LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

TEACHING ENGLISH

PERSPECTIVES, METHODS,
AND CHALLENGES

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LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

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 LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS

TEACHING ENGLISH

PERSPECTIVES, METHODS,
AND CHALLENGES

ASTRIDA SKRINDA
EDITOR
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Title: Teaching English: Perspectives, Methods, and Challenges.

Description: New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., [2019] | Series:
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 CONTENTS

Preface vii
Chapter 1 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning
Approach to Teaching Listening on Listening
Comprehension Ability and Metacognitive
Strategy Use 1
Lu-Fang Lin
Chapter 2 Early Childhood Education in English?
Not in the Present Conditions … 47
Krzysztof Polok
Chapter 3 Exploring the Impact of Study Level
and Specialization Area on What English Studies
Majors in Poland Think about Their Target
Language Cultural Education 77
Tatiana Szczygłowska
Chapter 4 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy
to Educational Contexts: Mindful Teaching
and Learning in English as a Second
Language Classrooms 119
Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen
vi Contents

About the Editor 153

About the Contributors 155
Index 157
Related Nova Publications 165
 PREFACE

Original peer-reviewed contributions from recognized and established

scholars and practitioners offer a variety of perspectives on teaching
English as a second or foreign language and an expanded focus on teaching
in international contexts. The authors challenge several current practices
from multiple viewpoints and offer innovations that are thoughtful and
engaging.
Definitely, we must build on our past and present knowledge of what
works to refine and improve existing language teaching practices and, it is
hoped, develop other practices that will be even better and more
encompassing. Thus, Chapter 1 reports the launch of a newly designed
problem-based learning program in which metacognitive strategy
instruction was integrated into an English listening curriculum. It combines
the Problem-Based Learning Approach from education and the
Metacognitive Approach from second language listening research. Overall,
Chapter 1 is an attempt to combine an approach from education with one
central to current listening research. The author does a good job at the end
to try to disentangle the effects of the two treatments. However, ultimately,
the Problem-Based Learning Approach might need to be tested directly
against the Metacognitive Approach, rather than combining both and
testing them against conventional teaching, but that’s not the article the
author wrote.
viii Astrida Skrinda

This is an exciting time to be teaching English as a second or foreign

language. In many countries, children are starting to learn English at an
ever-younger age. It is clear that there is more need than ever for teachers
who can deal with English in the workplace. The ever-growing use of
English as a lingua franca and the proliferation of varieties of English
require careful linguistic description and appropriate pedagogies. Chapter 2
provides a meta-analysis of the situation currently observed in many
English as a foreign language classes given to Polish and Slovak preschool
learners, among others. The paper covers not only an analysis of a number
of currently observed approaches, but also presents research-based
propositions. In the latter part of Chapter 2, a handful of problem-grounded
outcomes are suggested. Beyond doubt, Chapter 2 will be of interest to
those theoreticians and practitioners who engage with and/or are interested
in the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language in early years
settings.
Finding ways to integrate all that we now know is the challenge for
current and future language teachers and for the profession at large. We
cannot be satisfied with the in-progress state of affairs, but must seek out
new ways to provide learners with the most effective and efficient
language learning experiences possible, taking into account the learners’
goals, interests, and learning contexts. Chapter 3 concerns the attitudes of
Polish English-language majors to their target language cultural learning.
But how does it deal with the challenges of teaching English as a second
and foreign language specifically? If British culture is still the most
popular, or at least considered the standard bearer of the target culture,
what does this mean in the context of English as a lingua franca? No doubt,
English operates as a lingua franca in many corners of the world, and that
this may have repercussions for our default conception of language and
culture. Many would believe that the notion of culture learning when it
comes to English could be problematized. Though Chapter 3 leaves us with
many questions unanswered, it sheds the light on the teaching of cultural
elements in language teaching, particularly in a European context.
But the answer to many questions can be mindful teaching. Chapter 4
offers a unique perspective on language instruction, particularly for
 Preface ix

audiences unfamiliar with Buddhist philosophy. Basically, it describes a

teaching approach based on Buddhist philosophy, which would probably
be very effective for someone familiar and/or interested in that particular
school of thought. Alternatively, it would open readers’ mind to a
completely different approach to language instruction, which may or may
not work outside of its current context, but at least it has very a very clear
philosophical foundation and very clear set of procedures that are worth
examining further.
The intended audience are all those who are interested in teaching
English as a second or foreign language, including researchers,
methodologists, curriculum and materials designers, teachers, and
undergraduate and graduate students.
In: Teaching English ISBN: 978-1-53616-168-7
Editor: Astrida Skrinda © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 1

THE EFFECT OF A PROBLEM-BASED

LEARNING APPROACH TO
TEACHING LISTENING ON
LISTENING COMPREHENSION ABILITY AND
METACOGNITIVE STRATEGY USE

Lu-Fang Lin
Institute of Applied English, National Taiwan Ocean University
Keelung, Taiwan, R. O. C.

ABSTRACT

Listening is an important second language (L2) learning skill.

Students who have good listening comprehension ability usually in turn
understand oral information better and likely enhance their L2 oral
communication skills. This chapter reports on a study that applied
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) to teaching English listening for an
English class at the tertiary level. Earlier listening research provides

Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].

2 Lu-Fang Lin

evidence to support that metacognition is significantly related to listening

proficiency. This chapter reports the launch of a newly designed PBL
program in which metacognitive strategy instruction was integrated into
an English listening curriculum. The purposes of this study were to
investigate the effects of the PBL program integrated with metacognitive
strategy instruction on English learners’ listening comprehension and to
explore the learners’ application of metacognitive strategies. It included
two instructional treatments: one class was instructed with a PBL
instructional technique (PBL group), whereas the other learned with the
teacher-led teaching technique (non-PBL group). In the PBL group, the
participants were divided into small groups and worked together to solve
the target problem. In the non-PBL group, the instructor employed a play-
replay instructional technique, and the participants listened to the
materials repeatedly. The instruments included listening comprehension
pre- and post-tests, the listening follow-up test and the “Metacognitive
Awareness Listening Questionnaire”. The findings showed that
participants who received the PBL instruction performed better on the
follow-up listening test. The findings also showed that the PBL
participants used problem-solving strategies more than the non-PBL
participants and that the PBL participants exhibited stronger confidence
and lower anxiety while listening than their counterparts. After a period
of treatment, the two groups produced different employment patterns of
metacognitive strategies.

Keywords: listening comprehension, metacognitive strategies, pedagogy,

problem-based learning, second language teaching and learning

INTRODUCTION

Listening comprehension has become an important focus of research in

the field of second language (L2) teaching and learning. To improve L2
learners’ listening comprehension, researchers and language educators
have gradually claimed the importance of strategic instruction, in
particular, metacognitive strategy instruction.
Listening tasks mainly stimulate an individual’s input comprehension.
Metacognition, as indicated by Pressley [1], could adequately help learners
to regulate their input comprehension. Several researchers assume that
metacognitive awareness, in general, plays an essential role in learning
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 3

performance [2, 3] and particularly has positive influences on L2 learners’

listening development [4, 5, 6, 7]. In an ongoing dynamic comprehension
process, a listener may go through a series of cognitive processes, such as
perceiving, decoding, analyzing, synthesizing, and eventually utilizing the
messages. Listeners will presumably activate their potential metacognition
to smoothly navigate these cognitive processes. It is important to educate
learners to monitor what they are listening to and what they have
understood when teaching L2 listening.
Research on L2 listening has given rise to the importance of
metacognition and metacognitive strategy instruction in language programs
and courses. Vandergrift and Goh [8] advise that more research is needed
to investigate the role of metacognitive instruction in listening performance
pertaining to different L2 learning contexts.
A number of considerations have contributed to the present interest in
fostering English learners’ metacognitive awareness in English listening
courses in Taiwan, where English is learned as a subject at school. The
first consideration is the increasingly indispensable role of autonomous
learning in university education. Most educators may agree that education
should aim at helping the students to think, act, and learn autonomously
throughout their schooling and their lives. Some empirical studies have
found that autonomous learners are generally successful language learners
[9]. The cultivation of learner autonomy is coupled with the enhancement
of metacognitive strategy use. Metacognitive strategies generally refer to
planning for learning and thinking about the learning process as it is taking
place. Moreover, metacognitive strategies also refer to monitoring one’s
production or comprehension and evaluating learning after a learning
activity is completed. In this way, the learners instructed with
metacognitive strategies can be motivated to learn English autonomously.
The second consideration is the emphasis on learner-centered
pedagogy in the curricula. In the constructivist classroom, the focal point
tends to switch from the teacher to the students. Some language educators
advocate English instruction aiming at a learner-centered curriculum in
which the learners are assigned to take on greater responsibility for the
instruction process and for constructing their knowledge base, whereas the
4 Lu-Fang Lin

teacher acts as a facilitator who helps learners to achieve the target

language knowledge and skills [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16].
The third consideration is the impossibility of teaching learners all
linguistic knowledge, such as grammatical rules and vocabulary in class.
The Internet environment allows access to an endless world. There are so
many online resources for English as a second language (ESL) learners. It
is not efficient for the learner to merely follow the teacher’s directions and
explanations to learn English. The teacher offers learners general rules and
guides them to learn. If the learners are capable of being conscious of how
they learn, then they can likely identify the most effective ways of learning
and also automatically manage their own learning.
With these considerations, the study presented in this chapter
employed a learner-centered approach, the Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
Approach, to design an L2 listening curriculum. The purposes of this study
were to investigate the effects of the PBL program integrated with
metacognitive strategy instruction on English learners’ listening
comprehension and to explore the learners’ application of metacognitive
strategies.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The Definition of Listening Comprehension

Listening has long been known as one of the essential skills in

language learning; moreover, facilitating listening comprehension plays an
essential role in L2 teaching and learning [17, 18, 19, 20]. Wilson [7]
suggested that teachers provide learners with opportunities to actively
discover the nature and process of listening comprehension. In this way,
there is a need to understand what listening comprehension is. Definitions
of listening comprehension are briefly summarized as follows.
Several definitions of listening comprehension have been proposed. As
O’Malley, Chamot, and Kupper [21] claimed, “listening comprehension is
an active process in which individuals focus on selected aspects of aural
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 5

input, construct meaning from passages, and relate what they hear
to existing knowledge.” 1 Fischer and Farris [22] referred to listening
comprehension as a cognitive process whereby learners actively construct
a mental representation of an aural text based on their prior knowledge.
Moreover, Rost [23] defined listening as “the internal process of trying to
make sense of input, usually input that has an oral component.”2 Listening
comprehension can be referred to as aural input receivers’ perceiving,
attending to, decoding and further assigning meaning to aural input.
Listening comprehension is a complex process and has been researched
from various perspectives, such as psychology, linguistics, psycho-
linguistics, pragmatics, and education [23]. The present study focuses on
evaluating instructional effects on L2 listeners. When listening to an L2
text, listeners may draw on the following processes to comprehend aural
input:

1. their perceptions of the auditory information;

2. the selection of specific pieces of information;
3. determining and assigning the meanings of selected information.

Metacognitive Strategy Instruction Fostering L2 Listening

The Definitions of Metacognition

Metacognition is a term used in cognitive psychology, described as
cognition about cognition, or knowing about knowing. This higher level
cognition was given the label metacognition by Flavell [24]. Metacognition
can be defined as “[o]ne’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive
processes and products or anything related to them.”3

1
Michael J. O’Malley, Anna U. Chamo, and Lisa Kupper, “Listening Comprehension Strategies
in Second Language Acquisition,” Applied Linguistics 10 (1989): 418.
2
Michael Rost, Teaching and Researching Listening. 3rd edition. (New York: Routledge, 2016),
292.
3
John Flavell, “Metacognitive Aspects of Problem Solving,” in The Nature of Intelligence, ed.
Lauren B. Resnick (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1976), 232.
6 Lu-Fang Lin

The term metacognition was further elaborated to include both

knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. This means that
learners knows about their own cognition and take action to control their
learning. To develop metacognition, knowledge of cognition can be
divided into declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge [25, 26,
27]. Declarative knowledge refers to knowing about things, procedural
knowledge refers to knowing how to do things, and conditional knowledge
refers to knowing the why and when aspects of cognition [28].
In the context of L2 listening, metacognition is closely linked to the
demand on listener awareness. Conducting a study on L2 listening
development, Goh [29] regarded metacognition as the listener’s awareness
of the cognitive processes involved in comprehension and the capacity to
oversee, regulate, and direct these processes. Based on Flavell’s [24]
conception of metacognition, Vandergrift and Goh [8] used the broader
term “metacognitive awareness” to refer to these representations of one’s
consciousness of personal thoughts and their conscious actions.
Vandergrift and Goh [8] assumed that “[m]etacognition involves planning
(e.g., anticipating), monitoring (e.g., checking the accuracy of
anticipation), problem solving (e.g., repairing inaccurate comprehension),
and evaluating (e.g., verifying overall comprehension, ideas, and
performance).”4 Moreover, they suggested that such metacognitive
awareness seemed like the executive center of an individual’s
metacognitive knowledge.

The Role of Metacognition in L2 Learning

Some researchers indicate that metacognition has great impacts on
learning performance [2, 3]. A number of studies have reported significant
improvement in learning when metacognitive skills were included as part
of classroom instruction [30, 31, 32].
Since the 1990s, the notion of metacognition has been applied to the
field of teaching English as a second/foreign language (TESL/TEFL).
Wenden [33] indicated that metacognitive knowledge was an important
component of L2 programs. Following Flavell’s [24] framework, L2
learners’ metacognition is investigated by examining their personal
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 7

knowledge, task knowledge, and strategy knowledge. To clearly depict the

scope of metacognition, Wenden [34] further identified the distinction
between metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategies and
defined metacognitive knowledge as knowledge learners acquire about
their learning. Zhang [35] has adopted this definition and investigated the
effects of learners’ metacognition or metacognitive knowledge on L2
learning. There is evidence to support that learners’ metacognition can
directly affect the process and the outcomes of their L2 learning [34, 35].
Previous L2 research also shows that it is positively linked to
motivation and self-efficacy [5, 6, 36]. Some studies have provided
evidence to support that metacognitive awareness is helpful for improving
engagement and self-regulated learning. For instance, by using a teaching
technique that combines text-focused and metacognitive awareness-raising
activities, Vandergrift [5] found that the learners enhanced their
metacognitive knowledge and fostered engagement in class. Furthermore,
examining the relationship between listening strategies and the motivation
orientation, Vandergrift [6] indicated that the more extrinsically motivated
the adolescent listeners, the greater the tendency to report listening
strategies. The results of Zhang and Goh’s [36] study showed that the
learners who had high levels of metacognitive awareness, i.e. the ability to
be aware of how the learners themselves think, could activate a self-
regulating style of learning.
In the field of L2 listening, the instructor may raise learners’
metacognitive awareness by guiding the learners to monitor their mental
processes during the listening process. Several studies have verified the
positive effect of metacognitive awareness on L2 listening [37, 38, 39, 40,
41]. Moreover, some researchers have assumed that L2 listeners with
different levels of language proficiency may have different abilities to
perform metacognitive awareness. Some empirical studies show that less
successful language learners do not have the metacognitive knowledge
necessary to select appropriate strategies [42], whereas more skilled
listeners have mastered the art of applying metacognitive strategies [5, 43].
According to the results of metacognitive instruction research, L2 listening
8 Lu-Fang Lin

researchers have suggested that training in metacognitive awareness leads

to improvements in listening comprehension [4, 5, 8, 40, 44].
From the reviewed literature, it appears that learners’ metacognitive
awareness facilitates effective language learning in all learning contexts.
Here it is proposed that learners who have developed their metacognitive
awareness are likely to become proficient L2 listeners. However, currently
few L2 courses have focused on the development of learners’
metacognitive awareness [45]. This chapter advocates metacognitive
awareness training.

Metacognitive Strategy Instruction

Strategic instruction may improve language learners’ abilities to utilize
strategies effectively and to complete tasks successfully. The value of
listening strategy training has been widely recognized by many researchers
[5, 29, 32, 46, 47]. There are a variety of language learning strategies
instructed to improve ESL/EFL learners’ listening comprehension ability.
As shown in earlier research, metacognitive strategies have been
considered as the most important components in developing learners’
language skills and enhancing language learning. In addition, the results of
previously reviewed L2 listening research also show that metacognitive
strategies are effective in facilitating L2 listening. This chapter focuses on
metacognitively oriented strategic instruction.
Researchers have undertaken strategy instruction and have suggested
that it should follow a model to ensure connectivity. Some researchers
have proposed different models for metacognitive instruction [44, 48, 49].
This chapter adopted Vandergrift’s metacognitive pedagogical sequence
(MPS) model [8] and embedded it in a L2 listening curriculum. Detailed
information of the MPS instructional procedure is explained in the
following section on the instruments adopted in this study.
Recently, L2 teachers and researchers have become aware of learner-
centered approaches. Learners are encouraged to manage their learning,
practice language through self-directed, small-group interaction and make
every effort to use the language in the real world. In keeping with a
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 9

learner-centered trend of pedagogy and the essential conceptions of the

earlier reviewed literature, PBL is applied to teaching an L2 in this study.

PBL and L2 Learning

PBL is a teaching technique which originated in the field of medical

education in Canada. In the 1960s, educators at McMaster University in
Canada designed a medical curriculum to teach critical thinking skills and
reasoning to students [50, 51, 52]. At present, PBL can be considered as an
education approach in which teaching activities feature hands-on activities
of problem solving. It has been widely used in many different educational
settings across a wide range of subjects [53]. In particular, it has been
applied in the context of teaching English as an L2. The positive effects of
PBL on learning have been documented but there is still a need to conduct
empirical studies to verify its instructional effectiveness in the field of an
L2. This chapter is an attempt to examine its instructional effectiveness
through empirical experiments.
The present study implemented a PBL program based on a
constructivist approach. PBL programs can be designed according to
various theoretical backgrounds. For the past few years, I have executed
PBL pedagogy from the view of social constructivism. From my personal
English teaching experience, I think that the goal of learning a language is
to communicate with others in society. I place an emphasis on the
development of L2 learners’ communicative competence.
When I manipulated a PBL program, I adopted Savery and Duffy’s
PBL Instructional Model. Almost twenty-five years ago, Savery and Duffy
[54] proposed a constructivist framework for a PBL Instructional Model. I
expanded their constructivist claims and started to design PBL curricula
and manipulate them in Taiwan where English is learned as a foreign
language (FL). I would like to take one study in 2015 as an example. Lin
[14] assumed that a learner’s understanding is gradually constructed
through active engagement with problems assigned in the PBL curriculum,
and hence learners may experience the construction process of undergoing
10 Lu-Fang Lin

individual interpretation of what they perceive and actively construct

knowledge in their long-term memory. Following Savery and Duffy’s [54]
claims, I also emphasized the learners’ social interaction in the PBL
program and claimed that students should learn an L2 in a supportive
environment, such as the peers’ interaction and social communication. Lin
[14] argued that:

Social negotiation of meaning is the core of the knowledge

construction process. The effectiveness of L2 learning can be maximized
when learners are actively engaged in social interaction, such as
teamwork, group discussion, and interpersonal communication.4

In the following section, I provide two perspectives to reinforce why

PBL is an optimal teaching technique for helping language educators to
teach an L2.
First, the learner experiences a series of cognitive processes [16]. PBL
likely expands the learner’s knowledge network and increases the chances
of strengthening the connection between newly gained and originally
stored knowledge in their minds. Based on the cognitive perspective, the
greater the network of knowledge and multiplicity of linkages between
stored information, the more likely stored information is retrieved and
utilized [53]. In the case of PBL classrooms, learners are generally
required to produce and present solutions to the problem. Such production
processes probably activate the learners to generate a connection between
newly acquired knowledge and previously stored knowledge in their minds
[14, 15, 16]. In PBL, the learners can have multiple forms of access to their
stored knowledge, retrieve it, and utilize it.
Second, learning activities in a web-based course can be referred to
social interactive learning situations [16]. In PBL, a problem is usually
designed to be embedded in relevant, contextualized situations. PBL can
provide a sufficiently contextualized discourse to engage language learners
in identifying the true meanings of the target language and, also, in truly

4
Lu-Fang Lin, “The Impact of Problem-Based Learning on Chinese-Speaking Elementary
School Students’ English Vocabulary Learning and Use,” System 55 (2015): 32.
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 11

experiencing L2 language use in authentic contexts [15]. In most previous

PBL studies, problems are embedded in sufficient authentic texts and real-
world situations. These situations, in this way, provide learners with
opportunities to practice the information they have acquired. During the
repeated processes of identifying solutions to various problems, students
may become experienced at utilizing their knowledge in relevant situations.
It can be noted that the problems proposed in PBL do not simply involve
deciphering the exact verbal information in the textbook or detecting
correct answers to pass a quiz or test. The problems can be regarded as
situational contexts. The task of problem solving is assumed to help the
learner to utilize acquired knowledge in different situations.
Over the past five decades, various research results have been
documented in the field of PBL studies. The PBL research on learning
outcomes dated after 2000 was briefly reviewed. The findings of PBL
indicate high-quality outcomes in student learning, such as improving
students’ knowledge retention and application [55, 56, 57], increasing the
students’ academic achievements [58, 59], promoting higher order thinking
ability [60], developing a strong problem-solving ability [61], and dwelling
on content understanding and learning [62]. Moreover, some researchers
have found that PBL effectively fosters conceptual acquisition [63] and
also increases the transferability of skills and knowledge learned from the
classroom to the workplace [64].
From the reviewed literature, PBL can be regarded as a powerful
approach for teachers to solve pedagogical problems [65, 66]. PBL has
expanded implementation to other academic fields and has been verified as
an instructional approach (see the reviewed literature [63]; [67]; [68];
[69]). As far as I am aware, this approach has not been widely utilized in
fostering English learners’ listening comprehension ability or exploring its
impact on metacognitive strategy use. To sum up, this study fully supports
the call for applying PBL to teaching an L2 and therefore integrating PBL
into an English curriculum conducted in the EFL context.
As indicated in Lin’s [15] study, there is still a need to conduct
empirical studies to comprehensively examine the impacts of PBL on
English learning in Asia. Among the limited reviewed literature, some
12 Lu-Fang Lin

studies have employed PBL to examine its instructional effectiveness in

the ESL/EFL context [10–12, 14–16, 70]. More recently, a group of
researchers in Malaysia used an action research approach conducting a
qualitative analysis to explore English language practitioners’ perceptions
of five components contained in their newly designed PBL model [71].
Furthermore, the panel in the 26th International Conference on Computers
in Education reported five separate PBL studies as a result of PBL practice
in the classroom [72], indicating the essential role of PBL in combining
computers and technology to foster L2 learning. Based on the reviewed
literature, the theoretical background, the PBL curriculum, teaching
framework have been introduced in Lin’s [14–16, 70] aforementioned
studies. These studies explored L2 learners’ perspectives on PBL
environments and examined the effects of PBL on vocabulary acquisition,
reading comprehension, willingness to communicate, and the learners’
active English learning attitudes. However, due to the lack of literature
focusing on the application of PBL to facilitating English learners’
listening comprehension ability and metacognitive strategy use, this
chapter combined PBL and the “Metacognitive Pedagogical Sequence
(MPS) Model” to design an English listening course.
Given the essential role of metacognitive awareness in L2 listening, the
present study focused on eliciting and developing L2 listeners’ usage of
metacognitive strategies through an English PBL listening curriculum. The
purposes of this study were, first, to evaluate the impact of PBL on the L2
learners’ listening performance and, second, to explore the L2 learners’
application of metacognitive strategies.
For the purposes of this study, the following questions were addressed:

1. Does the PBL treatment significantly improve the participants’

listening comprehension ability?
2. Does the PBL treatment significantly improve the participants’
application of metacognitive strategies?
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 13

METHODS

Participants

For this study, I recruited participants from two English classes in

Taiwan using random sampling. One class was randomly assigned to be
the experimental group receiving the PBL treatment, and the other was the
control group receiving no PBL instruction. In total, there were sixty-nine
participants. An English listening comprehension (LC) pre-test was
administered to evaluate both groups of participants’ English listening
ability.
Regarding the condition assignment, I did not randomly assign sixty-
nine participants one-by-one into the two conditions, but rather assigned
one in-tact class to each. The two classes likely differed from each other in
their English listening proficiency. The LC pre-test score was used as a
covariate to control for any pre-existing differences in the participants’
listening proficiency before the treatments.
The English courses in the university were elective courses at the
intermediate level and were offered for undergraduate students (i.e.
sophomores, juniors, and seniors). All participants were over twenty years
old, and their mother language was Mandarin. They were learning English
as a foreign language.

