ENGLISH TEACHERS’ ADDRESSING OF CULTURAL ASPECTS IN THEIR CLASSES AT HA LONG HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS

Abstract

Intercultural content has been paid due attention to in current teaching and learning English in Vietnam and integrated into English coursebooks of high school education. With a view to examining teachers’ incorporating culture into their teaching, this study used an ethnographic method including class observations and post-observation interviews with the teacher participants at Ha Long High School for gifted students. The findings show that culture teaching is now integrated closely with linguistic competence in the curriculum. The teachers exploit different forms of intercultural learning to provide students with intercultural knowledge, among which project-based learning activity, discussion on cultural differences and role plays are of extreme preference. Noticeably, most of those forms are based on the input available in the set English textbook. In the practice of culture teaching, the factors preventing both students and teachers from achieving their culture-intaking were also explained, among which time constraint was the key reason. In short, the study is expected to raise language teachers’ awareness of the cultural components in EFL teaching and learning with some pedagogical recommendations provided to help EFL teachers address cultural aspects in their classroom more effectively.