation of a case study of an American lecturer to Vietnamese culture By exploring the cultural shocks that she encountered when teaching in Vietnam, the paper aims at examining how well she adapted to a foreign culture and how she demonstrated teacher credibility Understanding thoroughly the above factors may help raise an awareness of intercultural communication as well as language teaching Besides, the outcomes of the study can also be a good source of reference for English majored students who want to be teachers in the future to create high teacher credibility, to make amendments to English language teaching methodology as well as accelerate the cultural integration 40 III Limitations of the study Although the researcher did make significant efforts in justifying the methodology of the study and collecting as well as analyzing the data with careful consideration, there still exist some shortcomings that should be noticed and some difficulties that the researcher encountered when conducted the study This part discusses how these factors impacted the research Limitations of the methodology In this part, some limitations in terms of small number of participants and lack of prior research studies on the topic will be included First, the researcher intended to observe as many classes of the target American lecturer as possible with the aim of comparing and contrasting her behavior and attitude with different group of students There were three secondyear fast-track classes, nevertheless, she taught only two of them So it was a little bit more difficult to find significant relationships from the data and to ensure a representative distribution of the participants, to whom results would be generalized or transferred Second, another major shortcoming was due to the lack of prior research studies on the topic Even though the researcher was aware that citing prior research study formed the basis of the literature review and helped lay a foundation for understanding the research problem that was investigated, there was little prior study in the topic Therefore, the researcher hardly found a really appropriate research that shared the same theme as the current study so as to draw a close relationship with the previous studies This limitation could serve as an important opportunity to the need of further research Limitations of the researcher One of the most typical shortcomings was due to the limited time and access 41 First, it was unlucky that some of the observed lessons were on the same day with the students’ achievement tests, and the observation was set on the same six weeks of the teaching practicum, which made the researcher very difficult to arrange a suitable day for observation in order not to coincide these two Beside some limitations due to lack of time, there were some limitations due to lack of access As the study depended on having access to the participants who are the target American lecturer and 41 students from the two fast-track classes, sometimes the access was denied or otherwise limited for some reasons IV Suggestions for further study Since the study was carried out as a case study of an American lecturer teaching speaking to two second-year fast-track classes, with the focus on the cultural differences and her adaptation, further studies can still be done in different approaches For instance, other researchers who are interested in the issue may conduct another study on multiple cases of different American lecturer so as to compare and contrast how well they adapt to Vietnamese culture and how culture affects their teaching style There is no doubt that the more classes the researcher observes; the more reliable the data is, so is is necessary to observe as many classes of the target subject as possible in a permanent period of time Therefore, the changes and adaptations could be seen very clearly at the end of the observation Due to the researcher’s limited knowledge of the field, the study is more general than from a particular perspective regarding the adaptation of an American lecturer Therefore, future research into this issue from a more specific perspective is still much needed For example, future researcher could go deeply into an investigation of the subject’s misbehaviors and how they affect the teacher credibility from the viewpoint of the students In addition, as mentioned above, there were a large number of case studies on foreign students coming to another country for further education, but the investigation on foreign teachers’ cases were limited So the current study would 42 make up this limitation and be a good source to for future researchers who are interested in intercultural communication as well as education 43 REFERENCES Bachman, L F (1990) Fundamental considerations in language testing.Oxford: Oxford University Press Berno, T & Ward, C (2004) Cross cultural and educational adaptation of Asian students in New Zealand Research report for Asia:NZ Foundation Berry, J W (2003) Conceptual approaches to acculturation In K M Chun P B Organista &G Marin (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in Theory, Measurement, and Applied Research (pp 17-37) Baltimore, MD: United Book Press Campbell, D T & Julian, S (1963) Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research Boston: Houghton Mifflin Chen, G M (2010) Study on Chinese communication behaviors Hong Kong: China Review Academic Publishers Chen, G M., & Starosta, W J (1997) Chinese 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interpretive phenomenological analysis of the embodiment of artificial limbs Disability and Rehabilitation, 26(16), 963– 973 Murray, C.D., & Harrison, B (2004) The meaning and experience of being a stroke survivor: An interpretive phenomenological analysis Disability and Rehabilitation, 26(13), 808–816 Ngo, H (2014) Some utilization of project-based learning for Vietnamese university students of English in the course “Intercultural communication” Oberg, K (1960) Cultural Shock: adjustment to new cultural environments Practical anthropology, 7, 177- 182 Varner, Iris; Beamer, Linda (1995) Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace (p.2) Boston, MA Vertovec, S & Cohen, R (2002) Introduction: conceiving cosmopolitanism Vila, R (2005) La competencia comunicativa intercultural Un estudio en el primer ciclo de la ESO 46 Ward, C & Kennedy, A (1993) Where‘s the ‗culture‘ in cross-cultural transition? Comparative study of sojourner adjustment, Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, vol 24, no 2, pp 221-249 Ward, C., &Kennedy, A (1999) The measurement of socio- cultural adaptation international journal of intercultural relations, 23, 659-677 Ward, C., Bochner, S & Furnham, A (2001) The Psychology of Culture Shock Routledge, East Sussex, UK Weaver, G R (1993) Understanding and coming with cross-cultural adjustment stress Yin, R K (1984) Case Study Research: Design and Methods Newbury Park, CA: Sage Yin, R K (1994).Case Study Research: Design and Methods.Newbury Park, CA: Sage Zaidah, Z (2003) An Investigation into the effects of Discipline-Specific Knowledge, Proficiency and Genre on Reading Comprehension and Strategies of Malaysia ESP Students Unpublished Ph.D Thesis University of Reading 47 APPENDIX 1: GUIDED QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEW I Guided questions for teacher: How long have you been in Vietnam? Is there any culture shock that you have to encounter when living and teaching in Vietnam? If the answer for question number is yes, what you to overcome cultural differences? What you think of some habits of Vietnamese students that are considered taboos in America? Do you accept those cultural differences or you find any way to change them? II Guided questions for students: How long have you learned English? Have you ever worked with foreign teachers before? Do you find any problems when working with foreign teachers? Is there any behavior of the visiting American lecturer that causes misunderstanding? Do you find her behaviors exotic or domestic? Do you learn much from her teaching? Is this effective or not? Is her teaching different from that of Vietnamese lecturers? 48 APPENDIX 2: EMAIL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Interviewee: Student C Date: 30/3/2014 Interviewer: Dear C My name is Vũ Thị Thu Lý from group E2K44 I am carrying a study on a case study of an American lecturer teaching speaking to second-year fast-track classes at ULIS Would you mind answering some questions about this issue? They are attached with this email I guarantee that your name will be kept in confidentiality Thank you so much and have a nice day! Interviewee: You are welcome I will answer them as detailed as possible I have learned English for ten years But I did not major English when I was at high school I have just worked with foreign teacher twice Ms X is the second foreign teacher that teaches me Before, I had a chance to work with Mr A also comes from America Yes, I find so many problems working with the foreign teacher Although I can listen to almost all words that she speaks out, sometimes I still not understand what she means or what she wants Yes, of course sometimes there are misunderstandings At first, I even feel annoyed sometimes when I don’t know what’s wrong with her We just bought an album as a memorable present for her on a special day But she denied receiving it She just received the cards and our wish, and she kept on talking about that as an incorrect behavior I don’t think it is right She is living in Vietnam and there is no reason for not behave as the way Vietnamese often She is still American Another situation is when she meets us twice in a semester We are the ones who should be surprised Her eyes and her mouth were open at the same time: “You again? So we MUST work together another semester!” She seemed not want to see 49 us again Although she explained that in American, the teachers not have the same students each semester, I still felt so inconvenient It is not over When we share about our tradition of burning paper money, she said: “Is that your culture? Every Vietnamese that? Oh my god! If my ancestors could receive it, it would burn so so much money”_ and then she laughed All other students laugh, too; but I thought that it was a sarcasm For me, it is a good tradition and it should be protected, not to be made fun of These situations happened several months ago Now I realize that she was really curious of our culture so that she keeps asking so many questions relating to Vietnamese people and culture I am no longer annoyed if she has any misunderstanding That is not her intention to say anything offensive She is very friendly and goodwill I like to talk to her to know more about her culture so that I will not cause any misunderstand to American when I have chance to talk with them After a long time working with her, I find her behaviors totally domestic and I don’t know why Yeah, her teaching is very effective and interesting because she knows the ways to motivate us and encourage us to speak English To be honest, her teaching is more attractive than Vietnamese teaching because she shares many cultural issues, and we love that Furthermore, we are more open to express our feelings and emotions in the lessons with her rather than with a Vietnamese teacher 50 ...ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ MỘT GIÁO VIÊN NGƯỜI MĨ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN CHẤT LƯỢNG CAO NĂM THỨ HAI TẠI TRƯỜNG... LƯỢNG CAO NĂM THỨ HAI TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Ngơ Hữu Hồng Sinh viên: Vũ Thị Thu Lý Khóa: QH2010.F1.E2 Hà Nội - 2014 ACCEPTANCE I hereby state... individual or group in response to external demands Psychological adaptation, operation in terms of depression or mood disturbance, refers to psychological or emotional well- being according to a