Instruments

English Listening Comprehension (LC) Pre- and Post-Tests

The English listening comprehension (LC) pre- and post-tests were the
listening sections of a TOEIC (Test of English for International
Communication) sample test. The university set up an online learning
program, providing sample TOEIC tests. TOEIC is an English language
proficiency test for people whose native language is not English. TOEIC
test scores indicate how well people could communicate in English with
others in the global workplace [73]. The duration of the LC pre- and post-
14 Lu-Fang Lin

tests was two months. When the pre-test was completed, the answers were
not announced. There was no bias in the participants’ memorization of the
pre-test question items.
The LC pre- and post-tests were composed of three parts containing a
total of seventy multiple-choice questions. The examinees listened to a
variety of statements, questions, and a short dialogue in English and then
answered the questions according to the content. One correct answer was
evaluated as one point. The maximum score for this section was therefore
seventy points. Each participant’s raw scores of the two tests were
converted into percentages and presented as mean scores. The Cronbach’s
alpha values for the pre- and post-tests were .84 and .83, respectively. The
LC pre-test was used to examine whether there was any significant
difference between the two interventions in English listening proficiency
before the treatment, while the LC post-test examined the difference after
the treatment.

English Listening Follow-Up Test

The follow-up test included two sections, examining the participants’
actual listening performance of listening to individual sentences and one
English passage. The testing question items were directly adopted from the
research materials. The test was conducted immediately after the
instruction of the assigned research materials was completed. The
individual sentence dictation (ISD) section required the examinees to copy
down individual sentences they heard. There were five sentences and forty
words in total. One correct word was evaluated as one point. The
maximum score for this section was forty points. The raw scores of the two
sections were converted into percentages. The blank-filling (BF) section
required the examinee to complete the missing words and phrases of an
extract. There were twelve blanks and sixty-five words in total. One
correct word was evaluated as one point. The maximum score for this
section was therefore sixty-five points. The raw scores of the two sections
were converted into percentages. The percentage scores of ISD and BF
were totaled as the participants’ total score of the follow-up test. The
reliability of the follow-up test was satisfactory at α = .86.
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 15

The two groups of participants completed the LC pre- and post-tests

and the follow-up listening tests in the same classroom. The questions were
broadcast via an audio speaker. The participants listened to the questions
and the sentences, filled out the answers, and copied down the sentences on
the printed answer sheet. Before taking the tests, the participants were
informed that the score would not be used to evaluate their course
performance. There was no bias in the participants’ memorization in the
pre-test.

The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ)

This questionnaire was used to measure the extent to which the
participants were aware of and could regulate the process of their listening
comprehension. Vandergrift and Goh [8] suggested that the questionnaire
be used “to help learners appraise their own listening, [and to] identify
their level of metacognitive awareness and strategy use.”5 The MALQ was
used as a tool to evaluate the listeners’ use of metacognitive strategies. The
questionnaire consisted of five dimensions and twenty-one items in total. It
was tested with a large sample of respondents in different countries as a
consciousness-raising tool to raise students’ awareness of the process of
listening and to foster their self-regulation in using comprehension
strategies [44]. Each item was designed with a 6-point Likert scale ranging
from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” The MALQ items were
related to five metacognitive factors: problem solving (PS, six items),
planning and evaluation (PE, five items), directed attention (DA, four
items), personal knowledge (PK, three items), and mental translation (MT,
three items). Vandergrift et al. [44] used rigorous statistical processes to
validate the items.
The questionnaire and the direction statements were reproduced from
Vandergrift and Goh’s [8] book. Before conducting the present study, a
pilot study was administered to adjust the MALQ collection procedure. Lin
[74] reported the adjustments based on the participants’ opinions elicited in
the pilot study. The adjustments included: (1) to lead the participants to fill

5
Vandergrift and Goh, Teaching and Learning, 139.
16 Lu-Fang Lin

out each questionnaire item; (2) to lead the participants to practice the
procedure of planning and evaluation before filling out the questionnaire;
(3) to exemplify how to set up the goal at the stage of the while-listening
process before filling out the questionnaire [74]. In this study, the
questionnaire manipulation procedure followed the three administrations.
In addition, the origin questionnaire and the direction statements were in
English. I used Mandarin to interpret the direction statements and
questionnaire items in the present study. The participants followed my
interpretation to fill out their responses on the questionnaire. The
questionnaire was conducted at the start and end of the treatment. The
duration of the administration between the two questionnaires was two
months.

Research Materials

The teaching materials were the video clips selected from VoiceTube
[75]. It provides authentic video texts, that is, videos shot in the real world
and text delivered with real-life sound effects. According to Vandergrift
[5], L2 listeners are eager to access authentic texts as they want to practice
L2 listening in a natural, real-life context. In this way, VoiceTube was used
as a supportive instructional tool.
The video selection criteria and procedure were adopted from earlier
video comprehension studies [76, 77]. Video-based material selections
were based on speech rate and the difficulty of the text captions. Several
L2 listening studies have suggested that speech rate is one essential cause
of L2 listening difficulties [78]. The speech rate of the videos was
therefore considered in the selection of clips. For non-native English
speakers, the suggested speech rate is about one hundred forty words per
minute (wpm) [79]. Regarding text difficulty, some participants might
draw on the captions to understand the content of the videos [76]. In this
way, the captions were presented simultaneously during the process of
video viewing. In this study, the selected videos were similar in terms of
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 17

the speech rate of the audio text and the reading difficulty of the verbal text
(captions).
Three video clips were selected, and the sequence of the clips used in
the study was numbered from 1 to 3. The titles, length, and the websites of
the three videos are listed as follows:

1. “How to Remember English Vocabulary,” accessed January 3,

2019, https://tw.voicetube.com/videos/18444?ref=translated.
2. “Study in Taiwan – Learning plus Adventure,” accessed January 3,
2019, https://tw.voicetube.com/videos/20129?ref=translated.
3. “What is love?” accessed January 3, 2019, https://tw.voicetube.
com/videos/8283?ref=translated.

Before the formal study, most of the participants did not know
VoiceTube and had never used it to learn English. To give the participants
of the two treatments the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the
interfaces and the functions installed on the website, I set up a practice
session. The first clip, “How to remember English vocabulary”, was
introduced in the practice session. The other two clips were used in the
formal study.

Treatments

This study was conducted during one semester. In Taiwan, the duration
of one semester is eighteen weeks. Two intact English classes joined this
study and were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment conditions:
the experimental group received the PBL instruction, and the control group
received teacher-lectured instruction. Both groups attended English classes
that covered the same content as the assigned materials. The two groups
were instructed by the researcher herself. The treatment lasted for eight
weeks, with a hundred-minute meeting each week. The instructional
activity was conducted with two sets of video-based material, each
18 Lu-Fang Lin

instructed for four weeks. The experimental and control groups’

instructional procedures are presented as follows.

Experimental Group with the PBL Instruction

The PBL instruction was embedded into the listening curriculum of the
experimental group. The teaching scheme adopted Vandergrift and Goh’s
Metacognitive Pedagogical Sequence (MPS) Model [8] and Lin’s PBL
instructional scheme [15, 16, 70]. The MPS Model was applied to instruct
metacognitive strategies, regulate metacognitive processes, and develop
metacognitive awareness. This training adopted “a process-based approach
to instill in learners (1) knowledge about themselves as listeners (person
knowledge); (2) the inherent complexities of L2 listening in relationship to
task demands (task knowledge); (3) effective listening strategies (strategy
knowledge).” 6 Vandergrift and Goh [8] set up five pedagogical stages,
along with metacognitive processes, such as planning, monitoring, problem
solving, evaluation, and planning. The instructional procedure is briefly
outlined and summarized in Table 1. Detailed descriptions of each
metacognitive pedagogical stage are provided in Vandergrift and Goh [8].
Vandergrift and Goh’s MPS Model was afterwards embedded in the
following PBL program.

Table 1. Stages of instruction and underlying metacognitive processes

for listening activities

Pedagogical stages Metacognitive processes

Planning/predicting stage Planning
First listening: First verification stage a. Monitoring and evaluation
b. Monitoring, evaluation, and planning
Second listening: Second verification stage a. Monitoring, evaluation, and problem solving
b. Monitoring, evaluation, and problem solving
Third listening: Third verification stage Monitoring and problem solving
Reflection and goal-setting stage Evaluation and planning
Source: Pedagogical stages and metacognitive processes were adapted from Vandergrift and Goh’s
book.7

6
Ibid., 108.
7
Ibid., 110.
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 19

Table 2. A PBL teaching scheme integrated with

the MPS listening model

Weekly Problem-based Weekly schedule

meeting activity
1 Presenting the The teacher proposes and explains the problem.
problem The teacher encourages the students to talk about their prior
experiences and clarifies students’ knowledge related to the
problem.
*The teacher shows the video and applies the MPS listening
model.
The teacher arranges the groups. Each group sets up the learning
goal and the schedule and distributes tasks within the group.
2 Examining the *The teacher leads the students to review the video and practice
problem the MPS listening procedures.
Each group is engaged in a discussion that includes examining the
problem in detail, confirming the learning themes and formulating
the action plan.
Each group searches for information on the assigned Internet sites
*Each group practices MPS listening procedures with the video
clip and surveys on the Internet.
3 Re-examining *The teacher leads the students to review the video and practice
the problem the MPS listening procedures.
The teacher leads the students to examine to and review the
problem by asking them to draw a solution outline.
Each group searches for information on the Internet, synthesizes
the collected data, and organizes the main points from the
collected data.
*Each group practices MPS listening procedures with the video
clip and surveys on the Internet.
Each group reports the main points done in the previous step.
Each group plans the upcoming schedule.
4 Presenting the Each group presents the solutions with PowerPoint as a visual aid.
solutions The teacher integrates each group’s presentation and provides
recommendations to each group.
*The teacher leads the students to warm up the MPS listening
procedures.
Source: Some weekly statements cited from Lin’s study.8
Note: “MPS” stands for the “Metacognitive Pedagogical Sequence Model”; “*” represents the
manipulation of MPS listening procedures

8
Lu-Fang Lin, “English Grammar Instruction and the Problem-based Learning Approach: A
Multiliteracies Perspective,” The International Journal of Literacies 24 (2017a): 23–24.
20 Lu-Fang Lin

Lin [14, 70] conducted empirical studies to examine the effectiveness

of PBL on English learning and proposed a PBL teaching framework for
the PBL treatment. Lin [15] synthesized the teaching procedure employed
in earlier studies and proposed a five-stage teaching scheme (see the PBL
treatment schedules in [15]).
In the present chapter, I adopted and modified the five stages of the
PBL teaching framework. Moreover, Vandergrift and Goh’s MPS Model
was integrated into the PBL teaching scheme in the experimental
treatment. Considering the participants’ learning burden, I deleted the stage
of Reviewing the Problem and hence presented a four-stage model in this
chapter (see Table 2). To be consistent with the terminology of the
problem-based activity administered in earlier studies [15, 16, 70], I used
the same terms. In the present study, the four stages are: presenting the
problem, examining the problem, re-examining the problem, and
presenting the solution. I added the MPS listening activity in each stage
(see a PBL weekly teaching schedule in Table 2).
As shown in Table 2, the problem is proposed during the first meeting.
Adopting the Q&A activity format used in Lin’s study [14], I asked some
questions to lead the participants to examine and re-examine the problem,
to warm up the participants by refreshing their vocabulary on geographical
features, and to practice the skills of reading maps, describing some
sightseeing locations. The questions were presented according to the
content of the conversations in Unit 10 of the textbook [80]. This unit
focused on describing a geographical location, a natural setting. In
addition, the VoiceTube material was used as supplementary material for
the MPS listening activity. Take the video clip, “Study in Taiwan –
Learning plus Adventure”, as an example. The sample of the problem is
presented as follows:

Problem: Your friends are native English speakers and will come to
Taiwan on a five-day tour for the first time. How will you guide them to
travel around Taiwan?
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 21

Figure 1. A PBL cycle of four class meetings integrated with the metacognitive
procedure sequence of listening activities.

Figure 1 further summarizes the teaching procedures presented in

Tables 1 and 2. It aims to provide the readers with an overview of how the
MPS Model was added into the four meetings of the PBL L2 listening
program.
For the past ten years, I have applied the PBL program to teaching
English to intermediate level English proficiency students. To motivate
most students to engage in the problem-solving tasks and to help them to
synthesize the information from different sources to work out solutions to
the problem, I adopted Lin’s [14] conceptualization of designing the
problem and a series of supportive questions. Liou [81] indicated that
sound pedagogy with appropriate tasks could advance L2 teaching and
learning considerably. Both problems and supportive questions were used
to activate L2 listeners to enquiry the aural input. In the first meeting, I
proposed a problem for one unit and required the participants of each
group to answer the questions directly from the research materials in the
other meetings (see the example of the problem and supportive questions
in the study by Lin [14]). These questions demanded less work than the
problem as the participants could figure out the answers directly from the
text of the research materials. The function of these questions in the PBL
22 Lu-Fang Lin

treatment was to act as scaffolding erected around the participants,

allowing them to approach the problems effectively.
Small-group work was another scaffold designed in the PBL treatment.
As in previous PBL research, the participants were divided into small
groups. The participants in the present study also engaged in small-group
activities both in class and out of class. Each group was directed by a
leader who was selected by their group members. The leader took the
responsibility to recruit their members to fulfill the tasks assigned in each
meeting.

Control Group with the Non-PBL Instruction

The control group served as a comparison treatment. There was no
relation to the PBL curriculum mentioned above and no mention of
metacognitive strategies in this group. The instructor explicitly taught
knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Lin explained that explicit
teaching strategies providing explanation, conceptualization, and
observation directly entail conscious and cognitive learning [14]. The
participants did not divide into small groups; rather, each participant
followed the teacher’s directions and completed the exercise individually.
During the non-PBL treatment, the instructor first led the participants
to read the captions and subsequently offered detailed grammatical and
vocabulary interpretation. Afterwards, the participants did exercises in the
format of multiple-choice items, in which these question items were
individual sentences. At the end of each week’s meeting, the instructor
displayed the video and indicated the target grammatical structures and
vocabulary embedded in the captions. For variety, the instructor asked the
participants to read aloud the captions. The textbook [80] was also used as
supplementary material during the non-PBL group’s treatment. Table 3
presents the teaching scheme conducted in the non-PBL group.
Regarding the listening training, the listening lesson format was a
model of three instructional stages: pre-listening, listening and post-
listening. Table 3 summarizes the teaching schedule.
In the pre-listening stage, the instructor presented some vocabulary and
sentence structures that learners were about to encounter in the video clip
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 23

and interpreted them with Chinese equivalents. Afterwards, there were two
listening stages after the pre-listening stage. In each stage, the instructor
displayed the assigned video clip, and the participants listened to the
content repeatedly. In the post-listening stage, the instructor translated the
script of the video. Afterwards, the instructor asked students to do
vocabulary and grammar exercises, checked the answers given by the
participants and further provided explanations. The video clip in each
meeting was displayed and redisplayed as needed.

Table 3. A non-PBL listening teaching scheme

Weekly meeting Listening stage Teaching activity

1 Pre-listening Demonstrating some vocabulary and sentence structures
2 Listening The video text is divided into two parts when undergoing
listening activities.

First part of the video text

The teacher leads the students to listen to this part and then
provides interpretation of vocabulary and sentence structures
contained in this part.
3 Listening Second part of the video text

The teacher leads the students to listen to this part and then
provides interpretation of vocabulary and sentence structures
contained in this part.
4 Post-listening The teacher translates the whole video script.
Students do the vocabulary and grammar exercise.

Data Analysis

This study adopted a pre- and post-test research design. All

participants took a listening comprehension pre-test and the MALQ before
the treatment and a listening comprehension post-test, an English listening
follow-up test, and the MALQ after the treatment. The data were analyzed
from quantitative viewpoints to answer the aforementioned research
questions.
24 Lu-Fang Lin

The quantitative analysis included descriptive statistics of mean scores

indicating the participants’ responses in the MALQ, the LC pre- and post-
tests and the follow-up listening test. The data of the LC post-test and the
follow-up test were further analyzed, using the Analysis of Covariance
(ANCOVA) to examine the differences between the two treatment groups,
while statistically controlling for the LC pre-test (covariate). Before
administering ANCOVA, regression procedures were conducted to remove
the variation in the dependent variable (testing mean scores) that was due
to the covariate and afterwards conducted the normal analysis of variance
techniques on the adjusted mean scores. By removing the influence of
these additional variables, ANCOVA detects differences between two
adjusted means [82]. In addition, the independent-samples tests were
administered to show whether or not there were significant differences
between the two groups in the application of individual metacognitive
strategies.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The PBL and Non-PBL Groups’ Listening

Comprehension Performance

The first research question was to investigate whether the PBL

approach significantly improved the university students’ English listening
comprehension ability. To answer the research question, analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA) was used to compare the post-test scores of the
participants in each group receiving a different type of instruction.
Descriptive statistics (means and SDs) were calculated, and ANCOVA was
further performed to evaluate the effects of the PBL and non-PBL
instruction. The level of significance was set to α = .05.
Table 4 summarizes the descriptive data (number of valid cases, means
and standard deviations) on the LC pre- and post-test scores for the total
items (70 items) of the PBL and non-PBL groups. The ANCOVA method
was used to standardize the LC pre-test scores for the two groups (i.e. the
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 25

LC pre-test score served as the covariate). The assumption of homogeneity

in the regression of the covariates and the dependent variables was first
examined. The results showed that the assumption of homogeneity of the
regression slopes was not violated (F = .133, p > 0.05). Before the formal
intervention, the two groups of participants were similar in their English
listening proficiency.
This section respectively addressed the effects of the PBL on the
participants’ listening comprehension ability in terms of the scores on the
LC post-test and the follow-up test. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA)
was used for the LC post-test to explore the differences between the two
groups while statistically controlling for the LC pre-test (covariate).

Table 4. Descriptive statistics for the PBL and Non-PBL groups’

LC pre- and post-tests

PBL (n = 36) Non-PBL (n = 33)

Dependent variable Mean (%) SD Mean (%) SD
Pre-test 63.45 12.68 66.84 10.16
Post-test 74.56 8.64 74.19 8.51
Note: “PBL” stands for “Problem-Based Learning”; “non-PBL” stands for “non-Problem-Based
Learning”; “LC” stands for “listening comprehension”

Table 5. Analysis of covariance on the LC post-test scores

Source Type III df Mean F Sig. Partial eta

Sum of squares square square
Pre-test 2036.132 1 2036.132 46.448 .000 .413
Group 66.190 1 66.190 1.519 .224 .022
Error 2893.227 66 43.837
Total 386753.948 69
* p < .05

Regarding the LC post-test, the totaled mean score of the PBL group
was 74.19, whereas the mean of the non-PBL group was 74.56. The
participants in the PBL groups scored higher on the LC post-test as
compared to the non-PBL group participants. The ANCOVA results
revealed that there was no significant difference between the two groups’
26 Lu-Fang Lin

post-tests, F (1, 67) = 1.510, p = .224, η2 = .022. That is, both groups of
participants showed no difference in the LC post-test (see Table 5).
In addition, the follow-up listening test was analyzed to investigate the
effect of PBL on the participants’ listening comprehension. The scores on
the follow-up listening test were compared for the two groups in terms of
the totaled mean score, the mean scores on individual sentence dictation
(ISD) and the blank-filling (BF) sections. In this way, multivariate
ANCOVA analysis was administered. The LC pre-test score was used as a
covariate to adjust for any pre-existing differences in participants’ listening
proficiency. The ANCOVA was further administered to examine whether
there was a significant difference between the two groups.

