Intercultural Education

ISSN: 1467-5986 (Print) 1469-8439 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20

What teachers say about addressing culture in

their EFL teaching practices: the Vietnamese
context

Long Nguyen, Sharon Harvey & Lynn Grant

To cite this article: Long Nguyen, Sharon Harvey & Lynn Grant (2016) What teachers say
about addressing culture in their EFL teaching practices: the Vietnamese context, Intercultural
Education, 27:2, 165-178, DOI: 10.1080/14675986.2016.1144921

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2016.1144921

Published online: 20 Jun 2016.

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Intercultural Education, 2016
Vol. 27, No. 2, 165–178, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2016.1144921

What teachers say about addressing culture in their EFL teaching

practices: the Vietnamese context
Long Nguyena*, Sharon Harveyb and Lynn Grantb
a
Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ha Long University, Quang Ninh, Vietnam; bSchool of
Language and Culture, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

This paper examines Vietnamese EFL teachers’ beliefs about the role of culture
in language teaching. It also considers how they address culture in their teaching
practices in a Vietnamese university. Ethnographic data collected from semi-
structured interviews indicated that opportunities for culture to find its way into
EFL classroom activities were still limited. Priority was given to teaching lan-
guage knowledge and skills, while culture played a minor role only.
Keywords: EFL; intercultural competence (IC); language teaching; teacher
beliefs; Vietnam

Introduction
Internationally, foreign language teaching has shifted. The attainment of communica-
tive competence, once the last word in language teaching objectives and methodol-
ogy, is no longer seen as sufficient. This is because it negates, or at least side lines,
the core role culture plays in language competence and communication in intercul-
tural contexts (Byram 2009). Significantly, national curriculum documents of the last
decade, in a number of jurisdictions, have reflected this shift in their foreign lan-
guage specifications and guidelines for teachers, as well as, in some cases in their
professional development for language teachers (Government of Vietnam 2008;
Harvey et al. 2010; Liddicoat 2004; Ministry of Education 2007). According to
these documents and ICC theorists, the goal of language teaching should now be to
educate language learners to become competent in communicating with both native
and non-native speakers of the target language, as well as to be critically reflective
of their own culture (Byram 2009; Liddicoat and Scarino 2013).
In this paper, we consider intercultural competence (IC) development in Vietnam
and particularly in the context of university EFL teaching. We draw on interview
data from a larger ethnographic study (Nguyen 2013) to examine what EFL teachers
say they believe and do in respect of culture teaching. Teacher beliefs and reflections
are important in this context because they impact directly on teachers’ attitudes to
practice, professional development and students’ learning outcomes (Timperley et al.
2007; Wong 2013). While IC teaching in a Vietnamese university is a specific con-
text, we believe the case holds interest for all countries moving to integrate IC into
their language curricula, and teaching and learning practices at all levels of their
education systems. Moreover, Vietnam is an interesting case in its own right because

*Corresponding author. Email: nguyenthanhlong@daihochalong.edu.vn

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

166 L. Nguyen et al.

of the public pressure around English language teaching and learning and the need
to communicate interculturally in the course of integrating into global markets for
education, trade, tourism and diplomacy.

