VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
********************* NGUYỄN THỊ PHƢƠNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN
MOTIVATING 11
TH
FORM ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON
GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL - THANH HOA PROVINCE TO UNDERSTAND
AMERICAN CULTURE.

Nghiên cứu cách sử dụng phim Mỹ trong dạy tiếng Anh nhằm tạo động lực
tìm hiểu về văn hoá Mỹ cho học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh tại trƣờng THPT
chuyên Lam Sơn, Thanh Hoá

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
Hanoi, 2014

Hanoi, 2014 i
CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research, except where
otherwise acknowledged, and that this thesis or any part of the same has not been
submitted for a degree to any universities or institution.

Signature Nguyễn Thị Phƣơng



I truly wish to thank all the colleagues and the students Lam Son Gifted High
School for their assistance and co-operation in giving me valuable information.

Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge my debt to my parents and
my husband, whose patient love enabled me to complete this work. iii
ABSTRACT

The importance of American culture is undeniable in English language.
Therefore, investigating new ways to motivate students to learn American culture is
apparently necessary to gain effective English teaching and learning and using
American movies in the process is not exception.
This minor thesis was carried out with an investigation into using American
movies in motivating 11th form English gifted students at Lam Son Gifted High
School - Thanh Hoa province to understand American culture.
The minor thesis is organized in 3 parts:
Part A: presents the rationale, aims and significance of the study, research
questions, scope, method and design of the study.

ESL: English as a Second Language
EFL: English as a foreign language v
LIST OF TABLES

Figure 1: Students‟ awareness of having an understanding of American
Culture 20
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv
LIST OF TABLES v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 2
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methodology 2
5. Structure of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Culture and American culture 4
1.2. The role of the culture in language teaching and learning? 5
1.3. The role of movies in teaching and learning culture 6
1.4. Previous studies on the use of movies in English teaching process 7
1.5. The use of cultural artifacts in teaching culture: Movies as cultural artifacts 8
1.6. What is motivation? 9
1.7. Relationships between teaching culture and students' motivation 10
1.8. Criteria to choose movies 11
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 13
2.1. The setting of the study 13

CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS ON USING AMERICAN MOVIES IN
MOTIVATING 11TH ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT LAM SON
GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO UNDERSTAND AMERICAN CULTURE 27 viii
4.1. Providing students with a full awareness of the importance of American culture
27
4.2. Improving students‟ background knowledge of American culture and Cross-
cultural Communication 28
4.3. How to use American movies in English lessons 30
4.4. How to motivate 11th English gifted students to understand American culture
through American movies 32
4.5. Conclusion of the chapter 4 33
PART C: CONCLUSION 35
3.1. Conclusion 35
3.2. Limitations of the study 36
3.3. Suggestions for further study 36
REFERENCES 37
APPENDICES I 1
PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Foreign language learning is comprised of several components, including

considered a method that is worth trying and investigating.
2. Aims of the study
The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of using
American movies in lessons to promote 11th form English gifted students at Lam
Son Gifted High School - Thanh Hoa province to learn and understand American
culture.
3. Scope of the study
Although there are many different ways to motivate students to learn English
and to understand American culture, they cannot be fully covered in the scope of a
thesis. Due to the word limit and the time frame of the study, the researcher only
focused on investigating the use of American movies as a way of motivating 11th
form English gifted students to understand American culture at Lam Son Gifted
High School. Besides, the target subjects that the study investigated were 40
students from 02 classes of grade 11 at this school.
4. Methodology
This study was intended to be conducted as an action research study. In this
action research, the researcher used some different methods based on study
quantitative and qualitative approaches: a survey questionnaire for students, a
survey questionnaire for teachers of English and classroom observations.
5. Structure of the thesis
The thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the development, and
the conclusion
Part A: Introduction – presents the basic information including rationale, aims,
significance, research methods, scope, and the structure of the thesis.
Part B: Development – consists of three chapters.
Chapter 1: Literature Review – provides the literature concerning motivation
in second language learning, culture and the role of the culture in language teaching
and learning, the relationship between teaching culture and students‟ motivation