Table 6. Multivariate ANCOVA on the follow-up listening test scores

Source Dependent Type III df Mean F Sig. Partial

variables Sum of Square Eta square
squares
Pre- ISD 45.743 1 45.743 .376 .542 .006
test BF 3.656 1 3.656 .029 .865 .000
TOTAL 8.732 1 8.732 .101 .752 .002
Group ISD 1465.153 1 1465.153 12.028 .001** .154
BF 167.577 1 167.577 1.337 .252 .020
TOTAL 598.522 1 598.522 6.912 .011* .095
Error ISD 8039.514 66 121.811
BF 8269.783 66 125.300
TOTAL 5714.918 66 86.590
Total ISD 512848.460 69
BF 381814.855 69
TOTAL 428326.422 69
Note: “ISD” stands for “individual sentence dictation”; “BF” stands for “blank-filling”; “TOTAL”
stands for “totaled mean score”
* p < .05, ** p < .01

In Table 6, the multivariate ANCOVA results of the follow-up test

showed that the effect of group was significant in the totaled mean score,
F (1, 66) = 6.912, p = .011, η2 = .095; in the ISD mean score, F (1, 66) =
12.028, p = .001, η2 = .154. That is, the PBL group’s adjusted totaled mean
score on the follow-up test (M = 81.056a) was significantly higher than that
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 27

of the non-PBL group (M = 75.096a). The PBL group’s adjusted ISD mean
score on the follow-up test (M = 89.87a) was significantly higher than that
of the non-PBL group (M = 80.544a).
This finding suggests that PBL significantly fostered the participants’
LC ability when they were asked to copy down the target sentences. As a
result, the PBL participants achieved a significantly higher score in the
follow-up listening test accompanied with the task of answering the non-
multiple-choice questions.
In short, the statistical results of the listening comprehension
performance were mixed. Regarding the LC post-test, the students who
learned with the PBL treatment did not significantly outperform their
counterparts. The absence of a significant difference in the LC post-test
performance is perhaps not surprising. First, the period of instruction was
relatively short, being only eight weeks, and the PBL instructional
techniques did not obviously foster the participants’ ability to answer the
three types of test questions, simulating real-life situations that were
relevant to the workplace. This is due to the problems proposed in this
study were not directly related to workplace situations. Second, the
participants of the two groups probably utilized the guessing strategy to
select the answers to the multiple-choice questions while listening to the
target materials, no matter what level of comprehension they had.
Consequently, the improvements of both classes did not differ significantly
in the TOEIC listening sample test.
Regarding the follow-up test, the statistical results showed statistically
significant gains with respect to the dictation of individual sentences,
indicating that the PBL participants outperformed the non-PBL participants
in listening for and copying down individual sentences. This can be
attributed to the training of synthesizing the information surveyed on the
Internet and grasping the main points in the “Re-examining the problem
section” of the PBL treatment. The MPS may also have contributed to the
significant results of the ISD. In the stages of the first, second, and third
listening, the participants likely learned the sub-skills of “verify[ing] their
initial hypotheses, correct[ing] as required, and not[ing] additional
28 Lu-Fang Lin

information understood”9 as well as the other sub-skills of “compar[ing]

what they have understood/written with a partner, modify[ing] as required,
establish[ing] what still needs resolution, and decid[ing] on the important
details that still require special attention.”10 Armed with these sub-skills,
the PBL participants likely were able to monitor and to evaluate the
sentences they heard as a whole and consequently copied down the
sentences successfully. The results of this study further verified Lin’s
earlier assumption that L2 learners may facilitate their L2 comprehension
through the PBL approach [16].
In general, the introduction of a new instructional technology improves
the participants’ listening comprehension ability other than core
performance outcomes measured by standard listening testing tools. The
positive effect of the PBL approach on English listeners in dictation can, at
least to some degree, be verified.

The PBL and Non-PBL Groups’ Metacognitive Strategy Use

The second research question was to investigate whether the PBL

approach significantly improved the university students’ metacognitive
strategy use in terms of the mean scores of the MALQ collected in the
beginning and at the end of the treatment. Negative items were reverse
coded (e.g., Items 3, 8, and 16), so that a positive mean score reflected a
positive perception. As recommended by Vandergrift et al. [44], the
subscale of mental translation strategies was negatively related to the other
subscales, and the mean scores of mental translation strategies were
reversed coded. Table 7 provides the descriptive statistics of the five
subscales of the pre- and post-MALQs.
Figures 2 and 3 present PBL and non-PBL groups’ metacognitive
strategy use before and after the treatment. Two figures demonstrated both
groups of participants’ development of metacognitive strategies. As shown

9
Vandergrift and Goh, Teaching and Learning, 110.
10
Ibid., 110.
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 29

in the two figures, the two groups changed their strategy use obviously in
some dimensions after eight weeks of instructional treatment.

Figure 2. PBL and non-PBL groups’ initial patterns of using the five types of
metacognitive strategies before the treatment.

Figure 3. PBL and non-PBL groups’ final patterns of using the five types of
metacognitive strategies after the treatment.
30 Lu-Fang Lin

Table 7. The descriptive statistics of the five subscales

of the pre- and post-MALQs

PBL (n = 36) Non-PBL (n = 33)

Pre Post Pre Post
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
DA 4.50 .624 4.39 .631 4.03 1.334 4.51 .628
MT 3.05 .834 2.74 .839 2.88 .942 2.88 1.089
PE 4.06 .791 4.14 .807 3.88 1.781 3.82 .845
PS 4.64 .511 4.50 .759 4.30 1.237 3.78 .758
PK 3.07 1.057 2.82 .971 3.42 1.078 3.89 1.119
Note: “MALQ” stands for “Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire”; “DA” stands for
“directed attention”; “MT” stands for “mental translation”; “PE” stands for “planning and
evaluation”; “PS” stands for “problem solving”; “PK” stands for “personal knowledge”

In the following section, ANCOVA was used for the MALQ to explore
the differences while statistically controlling for the score on the listening
comprehension pre-test (covariate). The SPSS system uses regression
procedures to remove the variation in the dependent variable that is due to
the covariate and then performs the normal analysis of variance techniques
on the corrected or adjusted scores. By deleting the influence of the
additional variables, ANCOVA identifies differences between two adjusted
means [83]. Before conducting data analysis, the assumptions for an
ANCOVA were examined. There are a number of assumptions associated
with ANCOVA [82]. In this study, the data were screened for homogeneity
of regression slopes.
The ANCOVA results are presented in Table 8, indicating whether the
two groups were significantly different in terms of students’ responses on
the MALQ administered at the beginning of the treatment (the pre-MALQ
for short) and that administered at the end of the treatment (the post-
MALQ for short).
Regarding the pre-MALQ, there is no significant difference in the total
score [F (1, 66) = .415, p > .05], indicating that before the treatment, the
two groups performed equally well in terms of their metacognitive strategy
use. However, there is a significant difference in the DA subscale for both
groups [F (1, 66) = 5.336, p < .05], indicating that the PBL group’s mean
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 31

score (M = 4.542a) is significantly higher than that of the non-PBL group

(M = 3.985a).
Regarding the post-MALQ, there are significant differences in the PS
subscale [F (1, 66) = 21.299, p = .000, η2= .244], indicating that 24.4% of
the variance in the PS variable is explained by the group variable and the
PK subscale [F (1, 66) = 16.460, p = .000, η2 = .200], indicating that 20%
of the variance in the PK variable is explained by the group variable.
For the PS subscale of the post-MALQ, the PBL group’s mean score
(M = 4.534a) is significantly higher than that of the non-PBL group (M =
3.745a), showing that the PBL participants used the PS strategies more
frequently than their counterparts. For the PK subscale, the PBL group’s
mean score (M = 2.892a) is significantly lower than that of the non-PBL
group (M = 3.815a), showing that the PBL participants exhibited greater
confidence and reported a lower degree of difficulty and anxiety while
listening than did the non-PBL participants.
The PS and PK results to some degree are related to the results of Goh
and Hu’s study [41]. The results of their study showed that, out of five
subscales, there were three significant predictors, indicating that PK was
the most important, followed by PS. Goh and Hu [41] suggested that L2
listeners who demonstrate a lower degree of anxiety while listening and, on
the other hand, use more PS strategies, have better L2 listening ability.
Although the current study did not demonstrate the overall significant
effectiveness of the PBL participants’ listening comprehension
performance in terms of the LC post-test, the significant differences
yielded in the follow-up listening test can provide evidence for the two
strong predictors. In this way, PBL integrated with MPS can be considered
an optimal pedagogy for fostering L2 listening proficiency.
In addition, the significant result of PBL participants’ deployment of
PS strategies can be attributed to the constructivist, learner-centered PBL
curriculum. During the treatment session, the PBL participants did a survey
on the Internet and completed the tasks of searching for possible solutions
to the problem throughout the written and audio input. As a result, they had
opportunities to practice inferencing strategies, such as guessing what they
did not understand, and, further, to monitor these inferences.
32 Lu-Fang Lin

Table 8. Multivariate ANCOVA on the post-MALQ scores

Source Dependent Type III df Mean F Sig. Partial

variables Sum of square eta
squares square
Pre- DA 2.309 1 2.309 6.286 .015 .087
test MT 1.466 1 1.466 1.581 .213 .023
PE .859 1 .859 1.266 .265 .019
PS 3.944 1 3.944 8.004 .006 .108
PK 15.621 1 15.621 17.918 .000 .214
TOTAL 2.770 1 2.770 10.955 .002 .142
Group DA .087 1 .087 .236 .628 .004
MT .122 1 .122 .132 .718 .002
PE 2.038 1 2.038 3.004 .088 .044
PS 10.496 1 10.496 21.299 .000** .244
PK 14.350 1 14.350 16.460 .000** .200
TOTAL .106 1 .106 .419 .519 .006
Error DA 24.239 66 .367
MT 61.198 66 .927
PE 44.787 66 .679
PS 32.525 66 .493
PK 57.538 66 .872
TOTAL 16.691 66 .253
Total DA 1392.750 69
MT 1279.100 69
PE 1144.960 69
PS 1237.440 69
PK 859.474 69
TOTAL 1228.653 69
Note: “MALQ” stands for “Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire”; “DA” stands for
“directed attention”; “MT” stands for “mental translation”; “PE” stands for “planning and
evaluation”; “PS” stands for “problem solving”; “PK” stands for “personal knowledge”
** p < .01

PBL and Non-PBL Groups’ Use of Individual Strategies of the

MALQ

Regarding individual metacognitive strategies, the Independent

samples t test was further conducted to examine whether there was any
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 33

significant difference between the two groups in using individual strategies.

Among the 21 items, there were significant differences between the PBL
and non-PBL groups in Item 3 (t = -4.176, p < .05), Item 8
(t = -4.326, p < .05), Item 16 (t = -2.585, p < .05) and Item 21 (t = 2.498,
p < .05). It should be noted that Items 3, 8, and 16 were negative strategies,
illustrating negative attitudes toward listening. The non-PBL group’s mean
scores for these three items are consistently higher than those of the PBL
group, indicating a higher level of anxiety and less confidence while
listening.
Along with the strategy statement, the results for these three strategies
revealed that non-PBL participants found that listening was more difficult
than reading, speaking, or writing in English (Item 3) and that listening
comprehension in English was a challenge (Item 8). Moreover, some non-
PBL participants expressed that they would give up and stop listening
when they had difficulty understanding what they heard (Item 16). The
results further verify the above presented ANCOVA statistics results,
indicating that the non-PBL group yielded a significantly higher mean
score on the PK subscale after the treatment. The findings suggest that the
participants in the non-PBL treatment exhibited more anxious emotions
about listening than those who received the PBL instruction integrated with
metacognitive awareness training. On the other hand, the participants in the
PBL group felt more confident than their counterparts. Consistent with the
PBL participants’ self-report responses in Lin [16], PBL activated their
motivation and confidence in learning English. The results suggest that
PBL to some degree contributes to raising English learners’ positive
attitudes toward English listening.
Regarding Item 21, the result shows that the PBL group achieved a
higher mean score than their counterparts and that there was a significant
difference in planning-type strategies. It appears that the participants in the
PBL group showed positive attitudes toward listening, and they learned to
have a goal while listening. This is likely because the PBL curriculum
underlined the training of metacognitive processes (planning and
evaluation).
34 Lu-Fang Lin

As shown in Table 1, the PBL teaching framework led the participants

to set up a learning goal in the first meeting and evaluate their progress to
reschedule their learning goals from the second through the fourth
meetings. The results may also be attributed to the MPS listening model
with its emphasis on the planning strategy in the stages of pre-listening,
first listening, reflection, and goal-setting. In this way, the participants
likely had an opportunity to strengthen the planning-type strategy. The
results suggest that the participants instructed with the PBL technique
positively approached listening and were capable of operating an online
appraisal of whether their comprehension goals were being realized. As
Zhang and Goh [36] indicated, learners with a high level of metacognitive
awareness could perform a self-regulating style of learning. In this study,
the PBL program embedded with MPS obviously cultivated the
participants’ ability to direct their own learning.
To sum up, the significant results yielded from comparisons of the
PBL and non-PBL treatments include the PBL participants’ better listening
comprehension in terms of dictation of individual sentences, exhibiting
greater confidence and lower anxiety while listening, and using more
planning-type strategies than non-PBL participants.

CONCLUSION

The purpose of the chapter is to develop an L2 listening curriculum for

PBL to be effective and innovative. PBL as a teaching approach requires
more elaborate conceptualization of L2 related research and moving
beyond regular research analysis of how L2 learners learn the linguistic
knowledge of a target language. As such, this chapter investigated the
effects of PBL on L2 learners’ listening comprehension. Furthermore, this
chapter investigated the effects of the PBL program on L2 listeners’
application of metacognitive strategies while listening to an oral text in a
target language. Specifically, this chapter presents the patterns of L2
listeners’ metacognition after they were instructed with different teaching
methods.
 The Effect of a Problem-Based Learning Approach to Teaching … 35

The study of this chapter featured an initial trial by integrating

Vandergrift and Goh’s MPS Model [8] into the PBL L2 listening program.
These findings suggest a hitherto unsuspected aspect of PBL in relation to
L2 listening and learner metacognitive awareness.
It has been argued that, for L2 teaching methods to be featured as
innovative, teaching approaches need to go beyond the field of an L2 itself.
The curriculum design makes that possible by addressing more multi-
disciplinary research problems. Instead of developing the curriculum
purely on the basis of L2 teaching methods, researchers may start to
propose their research problems by integrating components from different
academic fields. Take L2 listening research as an example. As reviewed in
earlier literature, several researchers have attempted to formulate L2
listening research from the perspectives of psychology [5, 6, 12, 40]. To
expand their research endeavor, the study reported in this chapter applied
PBL – a teaching technique which originated in the medical field – to
teaching L2 listening. The results of this interdisciplinary study added the
knowledge of L2 teaching and learning.
Regarding pedagogical design, one instructional recommendation is
provided. Metacognitive awareness plays an important role in L2 listening.
The PBL instructor may substitute the MPS Model with any other
metacognitive instructional model to foster L2 learners’ listening
comprehension. As shown in Figure 1, the instructional procedure is
constructed as a prototype of PBL pedagogy for L2 listening curriculum.
PBL can be expanded according to instructors’ needs.
There are some limitations to this study that should be noted. By
considering the instruments and data-analysis methods in the present
chapter, future research may use some self-report instruments to provide
more insightful descriptions of the metacognitive development of the L2
listeners themselves, and qualitative analysis can be conducted to uncover
L2 listeners’ involvement levels of metacognition and to explore how they
select metacognitive strategies in the while-listening stage. Furthermore,
the effects of PBL metacognitive instruction on L2 listening still needs
further exploration. The researchers in a future study may add learners’
affection factors, such as motivation and willingness, to explain
36 Lu-Fang Lin

instructional effects. Despite the limitations, the findings of this study have
yielded valuable knowledge for L2 listening instruction and have
confirmed that the investigation of metacognition in relation to L2 listening
comprehension is an important research endeavor.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of this

research by Ministry of Science and Technology, R.O.C., partially under
Grant MOST104-2410-H-019-014 and MOST 107-2410-H-019-011. The
author also would like to show her greatest thankfulness to the Editor,
Astrida Skrinda, and the two reviewers (Jonathan Newton, Associate
Professor, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria
University of Wellington; Steven Brown, Professor Emeritus, Youngstown
State University).

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In: Teaching English ISBN: 978-1-53616-168-7
Editor: Astrida Skrinda © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 2

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

IN ENGLISH?
NOT IN THE PRESENT CONDITIONS …

Krzysztof Polok
University of Bielsko-Biala, Bielsko-Biala, Poland

ABSTRACT

The paper provides a meta-analysis of the situation currently

observed in many English as a foreign language (EFL) classes given to
Polish and Slovak preschool learners, among others, in comparison to a
generally offered core-curriculum-based view of early childhood
education in English. The paper covers not only an analysis of a number
of currently observed approaches, but also presents research-based
propositions. In the latter part of the paper, a handful of problem-
grounded outcomes are suggested.

Keywords: bilingual children, cognitive methods, early childhood

education in English, immersive methods, young learners


Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].
48 Krzysztof Polok

INTRODUCTION

During the last forty years, English has become a global language.
Being a vehicle for the transmission of messages, it has become an
important learning goal for many people of different ages, professions, and
political beliefs. This is an example of the salient functions of language
performance, which is undeniable. In this way, a paradoxical situation
about English has developed – no longer it is recognized as an ability, an
instrument that one knows (or does not know), a tool that helps (or does
not help) in one’s contacts with other members of a community where it is
either used as a mother tongue or the principal language of communication.
Instead, English is now recognized as a global commodity in itself, an
economically feasible expenditure, which will reap benefits in the future
by giving one’s progeny a head start.
Additionally, one more idea has been accepted by the majority of
people, mostly due to the scale of popularity of the language. This is a
belief – what matters in the process of its internalization is the age of
learners. A stereotypical belief, propitiated by many personalities, has been
so effectively promoted that many people are convinced – the younger one
starts learning the language, the better. This is where the trend toward early
childhood education in English as a foreign language is observed [1].
Being an educated bilingual ensures broader horizons, a more comfortable
and less complicated life, as a citizen of the world.
Scientific research has done nothing to contradict this growing
conviction. Starting with the famous experiments by Pennfield [1] and
Lenneberg [2], up to the interesting findings by Patkowski [3] and,
subsequently, Johnson and Newport [4], age has been reported as one of
the crucial factors contributing to early childhood education in English.
The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), claiming the existence of a period
in human life before and after which learning another language in the
natural way is hindered and far more complicated, has been supported by a
series of observations evidencing that children are far more successful
English as a foreign language (EFL) learners than adolescents or adults. As
a result, this has become a conviction, from which a great variety of forms
 Early Childhood Education in English? 49

of early childhood education in English have burgeoned. The research

works by Weinreich [5], Lambert [6], Grossjean [7], or Bialystok [8] have
looked at the psychology of the process of becoming bilingual. A
considerable number of inadequately informed people seemed to believe
that learning English in early years settings would enable children to
become lifelong bilingual speakers and users. This, in turn, has become a
reasonable financial investment – as well as an example of an open and
clear demonstration of parental commitment toward children’s success and
well-being in the future.
The aim of this paper is to critically analyze the existing situation, not
only looking at it from the psycho-didactic point of view, but also in
assessing many of the linguistic and cultural issues that may exert more or
less direct influence on the existing situation. What we would like to
present here are not only the general beliefs grounded in Vygotsky’s [9]
writings and Piaget’s [10] estimations – additionally backed by the claims
offered by Feuerstein [11] – but also the newest findings on the very
process of self-education offered by Zull [12], for instance. In this way, we
would like to demonstrate the situation in early childhood education in
English, where creating bilingual children through intensive EFL
instruction have become a desired form of success and where planned and
strictly described EFL activities (closely modeled on those ones which are
being implemented in schools) are proposed to be introduced into the
kindergarten language delivering routines. By showing the
inappropriateness of such forms of early childhood education in English,
we would also like to indicate the forms of education that seem to be most
appropriate for such EFL learners. Finally, we would like to explain the
way Krashen’s [13] hypotheses can be of help in any discussion of early
childhood education in English.
50 Krzysztof Polok

VYGOTSKY’S THEORIES AND THEIR SALIENCE

IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN ENGLISH

Vygotsky’s [9] contribution to early childhood education in English

can be seen in at least two different aspects. First, his remark that language
ought to be primarily analyzed from the sociological point of view resulted
in the growth of research aiming at various aspects of culture-related
language relations. Second, his theory of human development brought
forth the creation of experiential education, which was later developed by
Kolb at al. [14].
According to Vygotsky’s [9], people use the language they have been
exposed to. It is the whole external environment, the one formed by the
culture responsible for its past creation and its present existence, which
helps people to learn and to continually upgrade the language they need to
correctly construct and re-construct their interconnections and ways of
functioning appropriately in the conditions they find themselves. People
need to access a tool that would help them to define and describe their
opinions about the situations in which they act, verbalize their thoughts and
opinions.
It is in this environment that people discover a language. Slowly, but
steadily they are able to find the nature of the semantics and forms of
application of many different phrases and expressions, which can later be
used to present opinions on whatever issues are wanted. This process of
phrase internalization is gradual and based upon continual and time-
consuming experiment-based approaches to the local out-of-language
environment of various kinds. Following Vygotsky [9], both spontaneous
and non-spontaneous concepts keep appearing and disappearing till the
moment their semantic denominations have been clearly and unmistakably
imbibed and effectively stored. Many of the concepts met in this way are
taken, as if “on trial”. Vygotsky [9] calls them as “empty categories” and
claims that they remain like that till some cognitive experience may change
their nature. Such concepts still remain partly alien until their very internal
nature has been truly recognized by people.
 Early Childhood Education in English? 51

