Towards the integration of culture into teaching english in upper secondary schools: Teachers’ concerns and expectations

Hue University Journal of Science: Social Sciences and Humanities
ISSN 2588–1213
Vol. 127, No. 6B, 2018, Tr. 121–134, DOI: 10.26459/hueuni-jssh.v127i6B.4879
* Corresponding: cthhoa@tvu.edu.vn 
Submitted: 17–07–2018; Revised: 17–11–2018; Accepted: 21–11–2018. 
TOWARDS THE INTEGRATION OF CULTURE INTO 
TEACHING ENGLISH IN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS: 
TEACHERS’ CONCERNS AND EXPECTATIONS 
Chau Thi Hoang Hoa 
University of Foreign Languages, Hue University, 57 Nguyen Khoa Chiem St., Hue, Vietnam 
Abstract. As a part of educational reform in upper secondary education, intercultural competence has 
been identified as a goal of foreign language teaching to enable the Vietnamese young people to work and 
study in globalized environment. In fact, culture has been incorporated in the expected English teaching 
curriculum for general education. Prior the change of curriculum at national scale, this study aimed to 
explore teachers’ perceptions of integrating intercultural competence into teaching English at upper sec-
ondary level. The quantitative and qualitative data collected from 101 teachers of English in a province of 
the Mekong Delta, indicated that they took the four aspects into considerations, namely learners’ learning 
strategies and motivations, teachers’ intercultural instructions, course books and curriculum, and man-
agement aspects. For better practice of intercultural integration, the teachers had high expectation for 
pedagogical training to enhance their intercultural competence and intercultural integrating pedagogies. 
From the findings, some pedagogical implications were made to foster the feasibility of intercultural inte-
gration in teaching English in upper secondary level. 
Keywords. educational reform, intercultural competence, intercultural integration, teachers’ perceptions, 
upper secondary education 
1. Introduction 
Culture is defined and classified differently in the literature. From the view of social psychol-
ogy, Hofstede (1984) defines, "[c]ulture is the collective programming of the mind which distin-
guishes the members of one category of people from another" (p. 51). Viewing culture statically, 
Brooks (1997) conceptualizes culture as the literature or civilization of a country and culture, so 
culture comprises “big C”culture and “small c”culture or visible and invisible culture. In a dy-
namic and socially interactive manner, Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino, and Koh-
ler (2003)consider culture in relation to the process of socialization and language as a means of 
culture transmission. In fact, Liddicoat (2002) approves the mutual connection between lan-
guage and culture because “culture shapes what we say, when we say it, and how we say it” 
(p.5). For this intricate relationship, culture is an integral part of language teaching. 
When culture is viewed dynamically, building (inter)cultural competence must be an ac-
tive process of social engagement. In fact, cultural competence is defined as language-culture 
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122 
ability acquires within native societies and intercultural competence (IC) denotes a set of abili-
ties facilitating effective and appropriate cross-cultural communication (Fantini, Arias-Galicia 
and Guay, 2001). Together with communicative competence (CC), language learners need to 
develop IC to perform effective and appropriate interaction with people of different linguistic 
and cultural backgrounds and this complex competence is coined in the term of intercultural 
communicative competence (ICC) (Fantini, 2006). In this view, Fantini et al. (2001), Liddicoat 
(2002), and Liddicoat et al. (2003) propose that culture should be included in language lesson to 
facilitate learners’ communication. However, Krashen (1988) argue that language classroom is 
not a good place to acquire either language or culture. Guest (2002) and Baker (2015) claim that 
the inclusion of overt cultural facts and ignorance of dynamic feature of culture in foreign lan-
guage classrooms are likely the roots of stereotyping and even racism due to simplification, 
over-generalization, misconception, and exaggeration of the differences. As discussed, scholars 
have different views of intercultural integration, but in light of dynamic culture, culture should 
be integrated as an integral part of language lessons with specific cultural input and intercul-
tural language activities to build learners’ ICC. 
In response to this trend, teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in upper secondary 
education has aimed to enable learners to communicate with people of different linguistic and 
cultural backgrounds. As a matter of fact, one of the objectives of the new curriculum for teach-
ing EFL was to enable the students to communicate independently and confidently in multilin-
gual and multicultural environment (MOET, 2012). To achieve this goal, a variety of cultural 
input from foreign and home cultures was added in the pilot course book series of Tieng Anh 
10, 11, and 12 (Hoanget al., 2014). In an evaluation of intercultural input in an English pilot 
course book (Tieng Anh 10, Volume 1), Lai (2016) proved the proportion of home, target and 
international culture was 51%, 31% and 18% respectively. 