4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Culture and American culture
Why is incorporating culture in an ESL/EFL classroom inevitable? There are
at least three fundamental reasons we can put forth to answer this question. First,
culture and language are inseparable. Politzer, (as cited in Brooks, 1968) points out:
As language teachers we must be interested in the study of
culture not because we necessarily want to teach the culture of
the other country, but because we have to teach it. 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; for unless he is
warned, unless he receives cultural instruction, he will associate
American concepts or objects with the foreign symbols (p. 85-
86).
Concurrent with that, Brown (1994) emphasizes “… a language is a part of
culture and a culture is a part of a language. The two are intricately interwoven so
that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language
or culture” (p. 164). Hence, it is natural to talk about culture when we talk about
language and language teaching.
American history began with waves of immigrants, bringing their own
cultures and traditions to a vast new country. The trend of American culture is
toward multiculturalism, not assimilation because immigrant populations within the

forms that students are learning. To make students aware of the culture features
reflected in the language, teachers can make those cultural features an explicit topic
of discussion in relation to the linguistic forms being studied. For example, there are
different terms of address, depending on his/her age, gender, and degree of intimacy
between the person addressed and the speaker. The usage of the correct term of
address is important in Indonesian culture and society. Learning the vocabulary 6
without knowing the cultural background of the usage might bring hiccups in
communication.

In addition, students should be aware of the culture differences between their
own culture and that of the target culture. Without this knowledge, awkward
situations may arise. In Indonesian culture, for example, it seems to be impolite and
arrogant if one stands with arms akimbo. Learning the body language and gestures
is important to avoid any misunderstanding. Byram (1989) placed „cultural studies‟
at the core of foreign language learning and proposes a model of four related parts,
namely language learning, language awareness, cultural experience, and cultural
awareness (p.64). Byram and Morgan (1994) stated that cultural learning has to take
place as an integral parts of language learning and vice versa (p.97).
As mentioned above, culture is an integral part of foreign language teaching.
Culture plays an important role towards the goal of "communicative competence"
for the school. In the process of foreign language teaching, incorporating cultural
elements into lessons is very important. Understanding these cultural factors help
learners acquire a foreign language and communicate in it effectively. The language
learning targets not only knowing what, that is knowing the contents contained in
these words, but more importantly, understand the deep meaning of the contents of
such information.


learners‟ interest and they can positively affect their motivation to learn
(Kusumarasdyati, 2004; Luo, 2004).
Luo (2004, p. 23) in his study examined the influence of DVD movies on
students‟ listening comprehension. The final results of the statistical analyses
indicated that student‟s listening skill “did improve” through the instruction of
using DVD movies in a motivating learning environment with “lower level of
anxiety” after a whole school year (Luo, 2004, p.43).
Herron and Seay (1991, p. 62) conducted research on using videos in
teaching listening comprehension for EFL students. The study has provided 8
evidence that the experimental group performed significantly better on the final
tests of listening comprehension with both the video and the audio than did the
control group in which no strategy training occurred.
As a culture educator, the teacher plays a vital role in choosing the
appropriate movies and preparing class activities after students have watched the
movies.
1.5. The use of cultural artifacts in teaching culture: Movies as cultural
artifacts
The use of aspects of popular culture in the classroom, in a variety of forms,
is one way to foster student understanding and long-term memory (Mc William,
2008, p.82). Popular culture artifacts can be used as teaching aids in a variety of
forms. As well as movies, other examples of popular culture used as teaching aids
are comics, cartoon, music, and television shows (Marshall, 2002, p.77). As an
example, clipping a relevant comic strip from the Sunday paper and using it at the
start of class is one way to get students‟ attention and move into a topic. Movie
clips can be used in this way, even if they represent the opposite of what is being
taught.
The notion of popular culture artifact usage is nothing new to educational

solutions to problems and for self-consistent systems of knowledge;
(3) the need for ego enhancement, for the self to be known and to be accepted and
approved by others.
In L2 acquisition, the types of motivation came from cognitive and social
psychology. In cognitive psychology, two types of motivation are instrumental and
integrative motivation (Gardner and Lambert, 1972). In social psychology, two
main types of motivation are intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Harmer, 1991).
The concept of motivation came from social psychology (Harmer, 1991) and
connected closely to students‟ effort, desire as well as their positive attitudes
towards learning. As stated by Gardner (1985, p.10), “motivation of L2 acquisition
refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the
language and favorable attitudes towards learning the language”. 10
In short, motivation is essential to success in learning in general and in
language learning in particular. In other words, success in learning is due to the fact
that learners are motivated.