Another issue formulated by Vygotsky [9] is the concept of the zone of

proximal development (ZPD), a notion that can be perceived to define and
describe the whole process of education. As education is based upon a
search for the new and the undiscovered by people who are self-motivated
enough to solve problems they do not fully understand, any process of
education must start from what is often called “scaffolding” (cf. Wood et
al. [15]). Scaffolding includes elements of the educational process that
have remained within the mental capacity of the learners and from which
they can begin to solve new problems on condition that some external help
has occurred. This is where a learner, once they have obtained appropriate
assistance, may begin solving the problems that are currently out of their
mental potential. ZPD is, therefore, to be defined as a distance between the
area containing all those concepts that are unsolved, due to the obvious
age-resulting intellectual limitations, and the ones consisting of the same or
similar concepts that have been solved with some additional help obtained
from a more knowledgeable person. In this way, if a learner is
appropriately aided by a person paying attention to the learner’s exposition
onto their more demanding intellectual work, the learner is reported to be
at ZPD for any particular task that results in the learner’s obtaining an
additional form of ‘boost’ to solve this task.
The very idea of ZPD is that learners are supposed to subconsciously
decide upon the amount of the mental potential assessed by them as
necessary to solve a given task. Hence, the amount of self-motivation
required to successfully perform any activity is regulated internally. A
claim like this may be based upon Piaget’s [10] notion of cognitive
equilibrium, which is a form of cognitive balance between the mind and
the immediate environment. In case they recognize a task to be too
difficult, the level of their self-motivation declines, and a decision is made
not to solve the problem. However, if learners are truly interested in a
problem, i.e. when, following Feuerstein [11], pre-mediation conditions are
observed, high enough levels of motivation may be saved with the help of
external activity of more knowledgeable people (teachers or more capable
peers). These people can appropriately guide the learners so that the
solution for a more demanding task can be found. In this way, any
52 Krzysztof Polok

intellectually demanding environment enhances a learner’s mental

potential, thus resulting in fuller development of mental processes.
The best and the most appropriate form of children’s education has to
be based upon holistic assumptions. Following Piaget’s [10] constructivist
theory, children develop their intellect with the help of all the senses they
possess. Any attempt to focus upon the intellectual side predominantly
means depriving them of an important segment of daily functioning in the
environment. Children learn by experience, which becomes an important
vehicle in everyday education. By means of getting in touch with various
issues, they make an attempt (individually, or with considerable external
help) to find a way out of any situation they have found themselves in.
Experiences are an integral part of their learning.
Zull [12], one of the leading educational neurobiologists, offers a
handy explanation. When describing the very process of learning, he
discovers the salient role performed by one’s experience, stating it is from
experience that the whole educational process begins. What follows are the
three subsequent phases that result in the development of the learner’s
reflective observation, generation of active hypotheses, and, finally, the
process of testing of the hypotheses just formulated. And, additionally, all
these segments are to be assisted with the learner’s emotions as the learners
have to be positively motivated to be able to solve a problem just
encountered. This solution actually means that the whole process of
learning is similar to the production of a number of relatively strong mental
connections, a cultivation of one’s own neuronal networks. In Zull’s [12]
opinion, the process of knowledge storing means successive production of
repeated connections which, finally, mostly as a result of repetition of the
same intellectual processes again and again, are cognitively recognized as
possible solutions of a problem. Later on, when a situation similar to the
one just remembered is to be solved, the past experience tells us how to
behave and/or how to adjust to the required solution.
Also, Piaget [10], in his functional theory of cognitive development,
highlights the two principal processes, which bring forth one’s well-
balanced cognitive development, i.e. assimilation and accommodation.
They are strongly connected with experience. It is our assessment of past
 Early Childhood Education in English? 53

experiences and their confrontation with the present situation that result in
the production of a thought in the human mind. In this way, assimilation of
a new idea and its subsequent process of getting accommodated to the
newly formed conditions are based upon the way our past experiences
influence decisions that concern the forms of activity recognized as
desirable. A thought, being a two-tiered construction of both our past
experience and its present assessment, is therefore a construct that stresses
the process of educational experience. That is the experience gained as a
result of our earlier successful completion of the whole process of
education.
Vygotsky [9], while generally accepting Piaget’s [10] ideas in respect
of our accumulation of experience, which, in turn, results in our cognitive
development, still stresses the fact that our development cannot be carried
out in void. Contrary to what Piaget [10] claims, Vygotsky [9] focuses on
the social aspects of our experiences, stating that, in the case of
experiences, external conditions and how they were gained must be taken
into account. This is where the social aspects of education appear to be
important, but also decisive in the quality of decisions ultimately produced
by people.
While discussing the quality of the environment where one’s
experience is being gained, Vygotsky [9] stresses the issues of culture and,
what seems to be equally important, the issue of language. This is where he
is strongly backed by Damasio [16], who defines language as a culture-
based compilation of mental pictures that appear in the human mind and
which are commonly defined as thoughts. It is this definition which relates
the claims offered by Zull [12] and the opinions presented by Vygotsky
[9], at least in respect to the salience of experience in the process of
education. The very process of education is, as Vygotsky [9] sees it, a
socially-based form of understanding of the environment carried out in
respect to its cognitive description. What we know is always connected
with certain interpretations of the knowledge delivered to us and
subsequently assessed by us; but this assessment is dependent on our past
experience in a given area, the experience grounded in the point of view
held by the culture we are in. The very semantic layer of a notion is a
54 Krzysztof Polok

representation of its understanding in the culture the notion keeps

functioning; it is never identical in any two cultures.
Vygotsky [9] introduces the issue of language, stating that language
functions as a fundamental segment of our socially-grounded cognition.
People must have an instrument that allows them to describe the reality
they experience; any verbal description of the reality (or its segment) is
recognized as an attempt to demonstrate our point of view on the issue in
question. Besides, it is easier for people to embrace mentally an issue after
they have been able to define its semantic area, the area established by the
culture, and the tradition it is shaped by. This is where human notions so
greatly differ across cultures that they are hardly ever recognized as fully
overlapping; this is also where people have to pay particular attention to
the current meaning of a notion, as any language is in the state of
continuous internal movement and some expressions can, in time, evolve
to mean something else than they did originally [3].
This is also where Krashen [13] partly agrees with Vygotsky’s [9]
stance when he defines and describes his language acquisition hypotheses.
When he states that the process of acquisition is prior to conscious
learning, he seems to agree that the socially-grounded process of learners’
in-language immersion constitutes the principal segment of learning
another language.

VERY YOUNG EFL LEARNERS – WHAT THEY NEED

AND HOW THEY BEHAVE WHEN DISCOVERING THE
EXTERNAL WORLD

One of the principal conclusions that results from the research

conducted by a number of educational linguists in recent years has been the
importance of holistic early childhood education in English [17]. Very
young learners discover their environment with the use of all their senses.
The teacher’s reaction to the situation specified above should be language
use stressing activity which highlights both the conscious and
 Early Childhood Education in English? 55

subconscious application of all the senses when any language is to be

learned. Additionally, a claim that fun and play are to be considered as a
serious pro-language motivating activity has been given considerable
attention [17]. Here again, Krashen’s [13] fifth hypothesis in the overall
process of EFL acquisition is not to be overlooked (see, for instance, the
findings offered by Szpotowicz and Szulc-Kurpaska [17]).
Actually, introducing a foreign language with the help of fun-
organized activities is an effective approach. It is a well-known truth that
the best form of recognition of the world for children is the holistic
approach. The introduction of fun-based forms appears to produce a
purposefully designed pro-language atmosphere that can be offered to the
youngsters. Apart from a consciously-planned, active introduction of the
situation that is engaging for children, such a holistic approach stresses the
ways children most naturally tend to employ in trying to gather more and
more knowledge about the environment they are to be functioning in.
Following Piaget [10], these forms of discovery of the external world let
children store knowledge with the help of past experience – reform and re-
adjust it to the currently required conditions. After all, the discovery of the
external world, performed with the help of form-inducing situations, makes
this world comprehensible and more developmentally appropriate for
children. However, any discovery of this type, in order to be recognized as
fixed and stable, must be accompanied by the language that would not only
let the children cognitively allocate the discoveries, but also help to restore
the order in their cognitive understanding of the world they have to cope
with. In other words, following Vygotsky’s [9] stance, language is to be
perceived as an instrument that both helps the children to organize the
world just being approached and to discover various inter-relational
discoveries found there. It is this moment of being able to name a thing or
an activity, which allows children to notice their relative prevalence in
respect to some other, earlier discovered, forms of physical functioning in
the world around them. Together with the language, children are able to
internalize, adjust (or re-order) the external world to their cognitively-
based experience, thus matching the culture-oriented order of items just
beheld by them. Following Damasio [15], their mental pictures of the
56 Krzysztof Polok

external world illustrate beliefs and ideas of their organization. It is with

the help of language that young children come to know and are able to
describe their surroundings.
Language becomes an instrument helping EFL learners to learn about
the actual social conditions they have found themselves in. It is with the
help of language that they have been able to learn about their families,
kindergartens, the existence and active functioning of other children, the
food they like or dislike, the weather conditions, the relative importance of
time. The very existence of conditions where the application of the
language is a must has convinced them that not knowing a language
excludes them from being involved in the local environment. They are
unable to experience and, subsequently, define the world if they do not
know the expressions commonly expected to appear in certain situations.
A situation like this can be observed when the language used to define
the child’s external environment is their mother tongue. At the same time,
however, the two segments necessary to aptly define the environment are
closely interconnected, mostly due to the fact that the children are able to
correctly apply the linguistic instrument as a result of their former
exposition to it. The language used by the children is based upon earlier
experiences, as a result of their exposition to the words or phrases,
externally assumed to define the world in certain, earlier defined situations.
In other words, the learners are able to cognitively establish the semantic
areas of a number of expressions and present their opinions in respect to a
number of externally-defined situations. Now, not only can they raise a
demand to define any culture-defined situation, but also to demonstrate
their attitude to the situations, naturally occurring in the process of EFL
conversation.
It is difficult to deny that an element which resulted in the children’s
conversational fluency is their exposition to the language. Thus, being
exposed to expressions which are used by other culture-connected
participants, they are able to discover the relative importance of such
expressions in any culture-ruling situation. Some additional evidence to
back this claim is the scope of relative conversational fluency found in
 Early Childhood Education in English? 57

each mother tongue user. This is where Vygotsky’s [9] theory can easily be
(re)discovered.
As specified above, Vygotsky’s [9] theory states that a learner, after
having been exposed to more intellectually demanding external cognitive
conditions, when guided by a teacher or more talented peers, will be able
to apply higher intellectually assessed conditions to successfully solve a
problem normally recognized as too difficult. In this way, EFL learners,
when encouraged to (re-)apply individually assessed higher intellectual
potential, will be able to find a solution to a problem they would not have
been able to solve in normal (i.e. not intellectually-marked) conditions.
What really matters is the amount of challenge-inducing mental potential
desired in the process of one’s intellectual development. EFL learners,
after having been placed in the environment which demands an
appropriately shaped intellectual approach, reveals this amount of
intellectual potential that not only allows them to solve the problem, but
also provisionally internalize the solutions. As it seems, the relative
importance in this situation is being played by a ‘must-do’ activity. Any
activity like this (one of the many of the ‘either-or’ type) forces EFL
learners to look for a linguistic way out of the situation they have found
themselves in. As they cannot retreat (they don’t know where to), the only
situation that remains is the one of a challenge. They have to ‘face the
music’ and see what can be done about the linguistic situation they have to
face.
Following Zull’s [12] theory, a challenge-inducing situation begins the
movements of many synaptic connections in the human mind. This state of
involuntary mental unrest results in the appearance of various solutions
that can match the situation one has encountered. Slowly, but steadily,
often with the evident help of the teacher, a learner is able to find the right
path in this intellectual maze and finally solve the problem. Additionally,
mostly due to the intensity of the mental work done, the solution is stored
and kept for future retrieval purposes. In case the solution has been
assessed to be handy enough to use in a number of other similar solutions,
its status is changed from useful to necessary. It is such necessary forms of
human behavior, the ones that closely match certain segments of the
58 Krzysztof Polok

environment, that furnish the selected areas of human intellectual activity,

which can be defined as cognitive necessities. The contention that one of
the pillars of, as they were called, cognitive necessities has been formed by
language is a stance that does not seem to be provided with any further
analysis.
Actually, the way language is produced closely follows the description
offered by Vygotsky [9]. Would-be learners-users get in touch with certain
expressions used by other members of society and cognitively incorporate
them with a number of previously discovered culture-oriented forms of
behavior and/or objects. As the process of naming the objects/activities is
the one that concurrently follows their discovery, the learner’s cognition
perceives obvious connections between all the culturally-oriented
objects/activities and the expressions affixed to them by the members of a
particular culture. In this way, the process of language discovery and
language enlargement is assisted by the process of being exposed to the
culture that all the linguistic notions emerge from. The group of cognitive
linguistic necessities is thus formed on the grounds of the learner’s
growing convictions that not knowing them actually means being excluded
from the society where the learner wishes to belong. This is where a ‘must-
do’ situation organizes not only the cognition, but also the learner’s life.
Being immersed in the environment actually means being forced to
discover all the conditions that permit the learner’s functioning in a given
society.
The analysis presented above indicates at least two important issues
that have to be taken into account when any process of language education
is at stake. The first one is the learner’s personal exposure to the culture
whose language they are expected to learn; the second one is the process of
cognition, i.e. the understanding of the culture-based rules and structures. It
is only after the learners have been able to recognize the peculiar inherent
forms of culture-based communication, i.e. have become acculturated, they
are able to experience the sense and use of certain linguistic labels,
normally functioning in society to illustrate and express society’s linguistic
traditions and culture. Any classroom or classroom-like-based process of
language discovery must result from surface-to-deep recognition of the
 Early Childhood Education in English? 59

mechanism to which the language is naturally subjected. However, such a

process that has been planned to be carried out with hardly any attempt to
connect the learners, kindergarten learners included, with the internal
cultural issues of the language they are expected to learn, ought to be
recognized as being deeply one-sided. In other words, as language and
culture are two sides of the same coin, it seems pointless to study only one
of them – the other side is always equally important.
The stance presented above, the one that joins exposition onto the
language and the process of our acculturation, concerns not only the issues
linked with first language acquisition, but also those focused upon gradual,
but effective internalization of any language in which a learner wishes to
become competent. It is the proper conditions that safely secure the
learner’s cultural interests that are recognized as didactically healthy,
especially when a situation of systematic and sensibly planned approach is
to be analyzed.
This is where the main problems of early childhood education in
English appear. Any EFL presentation, mostly based upon handbook
application, carried out without its subsequent strengthening with culture-
connected information is, in most cases, doomed to failure. Following
Feuerstein [11], EFL education is rightly squeezed down to the completion
of a task as it is on the grounds of such tasks that learners are usually given
a chance to learn about the nature of the language. However, any such a
task is to be approached from the point of view that permits the learners
and their teachers to behold its layered structure; not only should they be
given a chance to see the basic elements of a task, such as changing an
infinitive in brackets into its tense-required form, for instance, but also the
reasons why a given tense is to be applied in a given culture-based
situation. Practically speaking, very few EFL learners are able to process
these pieces of information in a cognitive way, one needs coherently
organized exposure to the language one is about to learn. This is, among
others, the reason why a well-organized multi-media connected process of
EFL education is necessary. Apart from that, this is also why the teacher’s
positive attitude to EFL education has to be carefully observed.
60 Krzysztof Polok

Currently, the teacher’s knowledge in respect to EFL education is to be

observed in a multi-channeled way. Their personal level of communicative
competence (or, following Andrews [18], language awareness) constitutes
one only (salient) element of EFL education; but apart from that, EFL
teachers must have an idea of how to secure vivid links with the target
language, so that the learners can profit from such forms of contact [2].
The use of a variety of authentic materials of any kind ought to be the
result of the teacher’s inventiveness and personal involvement in EFL
education. Participating in the application of teaching techniques helpful in
discovering the target language from which EFL learners are expected to
benefit ought to become the principal aim of educational activity.
According to Andrews [18], EFL teachers must be aware of their, as he
calls it, pedagogical content knowledge as it is only this type of knowledge
that would allow them to become teaching-aware professionals. Teachers’
language awareness, juxtaposed with all the aspects of pedagogical content
knowledge, as specified by Andrews [18] (and earlier by Duff [19];
Freeman [20]; Woods [21], for instance), must result in the formation of
subject-aware teachers, the teachers who do not only speak the language
fluently, but know how to deliver or expose the learners to beneficial
techniques their learners would require in EFL education.
This is where the whole debate concerning early childhood education
in English begins. What is to be confronted are the currently observed
attempts to educate kindergarten learners linguistically and the sensibility
of such attempts, assessed on the grounds of the current state of both
general and specialist knowledge that concerns the process of education,
language education included.

ON THE CURRENTLY OBSERVED STATE OF AFFAIRS

Kindergarten learners are expected to “befriend” the target language

(English, predominantly) on the grounds of their contacts with a number of
selected easy-grasped issues. Additionally, as they develop holistically,
EFL education is to be based upon a large array of fun-inducing activities.
 Early Childhood Education in English? 61

Such a process of planned meetings with the language is to include many

various forms of active language-involving tasks, such as singing songs,
storytelling, acting out scenes, performing action songs, rhymes, games,
being involved in various listen-and-show activities, participating in
different board games, and taking part in a selected number of craft
activities.
As it seems at first glance, both language-productive and language-
reproductive activities have been effectively included into language
learning. What is more, various aspects of holistic teaching have been
preserved as the learners are expected to be activated as much as possible,
experiencing various aspects of fun while using the target language. There
are, however, many issues which need comprehensive answers.
First of all, it has not been clearly proven whether the inherent
potential of both productive and reproductive activities is equally educative
in respect to such young learners. Secondly, it is necessary to discover
whether (and, if yes, how much) the teacher-dependent selection (and,
subsequently, preferences) of these activities results in the form of the
learners’ output, that is, the quality of the target language of kindergarten
learners.
While analyzing the recent research carried out in the field (cf.
Manowska [22]), it was discovered that the position of a teacher appears to
be statistically important [4]. The research showed that native EFL
teachers clearly preferred language-productive activities during contacts
with kindergarten learners, in contrast to non-native teachers, who mostly
based upon language-reproductive forms. As generally known, any
language-productive form of involvement results in the growth of the
learner’s awareness of the target language. Such learners are given the
possibility of internalizing the reasons for having used a given phrase or
expression and allocating it in a specific culture-bound situation. Thus, it
can be assumed that such forms of language contact teach the learners
about the importance of their own, personal involvement in the process of
EFL discovery. In other words, the learners are being informed that they
get in touch with English neither to learn a song or be able to sing it, when
requested, nor to stage out a play, whose consecutive parts they have been
62 Krzysztof Polok

expected to memorize, so as to provide evidence to their parents that the

large sums of money spent on their language education were not spent in
vain, but in order to use speech in a suitable way to cohesively express
their personal needs of communication.
This notion, i.e. that language is the only instrument that helps people
to function in the modern world, seems to be overlooked not only by the
non-native teachers who agreed to take part in the research, but also by a
very large group of people responsible for the formation of the so-called
common understanding of kindergarten education, EFL education
included. While it is believed that kindergarten education is to be
recognized as a form of preparation of its participants to further “serious”
education in school, thus many kindergartens have been positioned as such
preparatory educational institutions. This is also how language education is
generally offered there. Having accepted a stance that kindergarten
“learners” will still have a chance for serious school-based language
education, in many cases their language acquisition is not treated seriously.
What is being stressed during such lessons is to underline the “positive”
side of a language (i.e. that one can sing a song in it, learn a poem, a
nursery rhyme, even stage out a play) and the information that this is an
instrument to be used for the purposes of personal communication is not
even included in the kindergarten syllabi. This is why many such activities
involving learning EFL in kindergartens hardly resemble the meetings
during which their participants are to be informed about the purposes they
are to meet a new language for; in contrast to what can be expected, they
are mostly kept away from any cognitively more demanding forms of
language involvement. The language they are mostly in touch with is
meant to be produced for instant reproduction, not for cognitive use.
Singing a song or reproducing a nursery rhyme are not to be recognized as
linguistic, but as fun-involving attempts, where language is predominantly
a means to have fun.
There would be nothing wrong in the very introduction of language
(English) with the help of fun-inducing activities if such activities induced
verbal or physical responses. Following Piaget [10], such holistic forms of
the discovery of the external world allow children to store knowledge
 Early Childhood Education in English? 63

about it and – with the help of their past experience – adjust it to the
currently required conditions. After all, such discoveries of the external
world performed with the help of fun-inducing situations make this world
more comprehensible and friendly for children. However, any discovery of
the world, in order to be imbibed in the children’s cognition and to
establish the correct proportions between themselves and the environment,
must be accompanied by the language that would help them to collect and
appropriately allocate the forms of discovery, on the one hand, and bring
order into their cognitive understanding of their world, on the other hand.
Strictly following Vygotsky’s [9] claims, language appears to be the most
important social construct, a bridge formed by society between the
environment and each of the members of society.
The situation looks quite clear and sensible when it is the mother
tongue that is to be analyzed from the point of view of its indispensability
in the process of one’s education about the local environment. Children
begin language and culture-based education from the very beginning of
life, and the main (as well as the most effective) teachers are the closest
members of the family. By having been exposed to the language and all
language-assisting situations, the children start recognizing the obvious
links between a phrase and a situation in which it appears. In this way,
their discovery of the world is being broadened. Not only are they able to
comprehend the situations that keep functioning in the local environment,
but they are also provided with the appropriate means that are used to
define/describe said situations.
This sensible situation changes when teaching English to kindergarten
children is observed. Preschool is where a number of techniques clearly
alien to such regular forms of language development have been introduced.
While quoting some science-based conclusions and observations, it is often
overlooked that certain techniques cannot be applied in the proposed way
due to the existence of the external conditions that make their use difficult
or impossible to comprehend. Some of such situations are: 1) an attempt to
teach English with the evident help of the children’s mother tongue, which
results in the lack of appropriate EFL expositional force of the learners; 2)
basing EFL education upon pre-planned syllabi, with the final focus upon
64 Krzysztof Polok

the achievement of the syllabus completion rather than communication

proficiency; 3) the application of many classroom techniques, often based
on the deliverance of structure-formed expressions, when teaching young
learners; 4) general acceptance of the school educational regime when
teaching English to pre-school learners; 5) commonly-observed preference
of reproductive rather than productive language introducing techniques; 6)
a general belief that, in kindergarten, EFL education is but an introduction
to further “serious” EFL teaching and learning to be taken in schools; 7)
clear preference of the authoritative (behavioral) approach to EFL
education at kindergartens.
All the issues listed above seem to be the most serious examples of
misunderstanding of what EFL education should be like. Let us have a
look at each of the issues and explain why they can be considered to be
inappropriate.

