Cultural awareness and intercultural awareness in ELT practices from Global Englishes perspective in higher education in a Vietnamese university.

Abstract

The number of people learning English, 1.5 billion, provides strong evidence for the recent international function and the special status of English as the best communicative tool compared to all other languages worldwide. Global Englishes, mainly English as a lingua franca, have played an important role in intercultural communication among people who do not share the first language in international settings. However, the fact of using ELF has yet to be fully recognised, especially in Vietnam, where there is a large population of English users and learners who still take English as a foreign language. Since the student participant in the research are being trained as pre-service primary and secondary teachers or will be recruited to work in the international labour market, it is essential to investigate the influence of Global Englishes and Intercultural awareness in ELT in practice for them. The research was conducted with the mixed method with three-month fieldwork at a university in the north of Vietnam. Questionnaires, interviews, and observations were all explored as research instruments for a detailed description of the research setting. With the qualitative content analysis approach and from a global Englishes perspective, the thesis compares and analyses how Global Englishes is understood or used by both teacher and student participants. The thesis also aims to understand the influence of Cultural and Intercultural awareness in English language teaching in practice for these students and teachers. Findings show inconsistencies and contradictions between classroom performance and participants' perceptions of English use, teaching and learning. Differences exist in students' and teachers' perceptions and beliefs of using English. Student participants take linguistic aspects as the primary resources for communication; therefore, they would like the teacher to correct their pronunciation or grammar mistakes immediately in class. However, if students' performance is understandable, teacher participants do not focus on these errors. Intercultural language education was more consistent as the cultural context of both native and non-native English-speaking countries is presented clearly in all modules in the research, especially Vietnamese culture is easily found in classroom observations. This results from the school's policy - the Centre for Research on foreign language and Culture, and the introduction and promotion of Vietnamese culture and language to the world. Basic cultural awareness and Advanced cultural awareness, particularly Levels 1 and 2 (Baker, 2015), were also introduced clearly in teaching materials and in both inside and outside classroom activities. The study provides a significant contribution to the HE in Vietnam. Global Englishes, especially ELF, should be recognised by both teachers and students. The research is strong evidence that in a language class, cultural knowledge should be treated equally to linguistic knowledge in ELT to achieve the teaching and learning goals. In terms of implications, they are targeted at the context of HE in Vietnam. Global Englishes should be addressed directly and clearly in ELT to encourage teachers and students to become confident in their English use, learning and teaching.

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Identifiers

ORCID for William Baker: orcid.org/0000-0003-0533-2795

ORCID for Ying Zheng: orcid.org/0000-0003-2574-0358

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