Literature review
Language and culture are inseparable. Culture is pervasively embedded in language
and language constitutes culture: culture is always in context, in general textual
structure, in text units, in organisations of text units, and in linguistic structures,
words, syntax and nonverbal behaviours (Crozet and Liddicoat 1999). Thus, teach-
ing language, by nature, involves teaching culture. Culture in language learning and
teaching needs to be addressed within a comprehensive, dynamic, reflective, critical
and interactional understanding of culture (Liddicoat and Scarino 2013). However,
culture has traditionally been treated as something separate from language in lan-
guage teaching practices. For many language teachers culture still plays a minor role
in their teaching (Byram and Risager 1999; East 2012; Harvey et al. 2010; Ho 2011;
Larzén-Östermark 2008; Luk 2012; Sercu 2005). This is reflected in teachers’
descriptions of how they address culture, such as in their’ culture teaching objec-
tives, the distribution of classroom time for teaching culture and teaching language,
and types of culture teaching activities as well as cultural topics.
In Denmark and England, Byram and Risager (1999) found that most language
teachers felt that addressing cultural goals was not as important as addressing lin-
guistic ones. Similarly, EFL teachers in Hong Kong reported a marginal role for cul-
ture in their teaching practices, and they focused instead on the development of their
students’ linguistic knowledge and skills (Luk 2012). For them culture was ‘a spe-
cial treat, a lesson sweetener, or an appetizer before the main course’ (Luk 2012,
256). Castro, Sercu, and Méndez García (2004) found that for Spanish EFL teachers
the most important culture teaching objective was to provide students with informa-
tion about daily life and routines, along with values and beliefs of the target culture
(s), and cultural experiences such as watching films and reading literature. These
teachers also aimed to help their students develop open attitudes and to promote
reflection on cultural differences (Castro, Sercu, and Méndez García 2004). How-
ever, they did not see the development of their students’ knowledge of their own
culture and intercultural skills as important objectives. The culture teaching objec-
tives of Finnish–Swedish EFL teachers participating in Larzén-Östermark’s (2008)
study focused on general background information about English-speaking countries,
preparation for future intercultural encounters with people from the target culture(s)
and cultural tolerance and empathy.
In terms of classroom time distribution, Castro, Sercu, and Méndez García
(2004) found that nearly all (32 out of 35) of the teachers participating in their study
reported that they spent only around 20% of the time addressing culture, while the
other 80% was spent on teaching language.
In many contexts, teachers seem to report fairly limited culture teaching activi-
ties. For example, for EFL teachers in Finland, the most popular type of culture
teaching activity was teachers’ transmission of factual information about the target
language culture(s) (Larzén-Östermark 2008). These teachers also reported on
activities such as telling students about their own intercultural experiences, particu-
larly in situations where they had experienced culture clashes. In the context of
New Zealand additional language education (i.e. the teaching of languages other
 Intercultural Education 167

than Māori and English, for example Chinese, French, Japanese, German, Samoan
and Spanish), teachers reported a wide range of culture teaching activities (Harvey
et al. 2011). Typical activities included retelling personal experiences, using authen-
tic realia and games, comparing and contrasting cultural issues, organising language
units around cultural topics and inviting native speakers to class. However, these
teachers tended to focus on the ‘four F’s’: cultural facts, festivities, food and fairs
(Harvey et al. 2011). That is, they tended to address culture as an artefact and as an
element separated from language (East 2012).
To summarise, studies of teacher beliefs about culture teaching show that in vari-
ous international language teaching contexts culture has not yet been given an
important role. Teachers devote less classroom time to teaching culture compared to
the amount of time they spend on language, and they define limited objectives for
the teaching of culture.

The study
This study was conducted in a Vietnamese university context. Among the various
foreign languages that are being taught and learned in Vietnam, English has become
the most popular, especially since the late 1990s. As a member of ASEAN (the
Association of South-East Asian Nations) since 1995, Vietnam has been using Eng-
lish in communicating with other member nations. Within ASEAN, English has
been mandated to become the lingua franca in communication (Kirkpatrick 2007).
Thus, English has a significant role in the Vietnamese education system because of
its role in economic development and foreign relations. Pursuant to this, Vietnamese
language education policy states that language teaching and learning should aim to
educate learners to be communicatively competent in multicultural and mulitilingual
educational and working environments (Government of Vietnam 2008).

Methodology
The data for this paper were drawn from a wider ethnographic study examining
Vietnamese EFL teachers’ integration of culture into their teaching (Nguyen 2013).
The study considered EFL teachers in the selected university to be a community of
practice and a cultural group sharing certain beliefs, behaviours and practices. An
ethnographic study is characterised by research with members of a cultural group
who are living and working in their usual daily setting. The researcher interacts with
them over an extended period of time and examines patterned beliefs as well as
behaviours and practices among the group (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007;
LeCompte and Schensul 1999; Madden 2010).
In this paper, we focus on Vietnamese EFL teachers’ reports of how they saw
the connection between language and culture as well as how they say they addressed
culture in their teaching practices. The study examined the question: what do Viet-
namese university EFL teachers say about addressing culture in their EFL teaching?
It aimed to socially construct knowledge (Berger and Luckmann 1966) about Viet-
namese university EFL teachers’ beliefs in teaching culture in their professional set-
ting. That is, the contextualised knowledge presented in this paper was constructed
through interactions with participants, giving priority to participants’ own perspec-
tives and voices (Burr 2003; Lock and Strong 2010).
168 L. Nguyen et al.

