Integrating Culture in Foreign Language Teaching: Case of Teaching Vietnamese for Foreigners in Vietnam

Abstract

Cultural integration in foreign language teaching is one of the ways to help learners develop language competence. In foreign language teaching, there have been many successful models of cultural integration. Vietnamese is also a foreign language of interest in some countries. In Vietnam, a cultural integration model in teaching Vietnamese to foreigners has been initially implemented with good results. The program was based on a number of culturally integrated teaching models to help foreigners learn Vietnamese effectively, including such elements as cultural experience (learning to sing folk songs and taking part in plays), and using literary texts (songs, proverbs). The purpose of this article is to report on a study of the effectiveness of this cultural integration program teaching Vietnamese to overseas students at the Thai Nguyen University of Education. The study involved scrutiny of documents, curricula and teaching methods, along with a survey of international students’ perceptions of three particular aspects of the program focused on cultural integration. The study also sought to gauge whether the Vietnamese language ability of the international student learners had been improved by engagement in the new program in comparison with student performance from the previous year. While such improvement was evident, the study offers suggestions for further improvement of the program.

Received: 29 April 2022 / Accepted: 30 June 2022 / Published: 5 July 2022