Integrating American Cultural Studies Into
Teaching English To The Grade 11 Students At
Tran Phu Gifted High School: An Initial
Investigation
Trần Thị Tuyết Mai Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English teaching methodology; Mã số: 60 14 10
Người hướng dẫn: M.A. Vũ Thị Thu Thuỷ
Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract. Since the new series of English textbook were put into practice throughout
the country, a great number of researches have been carried out to investigate its
effectiveness and its implementation. Most of the attention was paid to the teaching and
learning of the four macro skills, but there has been little research on how the aspect of
culture in general and American Cultural studies in particular was treated in the actual
classroom under innovation goals. Therefore, this thesis was carried out to explore the
reality of teaching and learning of American cultural studies in the classroom at Tran
Phu Gifted high school. In order to achieve the aim, three instruments were employed:
survey questionnaires, class observation and interview. The data revealed that both the
teachers and the students have positive attitudes towards American Cultural studies
teaching and learning and that not many of the teachers have integrated American
Cultural studies in teaching English, which is so much supported by the students. The
study also pointed out some difficulties that the teachers and the students encounter in
teaching and learning American Cultural studies in the classroom. The paper concludes
with several recommendations by the researchers for more effective integration of

the teaching and learning of culture in general and America studies in particular in the classroom
is obviously limited. It is necessary to carry out more research on how teachers and students
teach and learn culture in the actual classroom.
Besides, national examinations (national examinations for GCSE, university entrance
examinations) have currently included some questions related to American cultural studies issues
(for example: how to address certain situations, etc.)
On the other hand, there are various cultures that English language is getting connected
with. Among those, the United States has a leading economic, political and cultural force in the
world. Moreover, the United States is also the ideal destination for overseas students, which has
resulted from its top-ranking education system. Thus, learning about the culture of the United
States appears to be a wise choice.
Moreover, after two years of teaching English with the new English textbooks at Tran
Phu Gifted High School, the researcher observed that the teachers and learners there faced a
number of difficulties in teaching and learning American cultural studies in the classroom.
According to Bada (2000: 101), “the need for cultural literacy in ELT arises mainly from
the fact that most language learners, not exposed to cultural elements of the society in question,
seem to encounter significant hardship in communicating meaning to native speakers.” In
addition, nowadays the L2 culture is presented as an interdisciplinary core in many L2 curricula
designs and textbooks (Sysoyev & Donelson, 2002).
Stimulated by the above reasons, the researcher has decided to conduct this study. It is
hoped that this study will discover the reality of teaching and learning American cultural studies
at Tran Phu Gifted high school in order to contribute some immediate solutions.
2. Aims of the study
The aim of this study is to examine the current teaching and learning of American cultural
studies in the high school classroom at Tran Phu Gifted High School.
In order to achieve the aim, the study seeks to find out:
(1) The teachers’ and students’ perceptions on the importance of American cultural studies
teaching and learning
(2) How the teachers and the students deal with American cultural studies in the classroom
(3) The teachers’ perceived difficulties in teaching and learning American cultural studies in

- interviews with the teachers to get in-depth information about the teachers’ and the grade 11
students’ suggestions to improve the teaching and learning of American cultural studies in the
classroom.
7. Design of the study
The study is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
The Introduction presents an overview of the study including the rationale, aims, scope,
significance, methodology and design of the study.
The major part of the study, the Development, is divided into three chapters. Chapter one
provides theoretical background for the study. Chapter two presents the methodology of the
study and the last chapter is devoted to analyzing and discussing the findings of the study.
The Conclusion part provides a brief summary of the findings in correspondence with
the four proposed research questions as well as offering some recommendations for better
American cultural studies teaching and learning. The limitations of and suggestions for further
study are also discussed in this chapter.
Besides, the survey questionnaires for the teachers and students and the suggested lesson
plan are included in the Appendices.

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