Field site and participants

The field site was a university in the north of Vietnam, where Long Nguyen (the
first author of this paper) recruited 15 EFL teachers to participate in interviews. Four
male teachers and 11 female teachers were recruited and gave their consent to partic-
ipate. Five of them were novice teachers (with less than 5 years of teaching) and 10
were experienced (with 5 or more years of teaching experience). We assigned each
participant a pseudonym, which was used in presenting the data.

Data collection
Semi-structured interviews (Gillham 2005) were conducted with each of the partici-
pants during October and November 2011. This form of flexible interviewing was
chosen because it can help the interviewer to reword questions, provide prompts,
adjust language, clarify points when necessary and answer questions, if any, from
participants (Berg 2009). Long Nguyen interviewed participants individually. The
interviews focused on, among other topics, how the participants conceptualised ‘cul-
ture’, how they addressed culture in their EFL teaching practices and how this
shaped their view of the teaching materials they were using. All 15 participants were
interviewed once, and 10 of them agreed to be interviewed a second time for a fol-
low-up of the ideas they had shared in the first interview. All 25 interviews were
conducted in places that individual participants selected and felt comfortable with
(e.g. a café, the guest room or an office of a school in the university and the partici-
pant’s house). They were recorded using a digital recorder and then interviews were
transcribed. Transcripts were brought back to each participant for member-checking.
In terms of length, each interview lasted, on average, 49 min, although the inter-
views ranged from 25 to 69 min.
Although these Vietnamese EFL teachers were proficient in English, Vietnamese
was used throughout the interviews to enable both the participants and the inter-
viewer (i.e. Long Nguyen) to feel more comfortable and confident in sharing ideas
and information. However, at different points in the interviews switches to English
by the participants and the interviewer did occur, and these instances were noted in
the transcripts. The excerpts quoted from these interviews appear in English (trans-
lated by Long Nguyen) in the text.

Data analysis
Thematic analysis was applied in analysing the data, following Boyatzis’s (1998)
stages and steps for inductive qualitative analysis. Consequently, our thematic analy-
sis underwent three stages. These were: (a) reading of interview transcripts, (b)
selection of data samples (with five steps: reducing raw data, identifying potential
themes within samples, comparing themes across samples, creating codes and deter-
mining consistency of judgments of codes), and (c) validation and application of the
codes (with three steps: coding the remaining raw data, comparing the differentiation
within the codes and interpreting results).
More specifically, for the thematic analysis (the first stage), participants’ teaching
experience, measured in number of years of being an EFL teacher in the research
site, was selected as the criterion for organising and analysing the data into ‘sam-
ples’. We chose the interviews of 3 novice teachers and three experienced ones from
 Intercultural Education 169

the 10 participants who were interviewed twice, to form 2 samples (Sample A and
Sample B). In order to reduce the raw material in the two samples, interviews were
summarised. Potential themes were then identified within each sample. These themes
were compared to each other so that larger themes could be identified. These larger
themes helped us to develop codes. In order to determine the validity of judgments
in the drafted codes, we applied them to another subsample (subsample C, with
interviews from two other of the 10 participants). We then discussed the clarity of
the codes and revised them by rewording, as well as adding further information to
express ‘differentiation’ in the code (see Figure 1). For the third stage, we coded the
rest of the raw data, using the revised codes.
A good code, according to Boyatzis, includes five elements: label (the name of
the code), definition of the theme, features to indicate the theme (i.e. indicators),
description of features that qualify or exclude materials in identifying the theme and
examples. Among these elements, we considered the first three (i.e. label, definition
and indicators) essential in formatting the codes that we were creating.

Findings
Thematic analysis of the interview data produced a number of key themes. They
included: teachers’ conceptualisations of culture in language teaching, the role of
teaching materials and teachers’ views about culture teaching. These themes have
been selected for presentation in this paper because they formed the patterned beliefs
of the participants in regard to the integration of culture into EFL teaching.

Teachers’ conceptualisations of culture in language teaching

Our participants seemed to have broad conceptualisations in mind when describing
culture. However, their reports on how important culture was to their language
teaching indicated that they gave culture a minor role in the classroom.