1.7. Relationships between teaching culture and students' motivation
Many teachers sometimes hesitate to incorporate cultural studies in their
language syllabus because they are afraid of wasting time which can be allocated
for teaching grammar or other language skills, as stated by Brooks (1968, p. 206),
“Will special emphasis upon culture not be wasteful of precious class time and end
up giving the student less rather than more of what he is entitled to expect from his
language course?‟‟
Byram and Morgan (1994, p. 105) also noted that in most language courses
the greatest amount of time and energy is still devoted to the grammar and
vocabulary aspects of language.
Lafayette (1998, p. 19) mentioned that among the three major components of

considered learning motivation which cannot be seen, heard or felt and accordingly
it is difficult to be deeply understood due to the nature of the concept itself.
Lumsden (1994, p.38) believes that motivation is important in influencing a
person‟s success or failure in learning a foreign language. Obviously, unmotivated
students are insufficiently involved and therefore unable to develop their potential
L2 skills. As a result, motivation is one of the determining factors in the success of
foreign or second language learning.
Clearly, there is close relationship between teaching culture and students
motivation. Teachers have important duties that create the conditions in which
learning can take place. To sum up, communicative method will be an appropriate
attitude towards this objective. So, if using movies in the class can be one of the
best way to motivate the learners to study a foreign language.
1.8. Criteria to choose movies
An important factor when planning the movie lessons is choosing the movie.
It can be based on thematic content to reinforce and consolidate topics treated 12
within the language syllabus, such as discrimination, moral issues, mass media,
ecology, education, and work, or to illustrate language functions and grammatical
patterns in real use. Here are also other important points that need to be made sure
before using movies in foreign language teaching. These are, for instance, copyright
matters, the teaching environment in which to use movies and the proficiency level
of the learners.
Moreover, according to Stoller (1988, p. 66), also the length of the movie is a
useful thing to consider. It is important to choose movies that are long enough to
convey meaningful content, yet short enough to allow classroom time for pre-
viewing and post-viewing activities.
There are many kinds of movie available such as Thriller, Comedy, War
movies, Action movie, Romance, Documentary, Walt Disney movie, etc. Those are

The study is carried out with the survey among 40 English gifted students of
11th form. There are 10 questions for students from which I can find out the real
situation of their motivation in learning American culture through American
movies, their attitudes towards this issue, the factors that make the students find it
difficult when learning American culture through American movies All of English 14
gifted students in Lam Son school have been learning English for 5 or 6 years, but
only English gifted students of 11th form of this school are taught American culture
through American movie. Therefore, students doing the survey are very good at
grammar and doing exercises in writing and have enough knowledge of English to
answer the questions given.
2.2. Research methodology
2.2.1. Research questions
The study is seeking the answers to two questions below:
1. What are the students’ attitudes towards using American movies in EFL
classroom?
2. To what extent does the use of American movies in the lessons motivate students
to understand American culture?
2.2.2. Research design
The thesis was done as an action research in the researcher‟s class. In this
study, the researcher depicted the results she got from introducing the video “ Tom
and Jerry” to students in English lessons.
2.2.3. Participants
2.2.3.1. The subjects
The subjects involved in this study were 40 English gifted students of 11th
form coming from one at Lam Son Gifted High School. These students were young,
aged from 15-16, and were mostly female. There has always been an imbalanced
ratio between male and female students in all English major classes, and in these

topic questions, assessment, and management for the project.
2.3. Data collection instrument
2.3.1. Questionnaires
2.3.1.1. Questionnaire for the students
Basing on certain knowledge about the students‟ problems gained through
seven years of experience as a teacher of English at Lam Son gifted school, a survey
questionnaire was designed to identify the reasons why 11th form students have
little motivation to understand American culture. The questionnaire including 10
questions (see Appendix 1) and 40 copies of a questionnaire were given to 40
English 11th form students Lam Son Gifted High School who agreed to answer the
questionnaire. The questionnaire for students is in simple English so as to make sure
that there is no misunderstanding. Questions 1, 2, 3 aimed at finding out students‟