Prior the change in EFL teaching curriculum, it was important to study teachers’ concerns 
and expectations in terms of integrating intercultural contents into their teaching, which are 
specified in two research questions: 
1. What were the English teachers in upper secondary schools concerned about the integra-
tion of culture into their teaching? 
2. What were their expectations for the better practice of integrating culture into their teach-
ing? 
In this study, teachers’ concerns and expectations meant what the teachers perceived as the 
constraints of and suggestions for the intercultural integration into EFL teaching on the basis of 
their professional contexts. 
The fact that teachers faced many constraints in integrating culture in language teaching 
have been proven. The two striking constraints were the limitation of curriculum and teachers’ 
instruction (Lázár, 2007; Zhou, 2011; Nilmanee&Soontornwipast, 2014; andKarabinar&Guler, 
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123 
2015). Regarding to curricular factors, course objectives, time distribution, and teaching materi-
als were noticeable and typical for top-down educational system. The other limitation was 
teachers’ intercultural instruction, which was specified as teachers’ intercultural integrating 
pedagogy, intercultural knowledge, and intercultural experience (Lázár, 2007; Ho, 2011; Zhou, 
2011; Nguyen, 2013; and Nilmanee&Soontornwipast, 2014). Besides, learner aspects, namely the 
lack of motivation and low language proficiency to take part in intercultural language activities 
to develop ICC should also be considered (Lázár, 2007; Ho, 2011; Zhou, 2011; and Nguyen, 
2013). 
As shown in the previous studies, common hindrances to intercultural integration are re-
lated to teachers’ instructions, learners’ learning, and curriculum. Curriculum is a broad aspect; 
it is necessary to specify what it means in this research. Course objectives, content, teachers’ 
instructions, and evaluation are often considered as curricular elements (Hassan, 2013). How-
ever, to shift the focus on teachers’ instructions and the roles of the course books, it is necessary 
to recategorize the four curricular aspects as (1) teachers’ instructions which relate teachers’ IC 
and intercultural teaching pedagogies, (2) curriculum and course books which specify the lan-
guage and culture content and how to exploit it, (3) management aspects which cover educa-
tional and social factors, namely testing, time distribution, class size, language and culture envi-
ronment, and so forth. Lastly but importantly, teachers’ perceptions of the negative effects of 
intercultural integration as Krashen (1988), Guest (2002), and Baker (2015) suggested should be 
considered especially at the early time of intercultural incorporation. 
2. Methodology 
Considering the methods applied in the previous studies and accessibility of data re-
sources, this research used a Likert 5-point-scale questionnaire of 23 items with two open-ended 
questions. Of them, 15 items addressing five areas of teachers’ concerns were classified as (1) 
curriculum and course books, (2) teachers’ instructions, (3) learners’ learning, (4) management 
aspects, and (5) negative influence of intercultural integration.The last 8 items described teach-
ers’ expectations in terms of (1) curriculum and course books, (2) teachers’ instructions, and (3) 
management aspects. Two open-ended questions explored more insightful information about 
the concerns and expectations of the teachers to back up and modify quantitative data from the 
questionnaire. 
3. Data collection and analysis 
The questionnaire was piloted by 52 teachers in the Mekong Delta with positive reliability 
for teachers’ concerns and expectations (⍺= .772 and .816 respectively). The final questionnaire 
was delivered to 190 upper secondary English teachers in TraVinh, a rural province of the Me-
Chau Thi Hoang Hoa Vol. 127, No. 6B, 2018
124 
kong Delta, via emails and got qualified responses from 101 teachers.A reliability analysis was 
applied with positive results for both sections (⍺ = .739 and .783). For quantitative data analysis, 
simple statistics for reliability, frequency, percentages, mean score of each item, and average 
mean score of each cluster were applied with the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences 
(SPSS) version 20. 
Open-ended responses were analysed deductively and inductively. Screened data were 
put into the predetermined categories which were relevant to clusters in the questionnaire. New 
categories were added for out-of-category responses. Any of teachers’ ideas which restated 
items in the questionnaire were marked as redundant and reported optionally to clarify or com-
plement quantitative data. One time each response was coded, it made an entry. Entries of the 
same category or sub-category was accumulated for frequency (Freq.). Examples of qualitative 
data coding for the teachers’ concerns are presented in Table 1. 
Table 1. Examples of coding data for teachers’ concerns from the open-ended question 
Evidence/responses Categorized Sub-categorized Coding Evaluated 
T46. The (intercultural) content in 
the course books is not diversified. 
Students’ level of language profi-
ciency is low. 
Course books 
Learners’ 
learning 
Lack of intercul-
tural contents 
Low language 
proficiency 
1 CiC 
1 LLP 
Redundant 
Redundant 
T50. The cultural content in the 
course book was rare. 