Code C1
- Label: Minor status of culture in language teaching
- Definition: The participant reported a minor status given to culture in their language
teaching.
- Indicators: Code this when the participant reported on one of the following: (i) a low
percentage of culture in language teaching (less than 30%), (ii) lack of attention paid to
cultural content in language teaching, (iii) failure to design explicit culture objectives in
lesson planning, (iv) culture teaching as additional to/ supportive of language teaching and
learning, (v) dependence of cultural teaching on content provided in the main teaching
materials. Put the corresponding number(s) (i.e. i, ii, iii, iv, and v) in brackets next to the
code, for example, C1 (ii, iv).
- Differentiation: participant VTA reported on (i, ii, iv, v); participants VTB and VTC
reported on (i, ii); participant VTF reported on (i, iv, v); participant VTI reported on (i, ii,
iii, iv); participant VTJ reported on (i, iii, v); participants VTD, VTE, VTK, and VTL
reported on (v); participant VTM reported on (i, ii, iii, iv, v); participant VTN reported on (i,
iii, iv); participant VTO reported on (i, v); participant VTG reported on (iii, v); participant
VTH reported the opposite idea (i.e. giving culture importance, including culture objectives
in lesson planning)

Figure 1. Example of a code.

170 L. Nguyen et al.

Teachers’ views about culture. All 15 participants, when describing how they con-
ceptualised the term culture, considered it to be a broad and multifaceted concept.
Eleven of the participants mentioned various aspects of human life intertwined with
culture. These included: material life (e.g. costumes, food and drink, buildings and
cultural objects), spiritual life (e.g. beliefs, values, norms, traditions, music and
dances), way of life, customs and habits, and the relationship between human beings
and their environment. For example, one participant said:
I think culture is a broad concept, denoting a shared basis of a group of people; it
includes not only material values but also spiritual values. […] Material can be the
possessions of a community. […] buildings …[…] It [spiritual aspect] includes the
beliefs of a community, or attitudes and viewpoints in evaluating an issue, i.e. how
they perceive an issue, seeing if it is right or wrong, rational or irrational. […] I think
that language is an important component [of culture] […] way of thinking, viewpoint,
and behaviour […] There are things that we can’t see such as values, beliefs, and cus-
toms. […] systems of taboos […] religion. (Interview 1 with Sen; English translation)

Teachers’ views about the status of culture in language teaching. Though language
and culture can never be separated (e.g. Crozet and Liddicoat 1999), in the inter-
views the participants were asked to describe the distribution between the attention
they paid to language (i.e. teaching grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and skills)
and to culture in their language teaching. Most of the participants reported that they
knew of the importance of culture in language teaching, for example, one participant
said:
The ideal distribution [between teaching language and teaching culture] is equal, in sta-
tus: 50 [% language] and 50 [% culture]. I mean they are completely linked together,
go parallel; we can’t separate them or put an emphasis on either. (Interview 2 with
Chanh; English translation)
However, when describing the actual language–culture distribution they made in
their EFL teaching practices, most of the participants reported a low percentage (e.g.
less than 30%) of culture teaching, mostly from 5 to 20%. The main reason shared
by the participants was their focus on language in their teaching practices, as
explained in the following quote.
The actual percentage of language in my classes is between 90% and 95%, and that of
culture is only from 5% to 10%. […] The main reason for this is that I focus more on
language content, presenting grammatical rules or expressions, and putting the students
in a certain cultural context. […] That’s the matter of time, and another thing is the
pressure of the language knowledge to transmit to the students. (Interview 2 with Cam;
English translation)
It was this focus on language that led to participants not usually designing explicit
cultural objectives in their lesson plans, except when the lesson contained a cultural
topic, as one participant noted:
It [the inclusion of culture objectives in lesson planning] depends on the content of the
lesson. If a lesson has a cultural topic, it is obvious that culture objectives must be
included in the overall objective of the lesson. But, if it does not have a cultural topic
or if it focuses on grammar or vocabulary, it is difficult to introduce culture objectives.
(Interview 1 with Chanh; English translation)
 Intercultural Education 171

Specifically, two of the participants stated that cultural objectives, for them, were
included within communicative or linguistic objectives. For example, one participant
said,
Normally, they are not culture objectives, but linguistic ones with a cultural compo-
nent. I mean when I am planning a lesson which has some content related to cultural
knowledge, I will make inquiry into that knowledge so that I can explain it to my stu-
dents. (Interview 2 with Cam; English translation)

Teachers’ reports on their teaching materials

According to participants, their teaching, and particularly culture teaching, seemed
to depend heavily on set teaching materials (mostly published English textbooks).
They held different views about the adequacy of the cultural content in their set
materials.