CROSS-CHECKING: WHAT HAS BEEN FOUND

AND HOW TO MEND IT

It was Rodriguez [23] who, in a very touching, but also distance-

holding essay, described his traumatic experiences when, having arrived in
the USA, he was doomed to suddenly learn that the language of his youth
was no longer to be the language he could use to formulate his thoughts
and opinions. Starting from the very first days of his schooling, he was
expected to learn the new language, which he did not understand and did
not want to accept, but also the language he had to learn due to very strong
and obvious reasons. Being an immigrant, surrounded by the world of
English-speaking people, he had no other choice nor option – he had to
learn the language of communication or perish. It took him plenty of effort
to convince himself about the inevitability of the situation he had found
himself in, but, still, he was in a much more favorable situation in
comparison to the situation many non-native learners of English encounter
– he should not worry about the level of his exposure to the language he
 Early Childhood Education in English? 65

had been expected to master; while, actually, being immersed in an

English-speaking environment, it was only a matter of time before he could
start joining the expressions to situations and, subsequently, interact with
other participants of the society he had been placed in.
The situation of a great number of EFL learners is far less lucky. Not
only has their EFL exposure been limited to the indispensable minimum by
heedless decisions of many of the educational officials, but also this
minimal amount of time is often additionally down-sized by individual
decisions of the teachers. Plenty of English lessons are being delivered in
the learners’ mother tongue, with only short breaks for the target language
lessons, mostly spent on repeating some expressions after the teacher,
learning the songs’ lyrics by heart, or doing preparations to stage a fairy
tale story. It seems obvious that, when the main language of classroom
communication is the learners’ mother tongue, the very sense of learning
the target language is weakened, up to its gradual disappearance later on.
In consequence, many of the EFL classroom participants tend to recognize
the lesson material as chunks of (pre)school knowledge that have to be
dealt with to positively pass tests.
This practice seems to be continued when kindergarten learners start
their “serious” language education in schools. Here, again they are offered
their native language as the first language of social communication, and
even some textbooks accept the two languages as means of exercise
explanation. Additionally, when the main stress is put on rigid rules of
language structure, a feeling that learning a language is similar to doing
sums at math lessons, which brings the learners to a situation where they
are to do something to satisfy their teachers and not to learn EFL for their
own individual purposes. Following one of classical theories of motivation,
offered by Alderfer [24], such learners do not experience any of the needs
mentioned by him – neither of existential, nor social or personal nature. As
the principal drive to become involved in a task is to find the reason good
enough to explain the nature of the involvement (cf. a very convincing
essay by Russell [25]), the pupils have to see why they have to feel
involved in an activity they are requested to participate in. In this way,
following Feuerstein’s stances [11], the learners have to recognize steps
66 Krzysztof Polok

inside the process of education as significant, purposeful, and possible to

be mutually accepted by them and their teachers. Williams and Burden
[26] analyze this issue in their very popular book on the psychological
aspects of the teachers’ profession. Or, else, they will not feel involved at
all.
Taking everything into account, such learners would not see the
reasons for learning another language; neither in the social perspective as
they use their mother tongue to produce messages when they wish to
communicate with their teacher and among themselves, nor in an
existential area as they can communicate in the mother tongue outside the
classroom. What such students need most of all is to be shown a valid
reason to agree that learning such a language is significant and purposeful
for the offered learning techniques to be accepted by them. Not seeing any
immediate necessity to make use of the language, as even their EFL
teacher uses the mother tongue when explaining many of the language-
connected problems, they would most probably recognize the instrumental
needs only – they would need the language to score a passing mark.
A similar situation can be observed when analyzing early childhood
education in English. When considering the general approach to EFL
education that has been attempted to be presented above and the research
recently carried out in the area (cf. Manowska’s findings [22] discussed
earlier), it can be concluded that early childhood education in English has
been approached from a point of view not really taking into account the
real needs and intellectual possibilities of said learners. There is definitely
some amount of inconsistency in the general situation in the field of global
language education. Although many people wish to know how to speak a
global language such as English, when analyzing the results of the
educational effectiveness observed here, it is easy to see that, in many
cases, the expectations of the children’s parents are quite close to
becoming a form of wishful thinking. Their small children keep attending
EFL classes held by many kindergartens, and, finally – in many cases – all
they know is how to sing some songs in English or recite a couple of
nursery rhymes. It is high time for early childhood education in English to
be reconsidered and appropriately modified. The period of the most
 Early Childhood Education in English? 67

efficient intellectual activity of children must not be undermined and/or put

aside in a carefree way, in respect to EFL education, especially as this is
the very moment they can learn the language in the most effective and
efficient way. Vygotsky’s [9] notion of ZPD is still appropriate when
requesting children to discover the forms of application of various culture-
connected forms found in the target language. The results of the Canadian
Test, carried out and described by Lambert [6], showed that moderate early
school bilingualism was possible to achieve when appropriately organized
another language (French) expository potential had been achieved. The
immersive techniques applied there can prove to be even more effective
when younger children are exposed to them.
A claim like this is based upon the forms of intellectual activities
commonly observed in children when they are confronted with the
unknown environment around them. It is in such situations that their ZPD
is put to work as they have to match the conditions they have found
themselves in. The research carried out by Michalak [27] showed that
children reacted very positively to the situation when they were immersed
in the target language. Actually, the research plan that was sketched by the
researcher assumed being with, i.e. taking care of, the kindergarten
children in the same way their mother tongue tutors were. For three
months, the children played, had fun, were given food, i.e. followed the
same daily routine they had been used to before the beginning of the
research. The only difference was that the person who was taking care of
them did not speak their mother tongue. It turned out that, after a relatively
short period of silence and distrust, most of the children quickly adjusted to
the external conditions and began repeating many of the phrases and
sentences originally used by the researcher when she was playing various
games with them. It was also found that the children who had grasped the
expressions faster, used to correct those children who still had some
problems with their proper application.
The research showed that the artificially formed external conditions,
changing the functioning of the children being researched into those that
strongly favored communication, brought forth the development of their
ZPD. The children were externally forced to do something to cope with the
68 Krzysztof Polok

situation they had found themselves in and solved it superbly. Within the
period of three months, they developed their need to communicate with
their teacher in English, which was closely consistent with the situation
described by Grosjean [7]. By means of accepting the person speaking
English in their presence, they also wanted to communicate with her in this
language. As the only way to communicate with her was to acquire the
rules and regulations found there, they learned the sentences and phrases
necessary to communicate with her. What seems to be important is that
they learned them for good – when she re-appeared in the kindergarten in
one month’s time, they started speaking to her in English using most of the
sentences, phrases, and expressions they had used when she had been their
teacher. In this way, the principal aim of the research proved that early
bilingualism is possible, but its development requires the construction of
appropriate external conditions that would be able to positively influence
the internal intellectual construction of the children’s minds. It was shown
that it is not school-like play-settings with the target language, but the
creation of communication-favoring conditions, similar to these that had
originally been formed by the children’s parents when they used to talk to
them in their mother tongue, which resulted in the creation of moderately
bilingual kindergarten children, who began using the new language for the
purposes of communication and not to reproduce some culture-connected
artefacts.
Definitely, the experiment described above was only one of the many
where early childhood education in English was investigated. In the
research carried out by Manowska [22], the general idea was to find out if
these EFL educational techniques would prove most effective in teaching
English to kindergarten learners [4]. By contrasting two generally
recognized groups of teachers employed by kindergartens – native and
non-native ones – the research was aimed at discovering both the teaching
techniques preferred by each of them and assessing their effectiveness in
respect to early childhood education in English. What was discovered
immediately – the approach to EFL education observed in the two groups
was statistically different. As the researched target language teachers – in
contrast to the group of non-native ones – mostly preferred
 Early Childhood Education in English? 69

communication-favoring techniques, it was also found that the general

approach to EFL education observed among the two contrasted groups of
teachers was clearly different. Most of non-native teachers preferred
authoritarian forms of classroom-modeled behavior. In this way, the
general teaching approach found among the target language non-native
teachers was mostly based upon various reproductive techniques, and a
general belief that such learners still have time to start learning the
language seriously, i.e. to discover its predominant structures, was more
than evidently observed. While both groups of teachers generally based
their education on fun-inducing activities, the processes of fun-distribution
and fun-connection with different educational benefits were different. The
teachers who were of the opinion that it was still too early for such young
learners to “seriously” learn the language, mostly based their lessons upon
the techniques that were meant to rise the learners’ interest in the language.
Thus, the prevailing techniques were the ones which required the use of the
learners’ memory and the application of their demonstrative abilities. They
mostly learned various songs or nursery rhymes, drew, colored pictures,
named many of the items drawn by them, listened to (and attempted to
stage) different stories, imitated, named certain forms of behavior
presented to them in short films. What is also worth remarking on is that
all these activities were often carried out with the assistance of the
children’s mother tongue; the teachers explained what they were expected
to do using the source language most of the time. In this way, as the
principal stream of conversation was performed in the children’s mother
tongue, the children were actually not informed what they needed the
target language for. The only sensible explanation they could get was that
they would need this language to effectively perform various fun-providing
activities. Small wonder, the children’s approach to the target language
was highly positive. At the same time, however, they were not informed
about the most important fact, i.e. what language is for – to organize one’s
individual interaction in life [5].
Basing on Piaget’s [10] and Zull’s [12]) thoughts, while making an
attempt to analyze a situation like this, one can assume that their general
assessment of the whole situation was that English is a language to be used
70 Krzysztof Polok

at play as the principal language used for communication remains to be

their mother tongue. One can only speculate how far their attitude to the
language can change when they have started learning the language
“seriously.”
While contrasting the results obtained by the two investigated groups
of teachers, it was found that the evident preference of productive
techniques and the creation of a number of communication-favoring
activities observed in the target language by native teachers resulted in the
creation of a totally different approach of the kindergarten pupils to the
language they got in touch with. The pupils recognized the basic reasons a
language is for and, subsequently, formed their pro-language
communication-modeling attitude. Additionally, due to the fact that the
principal language of communication was shifted toward the target
language area, the pupils recognized the importance and the
communicative potential of the language being learned by them. This is
believed to be the first step taken toward bilingualism.

IT’S HIGH TIME TO CONCLUDE

Early preschool learners are special pupils. Thus, in most cases, certain
target-language promoting techniques ought to be applied when a new
language is introduced. What appears to be of primary importance when
any such an attempt is being made is that such learners are to be
specifically informed about the principal target of language, i.e.
communication. In this way, they have to be shown that they can talk in
any language they know and that the process of message production must
follow certain culture-emerging regulations which have to be acquired by
them as a result of their constant exposure to the target language. In
contrast to older (school-age) learners, where certain elements of cognitive
teaching can be introduced, early childhood education in English is to be
based upon the principles of holistic education with special focus upon
various fun-inducing techniques. EFL learners have to be given a chance to
start recognizing the whole linguistic area in a way similar to what they did
 Early Childhood Education in English? 71

when learning their mother tongue. By means of being exposed to the

specificity of the language, they are given the possibility of finding ways
of producing messages generally accepted in the target language in
different culture-dependent situations.
EFL instruction in a kindergarten classroom, generally observed in the
process of bringing a foreign language closer to early preschool learners
can be split into two separate levels: the first one during which the learners
are to be generally acquainted with the language and the second one is
strongly based upon cognitive education in schools. It does not really help
the said learners to become better target language users. Different cultures
and languages have specific ways of expressing themselves, which are not
readily understood. Adequate linguistic skills and cultural awareness to
express a train of thought in the target language are of utmost importance.
Having accepted the stance presented above, it is necessary to
acknowledge the fact that such learners are in their prime to become
proficient EFL users if only a couple of educational rules are observed.
First of all, EFL education, when effected to early preschool learners,
is to observe a fact that there should not be any “provisional’ forms of
getting acquainted with the target language and that any EFL culture-
connected artefacts are nothing more but examples of the EFL potential in
the sphere of the target language culture and – as such – are not to be
recognized as end-products of any target language educational activity.
Instead, the learners ought to be requested to recognize the communicative
nature of the language; they should also be given a chance to produce their
messages in the language they have found themselves in. Obviously, the
nature of the messages ought to be of the quality they are able to produce,
but the necessity to communicate in the target language with the teacher
should be observed. As it is immersive conditions that are most favorable
in a situation like this, one has to take care to provide such conditions to
the learners; thus, the learners’ mother tongue is expected to be eliminated
as a means of message production, regardless of the mother tongue of the
teacher in charge of EFL education [28].
Secondly, the presentation of the new language is to be based upon the
techniques focused upon original acquisition-favoring activities, where the
72 Krzysztof Polok

learners are externally motivated to make use of their ZPD when

discovering the nature of the situation they have found themselves in. The
children have to follow the paths they took when learning their mother
tongue as it is only such forms of language-inducing behavior that will not
allow them to forget about the pragmatic aspects of the language.
Additionally, these forms of EFL education will turn the learners’ attention
to the fact that the basic communicative segment of language is a sentence,
not a word, and that they are expected to produce sentences as simple as
they can when using any language for the purposes of communication.
Finally, instead of blind acceptance of their learner-only status, such
learners are expected to be recognized as EFL learners-users [28]. The
focus of learners-users is always on the message that results from their
EFL internalized knowledge, which requires some form of linguistic
courage that finally results in the growth of their internalized EFL
potential, i.e. the one used in voluntary message production. At the same
time, learners-only are primarily afraid of not making a mistake, which
effectively influences the level of their affective factor described in detail
by Krashen [13]. In this way, the attention of EFL kindergarten learners is
expected to be focused upon the way they can communicate in the
environment, regardless of the ultimate quality of their messages. They
wish to produce a message and to send it out; they also wish to be given an
answer. Thus, they learn that the principal function of any language is to
facilitate human interaction. It is to exchange information, to learn as many
new things as possible, to be able to make use of as many cultural artefacts
as possible – just to indicate one’s current mood and/or feelings. The
sooner the learners become aware of this type of lingual interaction, the
better.

NOTES

1) It is necessary to differentiate between the terms “foreign language

learner” and “second language learner”. The first term indicates a
learner learning a foreign language in a country where there is only
 Early Childhood Education in English? 73

one official language, whereas the second one implies that the
learner, when learning another language, learns some other official
language permitted to use in a given country. In this way, a Polish
language learner when learning English learns a foreign language,
whereas a Canadian language learner when learning English learns
a second language. In this chapter, the term “foreign language
learner” would be preferred as the situation dealt with focuses
upon the language learning conditions observed in Poland and
Slovakia, but the whole situation should be looked more globally,
especially when one considers English functioning as an
international vehicle of communication.
2) Naturally, in the case of non-native teachers in charge of early
childhood education in English carried out in immersive
conditions, one has to recognize the level of teachers’ language
awareness (Andrews [18]) revealed by such teachers.
3) Following Culpeper [29], one should interpret the words uttered by
King James II when he commented on the new St. Paul’s
Cathedral, stating that it is “amusing”, “awful”, and “artificial”.
4) There is a huge difference between the two categories of learners;
the first one is normally accepted as target language culture-
dependent message producers, where the focus is put on the
quality of the message produced by each of them. At the same
time, the learners-only are always recognized as not fully able to
produce a competent message. Even when such a message has
been produced, what primarily matters is the number of mistakes
found there. A situation like this results in the appearance of a
feeling of voluntary dependence. Many of such learners fully
accept the fact that they are not truly able to produce a message
based upon their level of internalization. Thus, they wish to
produce the pieces of information they are more or less certain of,
such as macro-text information or the answers to some general
questions. Hardly ever they are willing to produce a piece of
information not fully connected with the actual lesson material,
where their actual target language potential can be assessed.
74 Krzysztof Polok

5) Manowska carried her research in Poland, but similar results were

obtained in the researches carried out in other Eastern European
countries (Papers Presented at the 12th International Conference
on Scientific and Practical Applications of the Humanities,
Samara, 2017).

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Tutoring in Problem Solving.” Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 17, no. 2 (1976): 89–100.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x
[16] Damasio, Antonio M. Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the
Human Brain. New York: Penguin, 2000.
[17] Szpotowicz, Małgorzata, and Magdalena Szulc-Kurpaska. Teaching
English to Young Learners. Warszawa: PWN, 2011.
[18] Andrews, Steven. Teacher Language Awareness. Cambridge: CUP,
2007.
[19] Duff, Tony. Explorations in Teaching Training: Problems and
Issues. Harlow: Longman, 1999.
[20] Freeman, Donald. “The Hidden Side of Work: Teacher Knowledge
and Learning to Teach.” Language Teaching 35, no. 1 (2002): 1–13.
doi: 10.1017/S0261444801001720.
[21] Woods, Devon. Teacher Cognition in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
76 Krzysztof Polok

[22] Manowska, Martyna. “Stressing Pre-school Children FL (English)

Effectiveness. A Comparative Study.” BA diss., University of
Bielsko-Biala, 2014.
[23] Rodriguez, Richard. “Caught Between Two Languages”. In
Language Awareness, edited by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and
Virginia Clark, 97–104. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1990.
[24] Alderfer, Clayton P. Existence, Relatedness, and Growth; Human
Needs in Organizational Settings. New York: Free Press, 1972.
[25] Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. London: OUP, 1912.
[26] Williams, Marion, and Robert Burden. Psychology for Language
Teachers: A Social Constructivist Approach. Cambridge: CUP, 2005.
[27] Michalak, Joanna. “The Road to the Production of Bilingual
Children: Teaching English with the Help of the Immersion Method.”
BA diss., University of Bielsko-Biala, 2013.
[28] Byers-Heinlein, Krista, and Casey Lew-Williams. “Bilingualism in
the Early Years. What the Science Says.” LEARNing Landscapes
Journal, no. 1 (2013): 95–112. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pubmed/30288204
[29] Culpeper, Jonathan. History of English. London and New York:
Routledge, 1999.
In: Teaching English ISBN: 978-1-53616-168-7
Editor: Astrida Skrinda © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 3

EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF STUDY LEVEL

AND SPECIALIZATION AREA
ON WHAT ENGLISH STUDIES MAJORS
IN POLAND THINK ABOUT THEIR TARGET
LANGUAGE CULTURAL EDUCATION

Tatiana Szczygłowska*
Institute of Neophilology, University of Bielsko-Biala,
Bielsko-Biała, Poland

ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the effect of study level and specialization area
on the attitudes and preferences of English majors regarding their target
language (TL) cultural education. In particular, the paper reports on the
opinions of one hundred eighty students majoring in English at the
University of Bielsko-Biala in Poland about four aspects of learning TL
culture: their beliefs and expectations in this respect, their conception of

*
Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].
78 Tatiana Szczygłowska

culture, and their preferences with regard to the specific TL cultural

elements they wish to learn about and the ways in which to learn these.
The overall conclusion is that both study level and specialization area
inform the research participants’ views on their cultural education in
English as the TL contexts, though the nature and scope of the influence
that each of them exerts is somewhat different. It thus seems that both
variables may be of importance for the future planning of the students’
cultural curriculum.

Keywords: culture, cultural education, cultural elements, English studies

majors, specialization area, study level, target language

INTRODUCTION

Culture is a hotly debated concept in the field of English as a second

language (ESL) teaching and learning as “understanding a language
involves not only knowledge of grammar, phonology and lexis but also
certain features and characteristics of the culture”.1 Researchers, such as
Kramsch [2], Brown [3], and Nieto [4], stress the interdependence of
language and culture learning, claiming that it is hardly possible to grasp a
second language (L2) without first grasping its culture and that it is equally
impossible to grasp a culture outside of its linguistic context. Indeed,
“language and culture are not separable, but are acquired together, with
each providing support for the development of the other”.2 This idea is also
given official recognition by educational bodies (for instance, the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) [6]), which
argue that the essence of second language learning is constituted by “the
cultures expressed through that language”.3
Yet, the general notion of teaching the target language (TL) culture has
undergone many changes over the years, and various theories have been

1
Ismail Cakir, “Developing Cultural Awareness in Foreign Language Teaching,” Turkish Online
Journal of Distance Education 7, no. 3 (2006): 154.
2
Rosamond Mitchell, and Florence Myles, Second Language Learning Theories (London:
Hodder Arnold, 2004), 235.
3
Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (Yonkers, New York: Author,
1999), 43.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 79

developed about the key concept of culture and the actual practice of
culture teaching. An interesting literature review of these issues, which
concentrates on ESL teaching, can be found in Meadows [8]. The first time
period the report focuses on is the decade of the 1960s, during which an
emphasis was put on differentiating between “big C” culture, linked with
aspects of aesthetics, and “little c” culture, linked with everyday matters.
Analogies were drawn with linguistic systems, and culture was seen as a
nationalized combination of shared and learned behavior (see, for instance,
the definition of culture by Trager [9]). Priority was given to L2 learning
goals, and culture teaching largely revolved around the elements of “little
c” culture, which learners were supposed to observe rather than assimilate.
This latter trend was topical also in the 1970s, similarly as anthropological
interpretations of culture as well as the concept of culture as a nationalized
phenomenon (see Nabanan [10]). An important development in culture
learning was assigning L2 learners the role of interpreters, whose main task
was to develop communicative competence, a precursor of what is
currently termed as intercultural competence.
In the 1980s, many of the previously developed conceptions still
remained the focus of researchers’ attention. During that period, emphasis
was also put on cultural relativity (see, for instance, Alptekin and Alptekin
[11]), the importance of cultural context and cultural frames for the
perception and interpretation of experience. Culture was seen as being
simultaneously objective and subjective in its nature. Debate also
continued about the legitimacy of incorporating culture objectives into L2
teaching. The main novelty at the time was a shift from developing in
learners a predetermined awareness of particular cultural settings to
preparing them for unfamiliar cultural settings. This culture-general
orientation was a prelude to intercultural competence, seen as “a set of
general skills, attitudes, and knowledge that allows students to quickly
recognize cultural patterns in unfamiliar settings and to effectively
navigate them”.4 Another important discussion in the 1980s centered on the
question of whose cultural experiences should be taken as the primary