Course books Lack of intercul-
tural contents 
2 CiC 
Redundant 
T23. I don’t know to choose what 
cultures to teach. (Vietnam or for-
eign cultures) 
Teachers’ 
instructions 
Teachers’ IC 
teaching peda-
gogy 
1 PiC Pre-
determined 
categorized 
T4. Conventional attitudes of par-
ents in favour for language learn-
ing for testing will discourage the 
implementation of intercultural 
integration. 
Disregard 
from social 
members 
 1 SDs New cate-
gory 
Total: 4 responses 5 entries 
4. Findings 
This part presents the findings regarding teachers’ concerns and expectations in intercul-
tural integration into teaching English in upper secondary schools based on their responses to 
the questionnaire with open-ended questions. 
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125 
5. Teachers’ Concerns 
Quantitative data from teachers’ questionnaire confirmed that teachers were concerned 
about learners’ learning, curriculum and course books, management aspects, and teachers’ in-
structions (M = 3.67; M = 3.63; M = 3.43; and M = 3.10 respectively), and they did not take the 
negative influence of intercultural integration into account (M = 2.35) (see Table 2). 
Table 2. Means of teachers’ concerns about intercultural integration 
Teachers’ concerns 
S
tro
n
g
ly
D
isa
g
ree
D
isa
g
ree
N
eu
tra
l 
A
g
ree
S
tro
n
g
ly
A
g
ree
M
e
an
Learners’ learning 3.67 
C7. Students’ language proficiency is not 
good enough to participate in intercul-
tural language activities. 
1 
1.0% 
8 
7.9% 
11 
10.9% 
64 
63.4% 
17 
16.8% 
3.87 
C8. Students lack motivation to 
participate in intercultural language 
activities because they have to focus on 
their language learning. 
5 
5.0% 
19 
18.8% 
10 
9.9% 
58 
57.4% 
9 
8.9% 
3.46 
Curriculum and course books 3.63 
C1. Cultural contents in English course 
books are not rich enough. 
2 
2.0% 
13 
12.9% 
14 
13.9% 
61 
60.4% 
11 
10.9% 
3.66 
C2. Course book activities are designed 
to practice language skills. 
1 
1.0% 
8 
7.9% 
10 
9.9% 
78 
77.2% 
4 
4.0% 
3.76 
C3. Course book activities do not focus 
on building students’ ICC. 
3 
3.0% 
13 
12.9% 
23 
22.8% 
57 
56.4% 
5 
5.0% 
3.48 
Management aspects 3.43 
C9. Students lack intercultural resources 
and environment to practise 
intercultural skills. 
1 
1.0% 
3 
3.0% 
2 
2.0% 
60 
59.4% 
35 
34.7% 
4.24 
C10. Integrating culture into teaching 
English requires more teaching time. 
2 
2.0% 
20 
19.8% 
7 
6.9% 
64 
63.4% 
8 
7.9% 
3.55 
C11. Integrating culture into teaching 
English doesn’t contribute to test scores. 
6 
5.9% 
52 
51.5% 
16 
15.8% 
23 
22.8% 
4 
4.0% 
2.74 
C15. ICC testing can hardly be done. 4 
4.0% 
17 
16.8% 
31 
30.7% 
48 
47.5% 
1 
1.0% 
3.24 
Teachers’ instructions 3.10 
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126 
C4. Teachers are not confident with their 
intercultural knowledge and experience. 
3 
3.0% 
25 
24.8% 
24 
23.8% 
44 
43.6% 
5 
5.0% 
3.23 
C5. Teachers are not confident with their 
teaching method in integrating culture 
into teaching English. 
3 
3.0% 
26 
25.7% 
27 
26.7% 
41 
40.6% 
4 
4.0% 
3.17 
C6. Teachers do not accept the new 
workload in their teaching. 
7 
6.9% 
41 
40.6% 
12 
11.9% 
39 
38.6% 
2 
2.0% 
2.88 
Negative influence of intercultural integration 2.35 
C12. Intercultural teaching hinders 
students’ linguistic accuracy like 
grammar and pronunciation. 
6 
5.9% 
55 
54.5% 
20 
19.8% 
19 
18.8% 
1 
1.0% 
2.54 
C13. Intercultural teaching causes bias, 
stereotypes, ethnocentrism, or 
xenocentrism. 
7 
6.9% 
59 
58.4% 
21 
20.8% 
14 
13.9% 
 2.42 
C14. Intercultural teaching contributes to 
the student’s loss of cultural identity. 