Teachers’ reports on dependence on set teaching materials. All the participants

reported dependence on set teaching materials in the sense that their classroom
teaching activities were based on the content and instructions provided in the materi-
als they used. There were two types of set teaching materials. The first type was a
commercially available English teaching textbook (or, a series of textbooks) that
teachers selected for use. Textbooks varied but included, among others: Inside Out
by S. Kay, V. Johns, and P. Kerr, New Headway by L. Soars and J. Soars, English
Know How by A. Blackwell and T. Naber. The second type was a set of teaching
materials that teachers compiled from existing English teaching textbooks. For
example, they compiled teaching materials from English teaching textbooks (e.g.
those listed above) and books for preparation of IELTS and TOEFL tests for the
teaching and practice of language skills. These textbooks or the compiled sets were
agreed on and used by all the EFL teachers in a school or college to teach the same
course. For example, Cam, when asked about her teaching materials in the first
interview, said that she only used a single textbook (i.e. Inside Out). One participant
reported that teachers in his school had decided to change to a new series of text-
books in the following academic year. Another participant said that a common topic
for discussion in the meetings of EFL teachers in his school concerned the selection
and use of textbooks.
Specifically, teachers tended to teach from textbooks, with assigned workloads
normally in terms of units in the textbook to be covered in a semester. For example,
Ba reported that he had to cover from Unit 1 to Unit 7 (i.e. 7 units) from English
Know How (which includes 14 units) in Semester 1, and to cover the remaining
7 units in the second semester. The tendency to teach from textbooks or sets of
teaching materials was evident in most participants’ reports, though the workloads
might differ from school to school within the university.

Teachers’ views on the cultural content in their teaching materials. Participants held
a range of views on the cultural content presented in their set teaching materials.
More than half of them seemed to be satisfied with the cultural content as it was
provided. They said that the materials were adequate to teach English to their stu-
dents, and thus it was not necessary for them to supplement the materials with fur-
ther culture input. They explained that though their teaching materials provided
172 L. Nguyen et al.

satisfactory cultural content, culture teaching was dependent on individual teachers.

That is, each teacher would decide on which cultural issues or points (presented in
the materials) to address in the class. For example, talking about the integration of
culture into language teaching practices, one participant said:
The integration of culture is not rigid for teachers. I think that during the teaching pro-
cess, when teachers feel that it is suitable to integrate culture, they integrate it. [. . .]
Teachers can integrate it to a greater or lesser extent depending on specific situations.
(Interview 1 with Liên; English translation)
Other participants stated that they were not satisfied with the cultural content as it
was presented in their teaching materials. According to them, such content was inad-
equate and they needed and did provide their students with supplementary culture
input and/or activities that addressed culture. For example, Cúc said that the cultural
content in the textbook she was assigned to teach English from was unsatisfactory
in terms of cultural content and particularly the presentation of such content. For
her, the textbook did not provide opportunities for her students to select appropriate
language units (e.g. words and expressions) to use in specific sociocultural contexts,
nor did it enable them to compare cultures. She therefore said that she often
designed activities to provide her students with such opportunities as a form of sup-
plementary culture teaching.
For those participants who were dissatisfied with the cultural content in their set
teaching materials, their own accumulated cultural knowledge, as well as internet
websites, were the main sources of culture input for their students. Liên reported that
when providing further culture input she usually told her students what she knew or
found from internet websites. Cam described the Internet as a useful tool to search
for cultural information she needed in her teaching. She exemplified this way of
gathering culture input by explaining how she found out information about differ-
ences in greetings in languages and currencies in the world, the topics covered in
her first lessons to teach in the first semester.
It should be noted that when participants discussed culture input, they mainly
talked about cultural information and the transmission of cultural knowledge, partic-
ularly cultural facts, to their students. This might reflect their static view of culture
and teaching culture (Larzén-Östermark 2008; Liddicoat 2002; Liddicoat and
Scarino 2013).

Teachers’ beliefs about culture teaching

On the whole, participants did not seem to be aware that teaching culture was
important. Instead they believed that their most important role was to address lan-
guage learning. Moreover, on the occasions when they did teach culture they
described a focus on cultural knowledge as opposed to skills and attitudes. They
also discussed numerous obstacles they met in their culture teaching.