4
Bryan Meadows, “Culture Teaching in Historical Review: On the Occasion of ASOCOPI’s
Fiftieth Anniversary,” HOW 23, no. 2 (2016): 155.
80 Tatiana Szczygłowska

source of cultural content in English language classrooms, which remains a

topical issue also today.
During the 1990s, the concept of culture was seen from the angle of
poststructuralist theories and was no longer perceived as static, internally
coherent and objective, but rather as dynamic, fluid, and a subjective form
of social practice. Doubts were also expressed as to whether British,
Australian, North American (BANA) cultural models should dominate in
culture teaching in English language classes. There was a departure from
teaching clearly-defined cultural content in favor of developing a more
general model of intercultural communicative competence, in the context
of which culture was defined as “membership in a discourse community
that shares a common social space and history, and common imaginings”.5
Learners were supposed to mediate across different cultural perspectives,
being aware of and able to recognize other contexts and their meanings.
In the 2000s, the poststructuralist perspective on culture was further
developed, and the concept itself was problematized by extending its
definition to include such notions as diversification, meaning-making
properties, cultural global flows. The content for culture teaching in the
context of ESL learning rested in the notion of intercultural communicative
competence, and even more global approaches were gradually developed,
including English as an International Language (EIL), World Englishes
(WE), and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Learners were supposed to
become intercultural speakers endowed with “the ability to mediate
between cultures in a nonnative language, i.e. the ability to move toward
an interspace or a third culture”,6 understood as a space between one’s own
and the TL culture [13].
Currently – that is, in the 2010s – the notion of culture is becoming
even more complex than before as scholars add further layers to the
already profound research legacy from previous decades. This complexity
is also partly due to a shift away from traditional, static, nationalized
conceptions of culture toward the idea that culture is, indeed, linked with

5
Claire Kramsch, Language and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998a), 10.
6
Niina Hynninen, “Cultural Discourses in CEF: How do They Relate to ELF?” (MA diss.,
University of Helsinki, 2006), 12.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 81

language albeit not always irrevocably, therefore the question of what

should constitute the content of culture teaching should be resolved in local
settings, simultaneously bearing an intercultural orientation in mind.
Culture is no longer tied to a specific group of people, and, thus, it seems
less predictable and controllable. It is now rather seen as “context-
dependent, defined according to diverse subjectivities, mobile, and ever-
changing”. 7 This, however, poses problems for cultural education in
English as the TL contexts, largely because English has now become an
international language, the lingua franca of the world. Its users derive from
a global community, encompassing native speakers of English but also of a
wide range of other mother tongues, and, therefore, it is no longer
exclusively tied to native English-speaking cultures.
In view of the above, the relation between culture and teaching and
learning English as the TL should be constantly reconsidered as culture
learning is “a dynamic, developmental, and ongoing process which
engages the learner cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively”. 8 This,
however, raises important questions, such as which and whose culture to
teach, what methods to use, how comprehensive cultural knowledge should
be. To address these concerns, researchers often focus on theoretical
frameworks for incorporating culture in foreign language learning
methodologies (for an overview, see Paige [14]; Byram and Feng [15]) and
on teachers’ views on teaching culture (see, for instance, Nieżegorodcew
[16]; Jedynak [17]). The cultural needs of ESL learners, especially in
specific countries’ tertiary education contexts, seem to be investigated less
readily. Notable recent exceptions centered on English as the TL include
Tseng’s [18] study of Taiwanese students of English as a foreign language,
the results of which indicated a strong correlation between the learners’
English proficiency levels and their attitudes toward TL culture. In another
study, Çalışkan [19] investigated the attitudes of English preparatory
students in Turkey toward learning the TL in English language classes and
discovered that positive attitudes toward learning the TL culture dominated
7
Meadows, Culture Teaching, 163.
8
Michael R. Paige, Helen Jorstad, Laura Siaya, Francine Klein, and Jeanette Colby, “Culture
Learning in Language Education: A Review of the Literature,” accessed September 18, 2018,
http://carla.umn.edu/culture/resources/litreview.pdf, 4.
82 Tatiana Szczygłowska

among females and young learners. It is also worth mentioning

Kahraman’s [20] exploration of teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of
culture and culture teaching and learning in Turkey, which revealed a
growing interest of both parties in TL cultural matters and their positive
attitudes toward the cultures of English speaking countries.
To add a Polish perspective to the above research projects, the present
paper reports the findings of a study undertaken to investigate English
majors’ attitudes and preferences related to various aspects of learning TL
culture with the aim of determining if the study level and specialization
area have any influence on their opinions. The relevance of this
investigation lies in the fact that, until now, the learners’ level of education
and, even more so, their main field of study seem to have been largely
unattended in research on the role of cultural education in English as the
TL contexts. Still, it is worth recognizing that “particular learner variables
(...) might enhance or hinder progress in learning another language,” 9
which, as Cutshall [22] claims, “is synonymous with the study of another
culture”. 10 The study also attempts to fill a research gap in the current
literature when it comes to what Polish prospective teachers and translators
majoring in English think of their TL cultural education. As suggested by
Lis-Lemańska [23], such concerns should be of interest considering that
Departments of English are “one of the most popular philological
departments in Poland nowadays”, 11 and yet the cultural content of
the study programs largely concentrates in the UK and the USA. 12

9
Carisma Dreyer, and Johann L. van der Walt, “The Significance of Learner Variables as
Predictors of ESL Proficiency,” Studia Anglica Posnaniensia XXIX (1995): 91.
10
Sandy Cutshall, “More Than a Decade of Standards: Integrating ‘Cultures’ in Your Language
Instruction,” The Language Educator 7, no. 3 (2012): 32.
11
Izabela Lis-Lemańska, “A Model of Training Translators/Interpreters at Academic Level in
Poland in the Light of the Research Conducted and the Latest Legal Regulations,” in
Correspondences and Contrasts in Foreign Language Pedagogy and Translation Studies, ed.
Katarzyna Piątkowska, and Ewa Kościałowska-Okońska (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag,
2013), 276.
12
See, for instance, the websites of the following major universities in Poland as: University of
Warsaw (http://www.ia.uw.edu.pl/dla-studentow/programy-studiow-i-regulaminy; accessed
March 22, 2019), Jagiellonian University in Cracow (http://www.ifa.filg.uj.edu.pl/program-
studiow1, http://www.ifa.filg.uj.edu.pl/program-studiow2; accessed March 22, 2019), Adam
Mickiewicz University in Poznań (http://wa.amu.edu.pl/wa/en/general_information_index;
accessed March 22, 2019), University of Wrocław (http://ifa.uni.wroc.pl/studia/stacjonarne/
program/?lang=pl; accessed March 22, 2019).
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 83

Unfortunately, Byram et al. [24] suggest that this may hinder the students’
cultural awareness in English as the TL contexts, making them more
willing to “model themselves on native speakers with respect to the
learning about and acquiring an understanding of another culture”.13
Overall, it is hoped that the study results will help to make further
curriculum planning more in line with student beliefs and expectations
concerning their cultural education in English as the TL contexts. This
becomes even more important considering that when it comes to the
professional competences of foreign language teachers in Poland, the
cultural component seems to be more explicitly utilized at philological
departments other than English [25]. Derenowski [26] also claims that “the
cultural component is rarely present in most of the European training
models”, 14 aimed at prospective teachers of English, which may lead to
insufficient knowledge of the cultural matters of potential English
interlocutors. Unfortunately, no such data are available for translator
trainees. Such gaps should be diagnosed, particularly in the context of
Polish tertiary education, which according to Reichelt [27], is considered to
be in need of “catch[ing] up with other European countries that have
stronger traditions of English-language teaching”.15

CULTURAL EDUCATION IN ENGLISH

AS THE TL CONTEXTS

As already indicated in the introduction and further stressed by Payne

[28], culture is an elusive concept, “a term of virtually limitless
application, which initially may be understood to refer to everything that is

13
Michael Byram, Adam Nichols, and David Stevens, “Introduction,” in Developing
Intercultural Competence in Practice, ed. Michael Byram, Adam Nichols, and David Stevens
(Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2001), 5.
14
Marek Derenowski, Teaching Culture in the FL Senior High School (Poznań: Wydawnictwo
Naukowe UAM, 2015), 63.
15
Melinda Reichelt, “English-Language Writing Instruction in Poland,” Journal of Second
Language Writing 7 (2005): 216.
84 Tatiana Szczygłowska

produced by human beings as distinct from all that is a part of nature”.16 A

quick scan of the definitions of culture gathered by Derenowski [26]
reveals that the concept includes visible aspects, such as food, religion, and
poems, and those which are invisible aspects, such as attitudes,
perceptions, and relationships. The numerous shades of meaning of the
discussed term have been encapsulated by Jandt [29] as the “sum total of
ways of living, including behavioral norms, linguistic expression, styles of
communication, patterns of thinking, and beliefs and values of a group
large enough to be self-sustaining transmitted over the course of
generations”.17 It thus seems that the concept encompasses some popular,
easy to understand aspects of low culture as well as the more refined and
intellectually challenging achievements of high culture, as defined in the
1960s literature on culture teaching in English language education. Yet, as
Brown [3] argues, “the most visible and available expression of (...)
culture”18 is language, and therefore “the acquisition of a second language
(...) is also the acquisition of a second culture”.19
The reasons for which TL culture is taught in L2 classes are indeed
numerous. Each language is located within the cultural context in which it
is used, and, thus, the interpretation of meanings it communicates is made
with a view to the cultural practices surrounding it, some of which also
generate the need for a linguistic interaction. Therefore, as Kumarava-
divelu [30] suggests, an ability should be developed in learners to use
the TL “in culturally appropriate ways for the specific purpose of
empathizing and interacting with native speakers of the target language”.20
Unfortunately, this becomes problematic when it comes to English, which
nowadays has the status of an international language and has therefore
acquired new functions to satisfy the needs of users who come from
different lingua-cultural backgrounds. In this context, the concept of target
culture is challenged in debates addressing the question as to which

16
Michael Payne, “Culture,” in A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory, ed. Michael Payne,
and Jessica R. Barbera (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 168.
17
Fred E. Jandt, Intercultural Communication: An Introduction, (London: Sage, 2004), 499.
18
Brown, Principles of Language, 175.
19
Ibid., 190.
20
B. Kumaravadivelu, Cultural Globalization and Language Education (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2008), 114.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 85

culture(s) to teach and learn – those of the native speakers’, whose

universe is no longer considered as the absolute frame of reference, or
“those of the speakers of World Englishes”,21 whose cultural backgrounds
are indeed diverse [31]. Thus, it may be no longer relevant to teach/learn
about British or American culture, that is the culture of, respectively, the
UK and the USA, as such concepts seem not to be valid any more,
similarly as Kramsch’s [32] idea of “the notion: one native speaker, one
language, one national culture”. 22 Therefore, a solution that is worth
considering involves a diversification of cultural content in English as a
foreign language education to include a variety of world cultures, but still
the concern remains that it is impossible to teach/learn about the cultures of
all those who speak English in today’s globalized reality.
The above concerns can be partly resolved by adjusting the goals of
culture teaching to the direct context and individual needs of actual
learners of English. Such more detailed goals may include the ones listed
by Hammerly [33], who concentrates on cross-cultural differences, which,
unfortunately, are difficult to explore in ELF contexts, and on developing
an awareness of various aspects of the target culture and its characteristics
(for instance, knowledge of the cultural connotations of vocabulary items,
interest in, empathy toward, and understanding of the TL culture).
Similarly, the objectives mentioned by Tomalin and Stempleski [35] also
revolve around the issues proposed by Hammerly and additionally include
the stimulation of learners’ interest in the target culture and development
of an awareness of the fact that social variables affect culture-specific
communication and behavior. Yet, it seems that even more important in
English as the TL contexts is to perceive the notion of target culture in
terms that are somehow linked with the learners’ prospective interlocutors
whose identity does not have to be epitomised as native speaker-like. This,

21
Ngoc Ba Doan, “Teaching the Target Culture in English Teacher Education Programs: Issues
of EIL in Vietnam,” in The Pedagogy of English as an International Language Perspectives
from Scholars, Teachers, and Students, ed. Roby Marlina, and Ram Ashish Giri (Berlin,
Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2014), 79.
22
Claire Kramsch, “The Privilege of the Intercultural Speaker,” in Language Learning in
Intercultural Perspective: Approaches Through Drama and Enthography, ed. Michael Byram,
and Michael Fleming (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998b), 26.
86 Tatiana Szczygłowska

in turn, takes us back to the necessity of recognizing English learners’

conceptions in this respect.
Unfortunately, the type of cultural understanding that is aimed for by
TL culture teaching goals is not always consistent with what learners
themselves consider to be important aspects of learning the target culture.
Some may wish to engage with other cultures and their representatives “to
be able to interact and communicate” with them “both effectively and
appropriately”, 23 with the intention of widening their own knowledge
horizons or, alternatively, to pursue private aims, such as living or working
in the context of that culture, be it abroad or in the home country [34].
Others may prefer to retain their native culture and language so as to keep
a distinct cultural identity and still be able to “gain an understanding of the
native speaker’s perspective”. 24 This may possibly be the case as most
international teaching materials offered to learners of English as the TL
show a definite bias toward British or American culture, which, as
indicated in the Introduction, is also true about the study programs for
English majors in Poland (see Clandfield [37]; Derenowski [26]). Yet
others may wish to remain open to the cultural diversity of English
speakers and thus develop what Baraldi [38] defines as “intercultural
sensitivity, which is the ability to understand and perform appropriate
actions in intercultural situations”. 25 All of the above may be achieved,
though possibly by employing diverse culture teaching techniques, a
comprehensive overview of which has been provided, for instance, by
Bandura [39] and Derenowski [26]. Those who opt for cultural
assimilation or integration may seek face-to-face encounters with
everything that constitutes part of the target culture, especially if these can
be experienced under real-life conditions. The ones who are more
ethnocentric in their approach may wish to adopt the role of an observer
who is more distanced from the TL culture and rather admires its contents

23
Patrick R. Moran, Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice (Boston MA: Heinle & Heinle,
2001), 111.
24
Hans H. Stern, Issues and Options in Language Teaching (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1992), 216.
25
Claudio Baraldi, Dialogue in Intercultural Communities: From an Educational Point of View
(Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2009), 11.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 87

than engages directly with them. Finally, those who prefer intercultural
awareness may choose to explore the similarities and differences between a
variety of cultures and then base their communicative encounters on this
knowledge.
There also arises the question of which TL cultural elements should be
presented to the learners. The literature in the field abounds with relevant
lists of topics that potentially could become part of a cultural syllabus.
Depending on the scholar, such lists are either very long, which is the case
with Brooks’ [40] proposal encompassing sixty-two topics, the majority of
which are linked with the daily life of the TL country (for instance,
greetings, folklore, hobbies, meals) or Chastain’s [41] inventory of thirty-
seven topics motivated by an anthropological and cross-cultural
perspective (for instance, family, religion, clothes, non-verbal
communication). Alternatively, lists may also be quite short, such as the
one proposed by Stern [36], who mentions only six main categories (for
instance, individuals and their way of life, society, institutions, art), or the
one provided in the CEFR [6] that offers seven categories (for instance,
interpersonal relations, values, everyday living, beliefs). In view of this,
the choice of the TL cultural elements that are to be analysed in a study
such as the present one is quite problematic and may be seen by some as
arbitrary. Usually, it is also limited by the scope of the investigation and
the impossibility of considering all cultural topics that an average student
majoring in English might be interested in.

THE STUDY

The present study is an offshoot of an earlier analysis of English

majors’ opinions on their TL cultural education that was conducted in a
Polish university context (see Szczygłowska [42]). However, conversely to
the previous investigation, which explored the effect of gender on the
students’ perceptions in this respect, here the focus is on whether and,
possibly, to what extent, their views are affected by the study level
(bachelors vs. masters) and specialization area (teachers vs. translators).
88 Tatiana Szczygłowska

Both studies follow the same methodological framework, but they address
different research purposes, which constitutes the main novelty of the
current work and its findings. In essence, the study investigates the impact
of the above two variables on how the surveyed students perceive the
following aspects of cultural education in English as the TL contexts:

(1) their conception of culture with reference to English as the TL;

(2) their beliefs and expectations about learning TL culture;
(3) their preferences for learning about different TL cultural elements;
(4) their preferences for various ways of learning TL culture.

The selection of the students’ specialization area as a variable of

interest was based on the assumption that the differing professional
purposes for which English is studied may have an impact on the data.
Indeed, as Freund et al. [43] suggest, “personal goals guide behavior
toward a desired outcome, motivate behavior over time and across
situations, provide direction and meaning, and contribute to the acquisition
of skills”. 26 Moreover, the variable seems relatively unpopular in the
research into learners’ preferences regarding learning TL culture, which
indeed makes any insight into this issue revealing as well as relevant.
There have been studies which focused on gender differences in learners’
attitudes to their cultural education in English as the TL contexts (for
instance, see Kahraman [20]; Çalışkan [19]; Szczygłowska [42]), but, to
the best of our knowledge, no other studies have investigated the impact of
students’ specialization area on these issues. In the present analysis, the
focus is specifically on the teacher versus translator specialization
dichotomy, since these are the two major fields of study that are offered to
the students of English at the university from which the respondents were
recruited. They also happen to be the most popular specializations
available to English majors at the main universities in Poland.

26
Alexandra M. Freund, Marie Hennecke, and Maida Mustafić, “On Gains and Losses, Means
and Ends: Goal Orientation and Goal Focus Across Adulthood,” in The Oxford Handbook of
Human Motivation, ed. Richard M. Ryan (Oxford: OUP, 2012), 281.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 89

In turn, the connection between the students’ level of education and

their TL cultural education results from the fact that “educational
experience, possibly also because it increases with the students’ age and
thus self-awareness, influences foreign language learning and performance
expectations”27 as well as its components, including the teaching of culture
[44]. Alptekin [45], for instance, suggests that learners who are taught TL
culture have to deal with a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary and cultural items,
which may actually hinder their understanding of an L2 and bias them
against learning it. This, in turn, seems to be gradually compensated for as
the students develop their foreign language proficiency.

Participants

The participants were one hundred eighty full-time students majoring

in English at the University of Bielsko-Biala in Poland who had already
completed courses in the culture, history and literature of the UK and the
USA (around three hundred hours at the bachelor’s degree level and
around one hundred sixty hours at the master’s degree level).

Table 1. Distribution of participants by the specialization

and study level

Specialization Total
Translators Teachers
Study Bachelor’s 37 68 105 (58.33%)
level Master’s 46 29 75 (41.67%)
Total 83 (46.11%) 97 (53.89%) 180 (100%)

Seventy-five students were enrolled in a two-year master’s program

and one hundred five students – in a three-year bachelor’s program,
excluding the bachelor’s degree students, who had not yet declared their

27
Tatiana Szczygłowska, “Advanced Learners Attitudes towards Their Target Language
Pronunciation: A Study with Polish Students of English,” Linguistica Silesiana 38 (2017):
377.
90 Tatiana Szczygłowska

specialization. Regarding their level of proficiency, the bachelor’s degree

students had reached B2 English level or higher (i.e. approaching C1) of
the CEFR [6], whereas the master’s degree students’ proficiency oscillated
between C1 English level and C2 English level, as evidenced by their
practical English exam results passed after completing each year of studies.
When the study was conducted, one hundred sixty-nine of the students
were aged twenty–twenty-five, and eleven were aged twenty-six and
above. There were one hundred twenty-nine females and fifty-one males.
The relevant details of the participants are provided in Table 1.

Data Collection Instrument and Procedure

The data were collected by means of a twenty-minute questionnaire in

English, previously used by Szczygłowska [42] in her study of the impact
of gender on the students’ views on their TL cultural education. The
introductory section elicited the participants’ bio data, which was followed
by the main survey questions. Part A elicited the students’ conception of
culture, both in general terms and with reference to English (two items).
Part B elicited their personal beliefs and expectations about learning TL
culture (ten items). Part C asked about their preferences when it comes to
learning specific TL cultural elements (twenty-seven items). The decision
which cultural elements to include was made after consulting relevant
literature, including Brooks [40], Chastain [41], Stern [36], CEFR [6], and
Komorowska’s [46] discussion of the problems encountered in this respect
by decision makers in education and Moran’s [34] claim about
“five dimensions to all cultural phenomena”. 28 Part D addressed their
preferences for various ways of learning TL culture (twelve items).
To tap into the students’ opinions, they were provided in Part A with
three response alternatives for the first item (i.e. mainly with HIGH culture,
mainly with LOW culture, with both HIGH and LOW culture) and six for the
second (i.e. American, Australian, British, Canadian, Canadian, Other).

28
Moran, Teaching Culture: Perspectives, 25.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 91

Yet, since the current study focuses on cultural education in the context of
English as the TL, students’ responses to the first item are not analysed
here. The rest of the questionnaire was constituted by five-point Likert-
scale items. In Parts B and D, the items elicited the levels of
(dis)agreement through ratings from 5 – strongly agree to 1 – strongly
disagree. In part C, the items followed a forced choice scale ranging from 5
– very important to 1 – not important, since the analyzed cultural elements
are part of the curriculum, which forces the students to adopt a definite
attitude to them.
In line with the research questions, the questionnaire results were
analyzed with regard to the number of students choosing a specific answer
in relation to their study level and specialization area. For each item,
frequency counts and percentages were computed and, if applicable, mean
(M) and standard deviation (SD). As for the Likert-scale responses, they
were collapsed into three categories (i.e. 1/2, 3, 4/5) to limit the mass of
data subjected to analysis. The significance of between-group differences
was estimated using two-sample Welch’s unequal variances t-test (α =
0.05). To show the actual difference between compared groups of students,
Cohen’s d was used as a measure of effect size, which was interpreted
according to the reference values recommended by Hattie [47] for
education: d = 0.2 small, 0.4 medium, 0.6 large.

RESULTS

In the following sections, the students’ responses are reported in the

form of numerical values calculated for the whole sample and separately
for the grouping variables. For convenience, the items in Parts B, C, and D
have been arranged in descending order of total mean value.
92 Tatiana Szczygłowska

Students’ Conception of Culture

Part A aimed to reveal the students’ conception of culture with

reference to English as the TL. Table 2 presents the percentages of
responses to the relevant multiple-choice question.
As illustrated in Table 2, British culture was pointed to the most often
in the entire sample, followed by American culture. The other cultures of
the L1 English-speaking world were almost totally absent from the
students’ responses. This suggests the participants’ heavy reliance on the
cultural model that gave rise to the Anglo-Saxon world and its values.
Breaking down the data for the grouping variables, major differences can
be noticed across specializations, with teacher trainees being significantly
more in favor of British culture than translator trainees [t(95) = 2.046, p =
0.043, d = 0.44]. Also, a significantly larger proportion of translator than
teacher trainees chose American culture as the primary one of the English-
speaking world [t(95) = 2.778, p = 0.007, d = 0.58]. Comparing the study
levels, the differences were less sharp and statistically insignificant.