14 
13.9% 
73 
72.3% 
5 
5.0% 
8 
7.9% 
1 
1.0% 
2.10 
As presented above, of the four aspects, learner’s learning and curriculum were of teach-
ers’ considerable concerns. In terms of learner constraints, the teachers thought that learners’ 
low level of language proficiency would hinder teachers from intercultural teaching (M C7 = 
3.87). Also, learners were not willing to participate in intercultural language activities because 
they had to focus on their language learning (M C8 = 3.46). Second to learner aspect, curriculum 
aspect received great consideration from teachers (M = 3.63). Indeed, teachers were concerned 
about the lack of intercultural contents (M C1 = 3.66) and intercultural activities (M C2 = 3.76) or 
kinds of activities building students’ ICC (M C3 = 3.48). 
The third consideration, addressing issue of management, obtained a positive mean score 
(M = 3.43). For testing, with a rather low mean score on the non-impact of intercultural integra-
tion on language testing (M C11 = 2.74), 57.4 % of teachers did not believe in its negative effects 
on students’ test scores. Besides, teachers had rather neutral attitude to the feasibility of IC test-
ing (M C15 = 3.24). Regarding the two other management factors, intercultural environment and 
class size, the teachers thought that the former was a bigger issue (M C9 = 4.24) than the latter 
(M C15 = 3.24). 
As the last aspect, teachers did not find themselves had many difficulties with intercul-
tural teaching (M = 3.10). Interestingly, the teachers were not likely to deny their responsibility 
of intercultural integration (M C6 = 2.88). They had rather ambivalent attitudes of self-assessing 
their own IC (M C4 = 3.23) and intercultural teaching pedagogies (M C5 = 3.17). 
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For the qualitative data, seven of teachers’ responses are selected and categorized for 
analysis as in Table 3. 
Table 3. Summary of teachers’ concerns in terms of intercultural integration 
Category Sub-categories Freq. Examples teachers’ responses 
Curriculum 
and course 
books 
Supplementary 
materials 
2 
“I am not provided with any materials related to 
intercultural integration, so how can I add culture to 
my lessons.” 
“Intercultural contents in the course books are not 
rich and I don’t have any access to any materials for 
culture integration.” 
Teachers’ 
instructions 
Teachers’ 
pedagogy 
1 
“I don’t know for sure what aspects of culture and 
whose culture should be added into my English 
lessons.” 
Learners’ 
learning 
Students’ lan-
guage 
1 
“Mixed-ability class is a big problem.” 
Students’ IC 1 
“Most of intercultural contents are unfamiliar to my 
students, so they are not motivated to learn.” 
Students’ 
learning 
1 
“My students are not used to self-studying and ex-
ploring cultures.” 
Others 
Parents’ expec-
tations 
1 
“Parents may oppose to intercultural integration 
because they believe it is time-consuming and use-
less to students’ language learning and testing.” 
From the responses, it could be said that teachers had difficulties with intercultural teach-
ing materials, intercultural instructions, learners’ and parents’ expectations. First, for the cur-
riculum and course books, they claimed that they did not have access to materials that sup-
ported intercultural integration. Secondly, in terms of pedagogy, one teacher could not define 
the cultural input to incorporate in EFL lessons. Thirdly, of learner constraints, some teachers 
raised the issue of mixed-ability class, students’ unfamiliarity to foreign cultures and poor self-
study habits. Finally, teachers were worried about parents’ disapproval to intercultural integra-
tion because they did not think it contributed to testing scores and language learning. 
6. Teachers’ Expectations 
Mean scores of teachers’ expectations of curriculum, teachers’ instructions, and 
management aspects are presented in Table 4. Teachers had high expectations regarding to 
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128 
improve their own instructions, curriculum and course books, and management aspects (M = 
4.08, 3.90, and 3.88 respectively). 
Table 4.Means of teachers’ expectations for intercultural integration 
Items 
Strongly 
Disagree 
Disagree Neutral Agree 
Strongly 
Agree 
Mean 
Teachers’ instructions 4.08 
E3. Teachers should be trained to 
develop their IC. 
2 
2% 
8 
7.9% 
65 
64.4% 
26 
25.7% 
4.12 
E4. Teachers should be trained to 
develop their intercultural 
integrating skills. 
3 
3% 
5 
3% 
5 
3% 
61 
60.4% 
27 
26.7% 
4.03 
E5. Teachers should be helped to 
explore intercultural teaching 
materials. 
3 
3% 
4 
4% 
3 
3% 
62 
61.4% 
29 
28.7% 
4.09 
Curriculum and course books 3.90 
E1. More intercultural activities 
should be introduced in the 
course books. 
2 
2% 
3 
3% 
7 
6.9% 
71 
70.3% 
18 
17.8% 
3.99 
E2. Intercultural activities should 
be integrated with language skill 
activities. 
1 
1% 
11 
10.9% 
77 
76.2% 
12 
11.9% 
3.99 
E6. Intercultural objectives 
should be officially recognized. 
6 
5.9% 
24 
23.