Teachers’ views on their role in teaching culture. In order to address IC develop-

ment, the foreign language teacher needs to integrate the teaching of language and
culture (Byram 2009). However, the participants in this study did not state that they,
as EFL teachers, needed to do this. Four participants even explicitly denied the role
of teaching culture or saw it as someone else’s responsibility. For example, when
talking about the teaching of culture, Ban said that because she and other EFL
 Intercultural Education 173

teachers were not teachers of culture, they mostly did not see the point in teaching
it. Nine other participants did not explicitly deny the role of teaching culture, but
granted it a minor status, for example, in terms of the time they devoted to it.
Two remaining participants, Chanh and Cúc, stated that they were aware of the
importance of integrating culture into their EFL teaching and made attempts to do
so. However, one participant (Chanh) reported that she established for herself a dis-
tribution of 70% of time and attention to language, and only 30% to culture due to a
number of obstacles (as identified below). One reason Chanh tried to integrate cul-
ture into her EFL teaching was that when she was a language learner culture was
not integrated much and she saw this as a weakness of her English programme. The
other participant (Cúc) stated that she made various efforts in integrating culture into
her EFL teaching, and that one reason for her efforts was that she was herself inter-
ested in culture. These two participants taught culture because of their own interests
and experience as language learners rather than because of information they had
received in pre- or in-service training.
Participants also reported that the teacher professional development programmes
they had attended (mainly in the form of one-off workshops) only focused on lan-
guage issues, i.e. teaching and assessing linguistic knowledge and language skills.
They said that these programmes did not help them to develop their cultural knowl-
edge or other components of IC; nor did they include training on teaching culture in
the EFL class. Furthermore, when asking participants about new ideas and innova-
tions in language teaching (e.g. intercultural language teaching approaches) interna-
tionally, we found that participants were not familiar with such ideas.

Focusing on cultural knowledge when addressing culture. Most of the participants

reported that when addressing culture they mainly focused on developing their stu-
dents’ cultural knowledge as opposed to intercultural communication. The ideas they
shared were concerned with culture-specific knowledge, cross-cultural knowledge,
culture-general knowledge and language–culture links (Paige et al. 2003).
Culture-specific knowledge seemed to be a priority in culture teaching activities
for 14 participants on the few occasions when they described these activities. This
area of knowledge, according to them, consisted of knowledge about cultural ele-
ments (e.g. customs, traditions, language and speech, behaviour and cultural prac-
tices) of the students’ own culture and the cultures of the target language, as well as
other cultures. However, foreign cultures were normally limited to those of English-
speaking countries and did not include those using English as a lingua franca, as
expressed in the following quote.
As I mentioned before, it [the inclusion of other cultures] depends on particular situa-
tions. For example, in a lesson that mentions some typical Western and Eastern coun-
tries, such as India and China, I take a chance to talk about culture; I mean it depends
on the lesson content. But actually, cultural knowledge is very broad; we can’t be
ambitious to integrate all this. We can only include big countries or English-speaking
countries, and our neighbouring ones; we can’t get too far. […] When we teach Eng-
lish, we just mention the cultures of the countries in which English is the official lan-
guage. (Interview 1 with Ban; English translation)
The most common types of culture teaching activities included: transmitting cultural
facts or knowledge, explaining cultural practices and behaviours, organising individ-
ual or group work for the students to discuss a cultural point or behaviour, eliciting
174 L. Nguyen et al.

