Abstract:

The interrelationship between language and culture is not a new debate, and the integration of culture teaching into language education has been discussed for decades. However, the integration of culture teaching into English language teaching (ELT) varies from one place to another. Therefore, this study was conducted to explore English language (EL) teachers’ beliefs about culture teaching in ELT and their classroom practices. It employed a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview to collect the data from thirty-eight EL teachers who were teaching English at a foreign language center in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. The results showed EL teachers had positive attitudes to the culture teaching and believed that culture teaching played an important role in ELT. Yet, a mismatch was found between EL teachers’ defining the objectives of culture teaching and their actual classroom practices. These preliminary findings are hoped to contribute to a better understanding the current practice of culture teaching in ELT so that implications should be made in order to enhance the quality of ELT in Vietnam in specific and in other similar contexts in general.

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