Table 2. Students’ choice of the main culture of the English as the first
language (L1) speaking world

Which of the following do you consider as the primary culture of the L1 English-
speaking world, one you believe you should learn in English classes?
Variable Bachelor’s Master’s Teachers Translators Total
American 17.15% 20% 8.25% 30.12% 18.88%
British 80% 73.34% 85.57% 67.47% 76.59%
Irish 1.9% --- 2.06% --- 0.99%
Australian,
Canadian --- --- --- --- ---
Other
British
British and
and British and
British and American
American British and American 
American   3.09%
mixed  5.33% American  2.95%
0.95% British and
British 2.41% British and
Irish 
and Irish Irish  0.59%
1.03%
 1.33%
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 93

Students’ Beliefs about and Expectations

of Learning TL Culture

Part B investigated the students’ beliefs (Q3 to Q8) and expectations

(Q1, Q2, Q9, Q10) as regards the learning of TL culture. Tables 3 and 4
present the percentages of responses in the ‘agree’ (A), ‘undecided’ (U)
and ‘disagree’ (D) categories.

Table 3. Students’ beliefs about learning TL culture

Item Variable D (%) U (%) A (%) M SD

5) Cultural awareness is Bachelor’s 7.62 20 72.38 3.88 0.85
necessary for communicative Master’s 1.33 5.33 93.34 4.32 0.64
competence in the TL Teachers 6.18 14.43 79.39 4.02 0.82
M = 4.06 SD = 0.80 Translators 3.61 13.25 83.14 4.12 0.77
4) Learning the target culture Bachelor’s 14.28 17.15 68.57 3.75 1.03
is an indispensable part of Master’s 6.67 8 85.33 4.24 0.86
learning the TL Teachers 9.28 15.46 75.26 3.90 0.97
M = 3.96 SD = 0.99 Translators 13.25 10.84 75.91 3.97 0.99
7) The more I know about the Bachelor’s 11.43 20.95 67.62 3.76 0.99
target culture, the better I Master’s 5.33 22.67 72 3.93 0.84
become in the TL Teachers 8.25 24.74 67.01 3.80 0.90
M = 3.83 SD = 0.93 Translators 9.64 18.07 72.29 3.86 0.97
8) You cannot become Bachelor’s 14.28 22.86 62.86 3.70 1.05
proficient in the TL without Master’s 17.33 14.67 68 3.73 1.04
learning about its culture Teachers 19.59 18.56 61.85 3.59 1.05
M = 3.71 SD = 1.04 Translators 10.84 20.48 68.68 3.85 1.02
6) The more I work on Bachelor’s 18.09 25.72 56.19 3.55 1.09
developing the knowledge of Master’s 5.33 26.67 68 3.88 0.85
the target culture, the more I Teachers 13.4 26.8 59.8 3.69 1.00
want to learn the language Translators 12.05 25.3 62.65 3.68 1.02
M = 3.68 SD = 1.00
3) Learning the target culture Bachelor’s 80 15.24 4.76 1.84 0.91
negatively influences my Master’s 90.67 2.67 6.66 1.55 0.84
perception of my own culture Teachers 88.66 9.28 2.06 1.60 0.74
M = 1.72 SD = 0.90 Translators 79.52 10.84 9.64 1.85 1.03

As illustrated in Table 3, the students believe that cultural awareness is

essential for good communicative competence in the studied language (Q
94 Tatiana Szczygłowska

5) and that learning the TL is inextricably linked with discovering its

culture (Q 4). Yet, they are also quite convinced that one’s competence in
the TL improves proportionally to the development of their knowledge of
the target culture (Q 7) and that full mastery of the TL is possible only
when learning about its culture (Q 8). The students are almost equally
willing to declare that they feel more motivated to learn the TL when they
devote more attention to its culture (Q 6). Yet, the majority definitely
disagree that learning the target culture has a damaging effect on the sense
of their own culture (Q 3).
Across the levels of study, the mean values reveal that only the belief
that learning the TL culture has a negative effect on the perception of one’s
own culture (Q 3) was more popular among the bachelor’s than master’s
degree students. The difference was statistically significant for this very
item [t(166) = 2.2052, p = 0.0288, d = 0.33], for Q 4 [t(173) = 3.4678,
p < 0.0007, d = 0.51], for Q 5 [t(177) = 3.9605, p < 0.0001, d = 0.58], and
for Q 6 [t(176) = 2.2800, p = 0.0238, d = 0.33], but proved insignificant for
questions Q 7 and Q 8.
Comparing majors, almost all the beliefs were stronger among
translator than teacher trainees, which according to Ciprianová [48], is not
surprising as “the translator’s role has been widened to include mediation
between the source and target language culture”.29 The only exception was
the conviction that motivation to learn TL increases the more one works on
developing the knowledge of its culture (Q 6), which met with almost the
same enthusiasm of both groups. Yet, the differences proved insignificant,
though a statistical trend was observed for Q 8 [t(175) = 1.6818, p =
0.0944, d = 0.25] and Q 3 [t(146) = 1.8417, p = 0.0676, d = 0.27].
As illustrated in Table 4, the students generally expect to widen their
knowledge of the culture(s) of the studied language (Q 1). This is
reinforced by the fairly low results for Q 2, which reveal a lack of belief in
the devoting of attention solely to the TL without considering its culture.
Quite a few students also agree with the proposition that a native teacher

29
Elena Ciprianová, “Developing Intercultural Competence as Part of Translator Training,” ARS
AETERNA – Creativity and Cultural Awareness in Foreign Language Teaching 4, no. 1
(2012): 7.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 95

would better motivate them to study the target culture (Q 9), yet they are
dissatisfied with the amount of TL cultural knowledge provided in the
course of studies (Q 10), which proves that there is some discrepancy
between the cultural content of the study programs and their expectations
in this respect.

Table 4. Students’ expectations about learning TL culture

Item Variable D (%) U (%) A (%) M SD

1) I would like to broaden Bachelor’s 0.95 20.95 78.1 4.09 0.75
my knowledge of the Master’s 2.67 6.66 90.67 4.37 0.73
culture(s) of English- Teachers 1.03 15.46 83.51 4.21 0.73
speaking countries Translators 2.41 14.46 83.13 4.16 0.76
M = 4.21 SD = 0.75
9) A native teacher would Bachelor’s 7.62 20 72.38 3.91 0.97
better motivate me to learn Master’s 6.67 29.33 64 3.83 0.89
the target culture Teachers 5.15 23.71 71.14 3.93 0.88
M = 3.87 SD = 0.93 Translators 9.64 24.1 66.26 3.80 0.99
10) I’m generally satisfied Bachelor’s 19.04 31.43 49.53 3.34 0.89
with the amount and Master’s 49.34 25.33 25.33 2.72 0.98
selection of target culture Teachers 27.83 25.77 46.4 3.16 0.98
aspects I learn in my Translators 32.53 32.53 43.94 3.06 0.96
English classes
M = 3.08 SD = 0.97
2) I just want to learn the Bachelor’s 66.67 14.29 19.04 2.32 1.13
TL without bothering
myself with its culture
M = 2.06 SD = 1.08

Across the levels of study, the mean values indicate that only the desire
to broaden L2 cultural knowledge (Q 1) was more widespread among the
master’s than bachelor’s degree students. Still, these differences were
statistically significant only for the mentioned item [t(162) = 2.5082, p =
0.0131, d = 0.37], Q 10 [t(149) = 4.3463, p < 0.0001, d = 0.66] and Q 2
[t(176) = 4.2013, p < 0.0001, d = 0.62]. Across specializations, agreement
with all the items was more widespread among prospective teachers, which
nevertheless proved statistically insignificant.
Generally, the results in Part B indicate that the differences in the
students’ beliefs and expectations about learning TL culture were more
96 Tatiana Szczygłowska

profound across the levels of study. In the case of both the bachelor’s and
master’s degree students, as many as seven of the differences achieved
statistical significance, with effect sizes varying in strength from almost
medium – three cases, through almost large – two cases, to large – two
cases. Also, the master’s degree students’ responses to the items were the
most consistent as their values of standard deviation exceeded 1.00 only
for Q 8, whereas in the case of the bachelor’s degree students, comparably
low standard deviation values were observed only for six items. The
master’s degree students were also the most unequivocal among our
respondents, since, in the case of as many as seven items, they constituted
the smallest percentage of those who were “undecided”.

Students’ Preferences for Learning about Selected TL Cultural

Elements

Part C aimed to identify the students’ favorite TL cultural aspects.

Tables 5, 6, and 7, in which the items were arranged in descending order
of mean responses, present the percentages of responses in the ‘important’
(I), ‘moderately important’ (MI) and ‘unimportant’ (U) categories.
As illustrated in Table 5, the students are particularly enthusiastic
about linguistic aspects, details of everyday life, rules of behavior, national
habits, and the like. Values and beliefs, social problems, and geography are
considered a bit less important.
Across the levels of study, the mean values reveal that all the discussed
cultural elements were valued more at the master’s degree level. The
differences were statistically significant for national habits and the like
[t(171) = 2.6385, p = 0.0091, d = 0.39], values and beliefs [t(160) =
2.0562, p = 0.0414, d = 0.31], and rules of behavior [t(177) = 3.4131,
p = 0.0008, d = 0.50]. The level of significance was also exceeded for
learning linguistic aspects [t(176) = 1.6756, p = 0.0956, d = 0.26] and
elements of everyday life [t(162) = 1.7477, p = 0.0824, d = 0.26].
Across specializations, only linguistic aspects were more important to
prospective translators than teachers. The differences exceeded the
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 97

significance level for aspects of everyday life [t(153) = 2.8672, p = 0.0047,

d = 0.43] and social problems [t(168) = 3.0805, p = 0.0024, d = 0.46]. For
values and beliefs, significance was almost reached [t(165) = 1.7224,
p = 0.0869, d = 0.25], whereas for rules of behavior [t(164) = 1.3133,
p = 0.1909, d = 0.19] and geography [t(177) = 1.3928, p = 0.1654, d =
0.20] a favorable statistical trend was observed.

Table 5. Students’ preferences for learning about TL cultural elements

(Total M > 4.00, Max = 5)

BA MA Te Tr BA MA Te Tr
Linguistic aspects Values and beliefs
M = 4.42 SD = 0.83 M = 4.26 SD = 0.81
U% 6.67 2.67 7.22 2.41 3.81 1.33 2.06 3.61
MI% 9.52 4 8.25 6.02 11.43 12 8.25 15.66
I% 83.81 93.33 84.53 91.57 84.76 86.67 89.69 80.73
M 4.33 4.54 4.38 4.46 4.16 4.41 4.36 4.15
SD 0.90 0.70 0.91 0.72 0.81 0.80 0.76 0.86
Everyday life Social problems
M = 4.37 SD = 0.84 M = 4.09 SD = 0.88
U% 3.81 4 2.06 6.02 3.81 4 2.06 6.02
MI% 14.29 5.33 7.22 14.46 17.14 20 12.37 25.3
I% 81.9 90.67 90.72 79.52 79.05 76 85.57 68.68
M 4.28 4.50 4.54 4.18 4.06 4.13 4.27 3.87
SD 0.85 0.82 0.72 0.93 0.86 0.92 0.83 0.90
National habits, customs, traditions, Geography
festivals, holidays M = 4.06 SD = 0.93
M = 4.35 SD = 0.81
U% 4.76 1.33 3.09 3.61 7.62 5.33 9.28 3.61
MI% 11.43 8 10.31 9.64 19.04 9.33 12.37 18.07
I% 83.81 90.67 86.6 86.75 73.34 85.34 78.35 78.32
M 4.20 4.52 4.35 3.34 3.99 4.12 4.15 3.96
SD 0.87 0.82 0.82 0.80 0.97 0.83 1.00 0.83
BA MA Teach Trans
U% 8.57 1.33 4.12 7.23
Rules of behavior MI% 8.57 4 5.15 8.43
M = 4.35 SD = 0.91 I% 82.86 94.67 90.73 84.34
M 4.17 4.60 4.43 4.25
SD 1.00 0.69 0.85 0.97
Note: “BA” stands for “bachelor’s degree students”; “MA” stands for “master’s degree students”; “Te”
stands for “pre-service teachers”; “Tr” stands for “prospective translators”
98 Tatiana Szczygłowska

Table 6. Students’ preferences for learning about TL cultural elements

(Total M: 3.61 – 3.98, Max = 5)

BA MA Te Tr BA MA Te Tr
Literature History
M = 3.98 SD = 0.92 M = 3.68 SD = 1.04
U% 7.62 6.67 6.19 8.43 13.33 16 17.52 10.84
MI% 17.14 16 13.4 20.48 20.95 18.67 16.49 24.1
I% 75.24 77.33 80.41 71.09 65.72 65.33 65.99 65.06
M 4.00 3.96 4.09 3.86 3.66 3.70 3.63 3.73
SD 0.96 0.87 0.92 0.92 1.05 1.02 1.12 0.93
System of education, institutions Leisure activities, entertainment
M = 3.87 SD = 0.94 M = 3.65 SD = 0.97
U% 10.48 1.33 7.22 7.23 10.48 12 7.22 15.66
MI% 25.71 26.67 18.56 34.94 31.43 25.33 26.8 31.33
I% 63.81 72 74.22 57.83 58.09 62.67 65.98 53.01
M 3.80 4.00 4.08 3.63 3.62 3.69 3.81 3.46
SD 0.95 0.83 0.97 0.84 0.90 1.07 0.93 0.99
Personal relationships Famous buildings, landmarks
M = 3.84 SD = 1.02 M = 3.63 SD = 1.07
U% 11.43 6.67 7.22 12.05 18.09 10.67 18.56 10.84
MI% 19.04 16 12.37 24.1 31.43 20 26.8 26.51
I% 69.53 77.33 80.41 63.85 50.48 69.33 54.64 62.65
M 3.78 3.93 4.05 3.60 3.44 3.86 3.60 3.67
SD 1.10 0.90 0.96 1.04 1.07 0.99 1.16 0.95
Food and drink Art
M = 3.70 SD = 1.07 M = 3.61 SD = 0.99
U% 15.24 10.67 8.25 19.28 15.24 10.67 11.34 15.66
MI% 25.71 22.67 20.62 28.92 30.48 28 26.77 33.73
I% 59.05 66.66 71.13 51.8 54.28 61.33 62.89 50.61
M 3.62 3.81 3.90 3.46 3.58 3.65 3.1 3.49
SD 1.12 1.03 1.03 1.07 1.02 0.95 1.00 0.96
Music Economy and business life
M = 3.69 SD = 1.00 M = 3.61 SD = 1.00
U% 14.29 10.67 11.34 14.46 12.38 12 11.34 13.25
MI% 20.95 34.67 17.13 33.73 31.43 25.33 24.74 33.73
I% 64.76 54.66 71.13 51.81 56.19 62.67 63.92 53.02
M 3.69 3.69 3.79 3.57 3.58 3.66 3.68 3.54
SD 1.02 1.01 0.98 1.01 1.00 1.01 0.97 1.05
Note: “BA” stands for “bachelor’s degree students”; “MA” stands for “master’s degree students”; “Te”
stands for “pre-service teachers”; “Tr” stands for “prospective translators”
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 99

Table 7. Students’ preferences for learning about TL cultural elements

(Total M < 3.61, Max = 5)

BA MA Te Tr BA MA Te Tr
Media (television, radio, press, Theatre
cinema) M = 3.27 SD = 1.08
M = 3.60 SD = 0.99
U% 14.29 9.33 11.34 13.25 23.81 22.67 18.56 28.92
MI% 29.52 24 29.9 24.1 26.67 32 26.8 31.33
I% 56.19 66.67 58.76 62.65 49.52 45.33 54.64 39.75
M 3.48 3.80 3.57 3.66 3.31 3.22 3.41 3.12
SD 1.01 0.94 0.96 1.02 1.07 1.09 1.01 1.14
BA MA Te Tr BA MA Te Tr
Monarchy Famous people
M = 3.51 SD = 1.07 M = 3.17 SD = 0.93
U% 10.04 16 15.46 20.48 27.62 20 19.59 30.12
MI% 20.96 30.67 20.62 30.12 39.05 32 46.39 27.71
I% 60 53.33 63.92 49.4 33.33 48 34.02 42.17
M 3.52 3.49 3.63 3.36 3.07 3.34 3.15 3.19
SD 1.07 1.07 1.08 1.04 0.94 0.92 0.85 1.02
Politics Sports
M = 3.51 SD = 1.09 M = 2.87 SD = 1.06
U% 20 10.67 19.59 12.05 39.05 29.33 32.99 37.35
MI% 28.57 26.67 26.8 28.92 36.19 45.33 38.14 42.17
I% 51.43 62.66 53.61 59.03 24.76 25.34 28.87 20.48
M 3.42 3.62 3.46 3.56 2.80 2.97 2.91 2.81
SD 1.15 0.99 1.15 1.02 1.11 0.99 1.08 1.04
BA MA Te Tr BA MA Te Tr
Science and technology issues Clothes
M = 3.33 SD = 0.98 M = 2.67 SD = 1.08
U% 20 16 18.56 16.87 45.71 49.33 37.11 55.42
MI% 41.9 32 42.27 37.35 31.43 29.33 31.96 32.53
I% 38.1 52 39.17 45.78 22.86 21.34 30.93 12.05
M 3.26 3.45 3.30 3.36 2.66 2.65 2.88 2.43
SD 0.97 1.00 0.99 0.97 1.16 0.97 1.09 1.02
Religion Celebrities
M = 3.31 SD = 1.21 M = 2.18 SD = 0.98
U% 24.76 20 21.65 24.1 65.71 70.66 59.79 77.11
MI% 27.62 29.33 31.96 27.71 22.86 22.67 27.84 16.87
I% 47.62 50.67 46.39 48.19 11.43 6.67 12.37 6.02
M 3.32 3.33 3.39 3.21 2.23 2.12 2.36 1.98
SD 1.28 1.11 1.23 1.18 1.06 0.85 1.03 0.89
Note: “BA” stands for “bachelor’s degree students”; “MA” stands for “master’s degree students”; “Te”
stands for “pre-service teachers”; “Tr” stands for “prospective translators”
100 Tatiana Szczygłowska

As illustrated in Table 6, the students are only a bit less in favor of

literature, system of education, personal relationships, food and drink, or
music. History is only insignificantly less important, similarly as leisure
activities, famous buildings, art, economy, and business life.
Across the levels of study, the mean values indicate that only literature
was rated higher by the bachelor’s than master’s degree students. Yet, the
differences were statistically significant only for famous buildings [t(161)
= 2.7825, p = 0.0060, d = 0.40], and a positive trend toward significance
was noted for system of education [t(170) = 1.4999, p = 0.1355, d = 0.22].
Across specializations, only history and famous buildings were more
important to prospective translators. The differences were statistically
significant for system of education [t(177) = 3.3355, p = 0.0010, d = 0.49],
personal relationships [t(168) = 2.9978, p = 0.0031, d = 0.44], food and
drink [t(171) = 2.7979, p = 0.0057, d = 0.41], and leisure activities [t(169)
= 2.4312, p = 0.0161, d = 0.36]. For literature, the threshold of significance
was barely missed [t(173) = 1.6720, p = 0.0963, d = 0.25], whereas for
music [t(171) = 1.4768, p = 0.1416, d = 0.22] and art [t(175) = 1.5034,
p = 0.1345, d = 0.39] a positive trend toward significance was reported.
As illustrated in Table 7, the media, monarchy, and politics are only
insignificantly less important to the students. Somewhat less important are
science and technology issues, religion, theatre, and famous people,
whereas sports, clothes, and celebrities are the least attractive.
Across the levels of study, the mean values reveal that monarchy,
theatre, and celebrities were valued more by the bachelor’s degree
students. Religion and clothes were almost equally important at both the
bachelor’s and master’s degree level, whereas the other TL cultural
elements were rated higher by the master’s degree students. Yet,
significance was achieved only for the media [t(166) = 2.1826, p = 0.0305,
d = 0.32] and politics [t(171) = 7.4908, p < 0.0001, d = 0.18], whereas for
famous people it almost approached statistical significance
[t(161) = 1.9236, p = 0.0562, d = 0.29].
Across the specializations, translator trainees attached more
importance to science and technology issues, the media, politics, and
famous people, whereas teacher trainees preferred the other cultural
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 101

elements. Significance was only reached for clothes [t(176) = 2.8585,

p = 0.0048, d = 0.42] and celebrities [t(177) = 2.6553, p = 0.0086, d =
0.37] and approached for monarchy [t(175) = 1.7057, p = 0.0898, d = 0.49]
and theatre [t(165) = 1.7925, p = 0.0749, d = 0.26].
Generally, the results in Part C show that the students’ preferences for
learning about particular TL cultural elements were more dissimilar across
the specializations than across the levels of study. In the case of teacher
and translator trainees, the differences between the individual mean values
were statistically significant for eight items (with six effect sizes above
medium and two almost medium), almost reached for four items (with one
effect size above medium and three above small), and approached for four
items (with one effect size almost medium, one above small and two
small).

Students’ Preferences for Ways of Learning TL Culture

Part D aimed to determine the preferred ways of learning TL culture.

Tables 8 and 9 present the percentages of responses in the ‘agree’ (A),
‘undecided’ (U) and ‘disagree’ (D) categories.
As illustrated in Table 8, the students are particularly enthusiastic
about learning TL culture by visiting the country (Q 1) and interacting with
native speakers (Q 2). Indeed, as noted by Paige et al. [14], the latter,
experienced “either in the school setting or in the target culture, has been
found to have a positive influence” 30 on the study of language and its
culture. Very popular in this respect are also target culture television
shows, cinema (Q 3), music (Q 4), and the Internet (Q 5).
Across the levels of study, the mean values reveal that using the
Internet as a TL cultural medium (Q 5) was more popular among the
bachelor’s degree students, but the differences proved significant solely for
Q 3 [t(177) = 3.0883, p = 0.0023, d = 0.45]. As for the other ways of
learning TL culture, the differences did not even approach the significance

30
Paige et al., Culture Learning in Language, 38.
102 Tatiana Szczygłowska

level. Across specializations, only target culture television, cinema, and

films (Q 3) were indicated more willingly by prospective translators, but
the difference fell short of significance [t(177) = 1.7341, p = 0.0846, d =
0.25].