from students knowledge about cultures and assigning homework for students to
seek factual information about a cultural point.
Most of the participants stated that they also aimed to develop their students’
cross-cultural knowledge. For example, Hồng reported that her culture teaching was
typically focused on making comparisons of cultures and cultural practices and to
discuss cultural issues with her students. For her, all these were aimed at helping her
students to see cultural differences.
In terms of culture-general knowledge (i.e. terms such as beliefs, values, norms,
practices, acculturation, ethnocentrism and culture clash), most participants said that
they did not often introduce this area of knowledge and gave various reasons for not
doing so. The most common reason for them was that such knowledge was marginal
in their teaching objectives. Furthermore, they thought it was difficult for their stu-
dents to understand. Thus, culture-general knowledge was seldom addressed in their
EFL classrooms.
All the participants reported that they addressed language–culture links when
they were introducing vocabulary items or teaching language skills. Most partici-
pants believed this would help their students to become aware of cultural differences
in language, and therefore promote a higher degree of culturally appropriate target
language use.
For example, in English there is a fixed preposition in the expression ‘in the garden’,
but in Vietnamese, we say ‘ngoài vườn’ [literally, ‘out the garden’], ‘trên vườn’ [liter-
ally, ‘up the garden’] or ‘trong vườn’ [literally, ‘in the garden’] or ‘dưới vườn’ [liter-
ally, ‘down the garden’]. I often provide such examples for illustration. (Interview 1
with Hai; English translation)
Hai is referring to the Vietnamese use of prepositions to describe the positional rela-
tionship between two entities (e.g. a boy and a garden). This depends on the position
of the speaker rather than on the position of the boy compared to the garden (as in
English). That is, when the boy, for example, is in the garden (hence in English
‘The boy is in the garden’) and the speaker is in a place that is out of the garden
and higher than the garden, a Vietnamese would say ‘Cậu bé ở dưới vườn’ (literally,
‘The boy is under the garden’). In other words, Hai wanted to raise his students’
awareness of differences comparing the use of prepositions in English and
Vietnamese.

Teachers’ reports on the main obstacles in culture teaching. Explaining why culture
was integrated to a limited extent in their EFL teaching practices, Vietnamese EFL
teachers mentioned various reasons, most noticeably: students’ low level of language
proficiency, the demands of university examinations, time constraints versus heavy
workload of language to be covered and teachers’ perceptions of their own limited
cultural knowledge.
Students’ low level of target language proficiency was named by seven partici-
pants as a primary reason for the limited integration of culture into EFL teaching
practices. Therefore, priority in class was given to language teaching, specifically
linguistic knowledge and language skills.
For example, when teaching reading, writing, listening or speaking, because the stu-
dents’ level is rather low, especially during years 1 and 2, they still make errors in
grammar and word use, I need to focus on language, and then a little bit on styles, and
on structures. (Interview 2 with Huệ; English translation)
 Intercultural Education 175

Another issue that hindered the participants’ integration of culture was the need to
develop their students’ language knowledge to meet the demands of university
examinations. Five participants stressed the importance of examinations as an obsta-
cle in their culture teaching. According to them, the significance of the final exami-
nation, which was decided on by the management of each school and the university,
had an effect on how the teachers taught and how students learned. They reported
that the examinations students had been taking traditionally focused on linguistic
knowledge, and contained almost no cultural content. One teacher said:
The knowledge content in the end-of-semester examination is based on the [material
in] the teaching materials; for example, if the students have learned seven units in the
textbook [English] KnowHow, the content of the examination will cover what has been
introduced in these seven units, can’t get beyond it. (Interview 1 with Ba; English
translation)
Nine participants said that because they had heavy workloads focusing on language
within a restricted semester timetable, they were not able to integrate as much cul-
tural content as they wished. For example, Hai explained:
If we add more culture learning activities or [cultural] knowledge, students’ learning
process will be slowed down, because it will take more time, and we can’t finish the
content we have to teach. (Interview 2 with Hai; English translation)
Finally, four participants explicitly stated that their own limited cultural knowledge
of other cultures was one issue for them in teaching culture. Therefore, these EFL
teachers would need further support in developing their cultural knowledge, as well
as intercultural skills, in order to comprehensively integrate culture into their teach-
ing practices.

Discussion and conclusion

Teacher beliefs and conceptualisations about culture teaching are key to what teach-
ers teach, how they teach in the classroom (Larzén-Östermark 2008), what materials
they use and how they present these, as well as how teachers approach their own
professional development. Until teacher knowledge and beliefs in the field of ICC
are well developed, new language education policies (Government of Vietnam
2008) and curriculum documents (Liddicoat 2004; Ministry of Education 2007) will
not have much effect on what and how learners learn language. From our analysis
of the interview data it is clear that participants saw culture as an element separate
from language and they did not give culture its due status in their EFL teaching.
Similar to the findings in Castro, Sercu and Méndez García’s (2004) and Sercu’s
(2005) studies, and despite sensing the importance of culture in the language class-
room, our participants said that they paid little pedagogical attention to it or taught it
in a restricted way. For example, they said that their culture teaching was limited
mainly to the introduction of culture-specific knowledge, especially in terms of cul-
tural products and practices, and the comparison of cultural practices. As a follow
on from this, participants reported engaging in a limited range of culture teaching
activities. They said that they taught culture mainly by telling their students about
aspects of cultural knowledge, making comparisons of cultural practices and, some-
times, asking students to make comparisons. Other aspects of IC such as intercul-
tural skills, attitudes, and, especially, critical (inter)cultural awareness (Byram 1997,
2009) seemed to be more or less neglected. Interestingly, the Vietnamese university
176 L. Nguyen et al.

teachers’ range of culture teaching activities was relatively more limited than those
reported in Larzén-Östermark’s (2008) and Harvey et al.’s (2011) studies, even
though those teachers reported little explicit understanding of the concepts
associated with ICC.
Furthermore, the content and form of examinations, which focused on linguistic
knowledge skills heavily contributed to the language focus. Thus, when examina-
tions mainly assessed students’ linguistic knowledge, they became an obstacle for
teachers as well as students in addressing culture in a more systematic and compre-
hensive way.
Finally, participants’ belief that culture only has a supporting role in the teaching
and learning of a language had an impact on how they approached their culture
teaching activities. Participants stated that they addressed culture mainly to support
their students’ acquisition and future use of the target language rather than aiming
for the development of IC. This finding was in line with Luk’s (2012) study about
Hong Kong EFL teachers, who treated culture as an additional rather than a core
element in language teaching.
In summary, the present study, with information from semi-structured interviews
with EFL teachers of a Vietnamese university, highlighted several issues. Firstly,
these participants described giving a minor supporting role to culture in their own
EFL teaching practices. Secondly, their reported classroom teaching practices
depended heavily on and were mostly limited to the content provided in the materi-
als. Thirdly, these teachers did not report understanding the integrated role (i.e.
teaching both language and culture) of the language teacher. A few actually denied
that culture needed to be taught in the language classroom. Another finding was that
when they did address culture participants focused mainly on developing their stu-
dents’ culture-specific knowledge about English-speaking cultures rather than on
cultures the students were more likely to communicate with (e.g. cultures in the
Southeast Asian region and others in Asia using English as a lingua franca). Finally,
the reported obstacles in participants’ culture teaching included, among others: stu-
dents’ low level of target language proficiency (hence a focus on language), the
need to address linguistic knowledge to meet the demands of examinations, time
constraints and the heavy workload set for them to cover, as well as teachers’ per-
ceptions of their own limited knowledge of other cultures. Furthermore, teachers sta-
ted that they did not receive sufficient support, particularly in teacher professional
development programmes, in terms of the improvement of their cultural knowledge
and their competence in teaching and assessing IC.
This paper has presented socially constructed and contextualised knowledge
about Vietnamese EFL teachers’ beliefs about teaching language and culture. The
findings are in line with studies about language and culture teaching in other coun-
tries where culture is not yet treated as a core element in the language classroom.
The study has highlighted the heavy reliance teachers seem to have on set teaching
materials. In addition, teachers reported that little was communicated to them about
changes in government language education policy and innovations in language and
culture teaching internationally, particularly intercultural education, even in teacher
professional development programmes. Consequently, teachers’ awareness of culture
teaching, methods for teaching culture in an integrated way with language, as well
as culture teaching resources need to be urgently addressed so that culture can
become a core and integrated element in language teaching to promote the develop-
ment of language learners’ IC.
 Intercultural Education 177

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Long Nguyen (Nguyễn Thành Long), PhD, has been working as an EFL teacher and an EFL
teacher educator and trainer in Vietnam for around 20 years. He now works at Ha Long
University, Vietnam. His research interests and academic activities include intercultural lan-
guage teaching, language education policy and teacher professional development.

Associate Professor Sharon Harvey is the head of the School of Language and Culture and
deputy dean (Research) of the Faculty of Culture and Society at AUT University, Auckland,
New Zealand. Her research and supervisory interests cover critical language and migrant
studies, discourse analysis, language learning and teaching, curriculum studies, language pol-
icy and planning, intercultural communication and competency and language teacher devel-
opment. Sharon also has a strong research interest in the fields of research policy, knowledge
and national science

Lynn Grant is a senior lecturer at AUT, New Zealand. She has been teaching English for
more than 30 years. Her research interests include corpus linguistics, spoken academic Eng-
lish and figurative language.

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