Table 8. Students’ preferences for ways of learning TL culture

(Total M > 4.00)

Item Variable D (%) U (%) A (%) M SD

1) Going abroad to the TL Bachelor’s 1.91 4.76 93.33 4.61 0.67
country Master’s 0 1.33 98.67 4.70 0.48
M = 4.65 SD = 0.60 Teachers 1.03 4.12 94.85 4.70 0.59
Translators 1.2 2.41 96.39 4.60 0.60
2) From native speakers Bachelor’s 0.95 5.71 91.34 4.46 0.69
M = 4.48 SD = 0.71 Master’s 1.33 6.67 92 4.52 0.74
Teachers 1.03 3.09 95.88 4.57 0.65
Translators 1.2 9.64 89.16 4.38 0.76
3) From the target culture Bachelor’s 2.86 11.43 85.71 4.25 0.80
television, cinema, films, Master’s 0 5.33 94.67 4.57 0.59
and videos Teachers 2.06 11.34 86.6 4.29 0.79
M = 4.38 SD = 0.74 Translators 1.2 7.23 91.57 4.48 0.68
4) Listening to the target Bachelor’s 5.71 9.52 84.77 4.29 0.86
culture songs and music Master’s 2.67 10.67 86.66 4.37 0.78
M = 4.32 SD = 0.83 Teachers 2.06 10.31 87.63 4.39 0.75
Translators 6.02 10.84 83.14 4.26 0.88
5) From the Internet (virtual Bachelor’s 3.8 10.48 85.72 4.15 0.75
visits to museums, looking Master’s 2.67 18.67 78.66 4.05 0.82
at photos, browsing Teachers 3.09 11.34 85.57 4.16 0.74
websites, etc.) Translators 3.61 16.87 79.52 4.04 0.82
M = 4.11 SD = 0.78

As illustrated in Table 9, the students are a little less enthusiastic about

learning TL culture by reading its literature (Q 6) or press (Q 9), attending
English classes (Q 7) and engaging in social networking (Q 8). The same
can be said about learning through comparisons between the TL and own
culture (Q 10) or through discussions about TL cultural elements (Q 11).
The least favored item in the sample is admiring the works and products of
TL culture (Q 12).
Across the levels of study, the mean values reveal that reading the
target culture literature (Q 6), discussing TL cultural elements (Q 11), and
admiring the works and products of TL culture (Q 12) were almost equally
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 103

popular among the bachelor’s and master’s degree students. The other
ways of learning TL culture were valued more at the master’s degree level.
Yet, statistical significance was reported only for comparing own culture
with the TL one (Q 10) [t(177) = 2.7981, p = 0.0057, d = 0.41]. Across
specializations, only admiring the works and products of TL culture (Q 12)
was more preferred by prospective translators than pre-service teachers,
though reading the target culture press (Q 9) arouse some enthusiasm. Still,
the differences proved insignificant.

Table 9. Students’ preferences for ways of learning TL culture

(Total M < 4.00)

Item Variable D (%) U (%) A (%) M SD

6) Reading the target Bachelor’s 12.38 18.09 69.53 3.83 0.99
culture literature Master’s 4 37.33 58.67 3.82 0.93
M = 3.83 SD = 0.96 Teachers 10.3 18.56 71.14 3.87 0.99
Translators 7.23 31.32 61.45 3.81 0.92
7) From my English Bachelor’s 6.67 21.9 71.43 3.74 0.75
classes Master’s 8 10.67 81.33 3.90 0.82
M = 3.81 SD = 0.78 Teachers 8.25 11.34 80.41 3.85 0.79
Translators 6.02 24.1 69.88 3.75 0.79
8) Participating in social Bachelor’s 14.28 23.81 61.91 3.74 1.11
networking Master’s 10.67 22.67 66.66 3.78 1.00
M = 3.76 SD = 1.06 Teachers 10.3 24.74 64.96 3.89 1.06
Translators 15.66 21.69 62.65 3.63 1.08
9) Reading the target Bachelor’s 13.33 24.76 61.91 3.66 0.98
culture press Master’s 8 29.33 62.67 3.85 1.07
M = 3.74 SD = 1.02 Teachers 11.34 27.83 60.83 3.73 1.01
Translators 10.84 25.3 63.86 3.72 1.01
10) Comparing my own Bachelor’s 12.38 31.43 56.19 3.58 1.09
culture with the TL one Master’s 2.67 24 73.33 3.97 0.78
M = 3.74 SD = 0.99 Teachers 10.31 26.8 62.89 3.76 1.05
Translators 6.02 30.12 63.86 3.72 0.91
11) Discussing TL cultural Bachelor’s 10.48 32.38 57.14 3.71 1.01
elements Master’s 9.33 20 70.67 3.72 0.87
M = 3.71 SD = 0.95 Teachers 10.31 22.68 67.01 3.81 0.99
Translators 9.64 32.53 57.83 3.60 0.90
12) Admiring the works Bachelor’s 13.33 39.04 47.63 3.50 0.95
and products of TL culture Master’s 14.67 29.33 56 3.52 0.87
M = 3.51 SD = 0.91 Teachers 13.41 38.14 48.45 3.47 0.91
Translators 14.46 34.94 50.6 3.51 0.92
104 Tatiana Szczygłowska

Generally, the results in Part D indicate that the differences in terms of

the students’ preferences for particular ways of learning about the TL
culture were more profound across specializations than across the levels of
study, but they never reached statistical significance.

DISCUSSION

The above findings indicate that, among the surveyed English majors,
the attitudes toward and preferences for learning TL culture are influenced
by both their study level and specialization area, but these differences do
not frequently attain statistical significance. With respect to the students’
choice of the main culture of the L1 English-speaking world, it is more
affected by the specialization area, which in the case of translator trainees
may be partly explained by their awareness of the recommendation that
“the contact with the second language daily life, its customs and traditions
is a must for a translator in order to avoid important misunderstandings”31
of various culture-specific items [49]. The general conclusion is that the
research participants associate English mainly with British culture,
followed by American culture, which corroborates the results obtained by
Devrim and Bayyurt [50] for Turkish learners of English as the TL as well
as what Prodromou [51] found out about Greek English language learners.
The tendency to emphasize British culture is especially apparent among
teacher trainees, whereas American culture meets with a greater
enthusiasm among prospective translators, probably because during
translation classes they explore a wider array of cultural contexts and are
thus less attached to the cultural background in which English originated.
In fact, with respect to teacher trainees, the present findings correlate with
what in-service teachers of English report on their experience of teaching
TL cultural content. In a study by Aleksandrowicz-Pędich and Lázár [52]

31
José M. Valverde Zambrana, “Cultural Factors and Translation,” in La palabra vertida.
Investigaciones en torno a la traducción [The Word Spilled. Research around Translation], ed.
Miguel Á. Vega, and Rafael Martín-Gaitero (Madrid: Editorial Universidad Complutense,
1997), 247.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 105

conducted in Estonia, Island, Poland, and Hungary, 50% of English

teachers admitted that they focused exclusively on the culture of the UK,
whereas 30% claimed that their main concern was the culture of the USA.
The results of the present study suggest that the students’ main concern
seem to be the cultures of the most populated English as a first language
countries of what Kachru [53] conceptualizes as the inner circle of World
Englishes, that is, “the traditional bases of English, dominated by the
‘mother tongue’ varieties of the language”.32 This impression is enhanced
by the fact that the other English-speaking cultures are unpopular with the
participants.
Moving on to the students’ beliefs about learning TL culture, these are
more heavily informed by their study level. The majority profess to believe
in the necessity of cultural awareness for TL communicative competence,
which indicates they consider the notion of culture to be an important
aspect of their English education. This belief, as Otwinowska-Kasztelanic
[54] claims, is equally popular among Polish teachers and teenage learners
of English. Such culture-positive attitude of the participants is further
enhanced by the conviction that language should be learned together with
its culture, which supports the findings of previous studies on students’
perceptions regarding their cultural education in English as the TL contexts
(see Çalışkan [19]; Devrim and Bayyurt [50]). Yet, the students less
willingly assume that TL competence is directly proportional to the amount
of knowledge of its culture and are cautious about making either linguistic
proficiency or motivation to learn the language conditional on their degree
of cultural insight. It thus seems that the cultural content of the study
programs has not been successfully integrated into the linguistic content.
As a result, the students are torn between these two aspects of their English
education. Worthy of note, however, is the participants’ firm conviction
that learning the target culture does not adversely influence the sense of
their own culture, which has also been reported by Belli [55] in her study
on the attitudes of Turkish pre-service teachers toward TL culture. These
beliefs are especially profound among the master’s degree students, which
shows that, contrary to Çalışkan’s [19] findings, these are not necessarily
younger students who tend to be more positively-oriented toward learning
106 Tatiana Szczygłowska

the target culture. The study level also affects the students’ expectations
about learning TL culture. The majority would like to learn more about
English-speaking cultures, which is especially evident among the master’s
degree students, quite a few of whom are not particularly happy with the
amount and selection of TL cultural material in their curriculum, although
few expect to learn only the language without its culture. This seems to
suggest readiness for admitting that, in the context of English as the TL,
the notion of culture is not monolithic, but rather multicultural. Also, this
finding is consistent with what Derenowski [26] reports on the opinions of
senior high school learners of English as a foreign language in Poland. By
contrast, the bachelor’s degree students hope for a native teacher to
strengthen their motivation to learn TL culture, which testifies to their
close attachment to the ideology of what Holliday [56] refers to as “native-
speakerism”.32
As for the students’ preferences for learning about specific TL cultural
elements, these are more significantly influenced by the specialization
area. Linguistic aspects are definitely the most preferred TL cultural
elements, especially among translator trainees, which testifies to the
students’ adherence to the idea that “language is a window to culture (…) a
cultural product in and of itself”.33 Learning about everyday life, rules of
behavior, national habits, values, beliefs are also relatively popular.
Regarded as the least important are famous people, clothes, celebrities, and
sports. It, thus, seems that importance is attached to those TL cultural
aspects which either constitute the core content of the cultural curriculum
or are linked with day-to-day living, both in general terms and in relation
to national festive events. Yet, in the latter case, details, such as food,
drink, personal relationships, leisure activities, are considered to be less
significant, possibly because they are too mundane, but further research
would need to ascertain this. Elements such as literature, art, theatre do not
meet with the students’ passionate enthusiasm either, which, as
Derenowski [26] argues, may be due to the fact that, as manifestations of

32
Adrian Holliday, “Native-speakerism,” ELT Journal 60, no. 4 (2006): 385–387.
33
Moran, Teaching Culture: Perspectives, 35–36.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 107

high culture, they are often considered as “unattractive”,34 “old-fashioned

or impractical”, 35 although the participants’ responses did not seem to
reflect the same amount of negativity. Surprisingly moderate is the
students’ enthusiasm not only for the media, but also for music, which may
indicate that they are not really convinced that these matters should
necessarily be made part of the curriculum. These preferences prevail
among teacher trainees. By contrast, prospective translators attach more
importance to linguistic aspects, the media, politics, issues in science and
technology, history, famous buildings, and people. Their increasing interest
in these items, apart from the final three ones possibly, may stem from the
specificity of their professional training, which revolves around such
matters to a larger extent than in the case of teacher trainees. The
bachelor’s degree students, in turn, more than the master’s degree students,
are keen on literature, monarchy, theatre, and celebrities. Interest in the
first two items may be due to the large amount of time spent on studying
such aspects in classes, and interest in the last one may be due to the
students’ younger age.
Regarding the students’ preferences for different ways of learning TL
culture, they are more significantly affected by the study level. The
students show a strong propensity for those ways of learning the culture(s)
of the English language which involve direct contact with its various
aspects under real-life conditions, such as going abroad and talking to
native speakers, which was also reported by Ziębka [57]. This shows that
the participants attach importance to the impressions they can form based
on their own experience of cultural practices. This is additionally reflected
in the fact that the students also value those methods which involve the use
of such forms of entertainment as target culture television, music, cinema,
and the Internet. Actually, these sources of English cultural information are
often tapped in private contexts, independently of what is imposed by the
study programs. Hence, it should not be surprising that learning by reading
TL literature or the press, or by participating in English classes is less
popular, though in the latter case the students’ limited enthusiasm could

34
Derenowski, Teaching Culture, 143.
35
Ibid.
108 Tatiana Szczygłowska

have been expected, since as Suo and Shi [58] argue, “classroom-based
learning is the traditional learning, which suffers lack of scale and lack of
fidelity”.36 Comparably unpopular is engaging in social networking, which
is surprising considering the general affinity with such practices. The
students are slightly less enthusiastic still about juxtaposing the TL and
their own culture or discussing the former, which correlates with what
Derenowski [26] reports on the preferences of Polish senior high school
learners of the English language as well as with what Devrim and Bayyurt
[50] reveal about senior high school students of English in Turkey. A
possible explanation for the students’ dislike for activities based on the
analysis of differences may be the fact that “this kind of discussions might
(…) be too difficult for the learners to conduct in a foreign language”.37
Finally, interest is the lowest for learning by looking into the works and
products of TL culture, which the participants seem to interpret as different
from films, literature or music that are listed as separate categories in the
questionnaire. These preferences are evident especially among pre-service
teachers and at the master’s degree level. The bachelor’s degree students
show more enthusiasm just for learning from the Internet. Prospective
translators, in turn, express more interest than their counterparts in learning
by admiring the works and products of TL culture, watching television, or
going to the movies. The latter source of cultural knowledge may have
been considered even more attractive as the future translators attend classes
in audio-visual translation during which they are trained to develop
sensitivity to various culture-specific references.

CONCLUSION

This paper investigated the impact of study level and specialization

area on what Polish students majoring in English think about their cultural

36
Yue Suo, and Yuanchun Shi, “Towards Blended Learning Environment Based On Pervasive
Computing Technologies,” in Hybrid Learning and Education, ed. Joseph Fong, Reggie
Kwan, and Fu L. Wang (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2008), 192.
37
Komorowska, Intercultural Competence, 75.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 109

education in English as the TL contexts. The findings indicate that the

surveyed students have definite views on learning the TL culture, some of
which are more markedly influenced by the chosen specialization, while
others seem to be influenced by the study level. Specialization proved a
significant variable as regards conceptions of what the primary culture of
the L1 English-speaking world is, with teacher trainees opting for British
culture more than American culture compared with translator trainees.
Specialization was also revealed as important as regards the preferred TL
cultural elements, with translator trainees being stronger enthusiasts of
linguistic aspects, history, and famous buildings. The students’ level of
education, in turn, was significant for choosing the preferred ways of
learning TL culture, the bachelor’s degree students being statistically
significant greater advocates of the Internet. It also had an influence on the
examined beliefs and expectations about learning TL culture, with the
bachelor’s degree students being more in favor of learning only the TL and
of the idea that the target culture may negatively influence the perception
of their own culture, less sceptical about the amount and selection of TL
cultural material in the curriculum, yet more motivated by the idea of a
native teacher in this context.
It, thus, seems that the students’ cultural goals regarding the TL are
contingent on experience and the professional purposes for which they
study English, which has important implications for the learning and
teaching of such matters in tertiary education contexts. Somewhat alarming
is the students’ profound attachment to perceiving the cultural universe of
English largely in terms of its British and American variants. It also seems
necessary to debunk the myth that students majoring in English should
approximate the native speaker’s cultural norms and instead raise their
awareness of the norms prevalent in the local contexts in which they will
be using the TL. In the case of teacher trainees, this may prove somewhat
more challenging, since their attitudes in this respect reveal some kind of
bias toward the native speaker criterion instilled in them by the study
programs as well as toward the idea that emphasis should be put on
language rather than culture. Yet, the need for developing a cross-cultural
awareness of prospective teachers of English is of utmost importance as
110 Tatiana Szczygłowska

they are the ones who can then transmit this ability to successive
generations of English users. It also seems necessary to develop a more
intense interest in TL cultural matters among the bachelor’s degree
students, possibly by showing them that the cultural background of the
English language is not limited to a list of names, facts, and dates, an
awareness of which they are supposed to develop during the first years of
their university education. Overall, it is worth stressing that since “the
choice of teaching and learning approach depends very much on the
purpose of the teaching”,38 the learners’ respective specialization and study
level should be taken into consideration when deciding which cultural
elements to include or omit from the curriculum [59]. Yet, it is the
educators’ role to guide the students’ learning through the cultural content
in English as the TL contexts, especially that not every individual feels
secure enough in their knowledge to take such decisions themselves.
In the future, the focus of studies such as the one reported here can be
extended to students in other countries to see how the study level and
specialization area affect the way in which they perceive their cultural
education in English as the TL contexts. It is thus hoped that the effect size
values reported here will not only strengthen the validity of the present
findings, but will also facilitate their transferability to other potential
research settings.

Limitations

The current study is not without limitations. First, the generalization of

its results is problematic as the choice of the participants was somewhat
selective. The respondents were recruited from only one university as they
were easily available and willing to participate. Second, their language
experience and proficiency was taken for granted based on the end-of-year
practical English exam results. Third, the study did not verify explicitly the

38
Mads J. Kirkebæk, Hiang-Yun Du, and Annie Aarup Jensen, “The Power of Context in
Teaching and Learning Culture,” in Teaching and Learning Culture: Negotiating the Context,
ed. Mads J. Kirkebæk et al. (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2013), 6.
 Exploring the Impact of Study Level and Specialization Area … 111

extent to which the lingua franca status of English is addressed in the study
programs of the surveyed students. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the
findings do provide the basis for larger scale studies in the future that
would involve similar groups of students from other universities in Poland
and possibly other countries as well.

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In: Teaching English ISBN: 978-1-53616-168-7
Editor: Astrida Skrinda © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 4

APPLYING THICH NHAT HANH’S

PHILOSOPHY TO EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS:
MINDFUL TEACHING AND
LEARNING IN ENGLISH AS A SECOND
LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS

Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen*

International Training Faculty,
Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Thai Nguyen, Vietnam

ABSTRACT

The chapter, discretely, conceptualizes language teaching and

learning from a Buddhist perspective, which, then, challenges the norms
of good education in general. Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophy is applied to
second language instruction and acquisition as an innovative approach to
rejuvenate teaching and learning up to a higher level of comprehension
and compassion. The chapter also reviews research on mindfulness and

*
Corresponding Author’s E-mails: [email protected]; thuong.nguyen@okstate.
edu.
120 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

discusses the main principles of mindful teaching and learning. Derived

from moral ideology, this is also an appeal to teachers to reflect and
renew their teaching strategies on a daily basis and to truly care about
their students’ multiple perspectives and characteristics. English language
learners, meanwhile, follow active and experiential learning approaches
to be more aware of their own academic success and living moments. A
Model of Mindful Second Language Acquisition is proposed in the
chapter. Finally, the chapter recommends future directions for research on
mindfulness in English teaching and learning.

Keywords: second language acquisition, teaching and learning English as

a second language, mindfulness, Buddhism, curriculum approach

INTRODUCTION

When sunlight shines,

it helps all vegetation grow.
When mindfulness shines,
it transforms all mental formations.1

Through his poem, Thich Nhat Hanh seemed to speak directly to

people’s hearts to persuade them to slow down their activities, refresh their
minds, and open to new ways of thinking [1]. This is somehow not an easy
task in our high-speed way of living, but, for teachers, it may be required
as daily practice to look at their students with fresh eyes.
As Ayer [2] claims, “Teaching is intellectual and ethical work, and
teachers live with their students at the center of all classroom practices”.2
In fact, how many of the teachers today can stop for a while to rethink and
reflect on their own teaching approach. This orthodox pedagogy is not
new, but what should be cultivated more is the appeal of becoming a
“mindful” teacher, who cares about their students’ growth. Mindful
teaching methods have, therefore, been prevalent in our world.

1
Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology (Berkeley, CA:
Parallax Press, 2006), 25, 45, 244.
2
William Ayers, To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher. 3rd edition. (New York: Teachers College
Press, 2010), 12, 37.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 121

Mindful practices affect both English language teachers’ pedagogical

strategies and students’ learning approach. Thus, the chapter aims to offer
English language learners opportunities to transform themselves into active
learners as it is important not only to “see the world, but also re-see it from
their own experiences and with their insights”. 3 It will be the time for
students to be aware of every moment they experience during learning, to
be critical and open to multiple perspectives. Furthermore, mindful
learning practices, adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Mindfulness
Trainings, will help them to attain their academic goals and become ethical
individuals in society.
This chapter elucidates Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophy and reviews
other theoretical papers and research on mindfulness in education. It also
suggests some strategies for mindful teaching and learning English as a
second language (ESL). Next, it introduces the curriculum theory
interwoven with mindful practices in a real story of Vietnamese
educational setting. Finally, the chapter suggests some directions in the
educational research, applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophy.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy of Mindfulness

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is known as a great monk, a leader of the
Buddhist movement in Vietnam since wartime. His Zen teaching has
helped many people to transform themselves for better lives and to build a
peaceful world. Early in the 1960s, he was the founder of Engaged
Buddhism that appealed for peace and reconciliation between the North
and the South of Vietnam. At present, Engaged Buddhism has been applied
in the western countries for the struggle against social injustice, the support

3
Tony Houston and Paige Turne, “Mindful Learning and Second Language Acquisition,”
Academic Exchange Quarterly 11, no. 1 (2007): 87.
122 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

of non-violent communications, and compassionate understandings among

individuals, communities, and nations.
In 1966, Thich Nhat Hanh laid down the core principles of
Engaged Buddhism called the “Order of Interbeing”, or “Tiep Hien” 4 in
Vietnamese. The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, which are the essence of
the “Order of Interbeing”, incorporate meditation practice and Dharma
teaching.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s [4] interbeing aims “to be aware of what is going
on in your body, in your feelings, in your mind”.4 Based on the Buddha
philosophy, Thich Nhat Hanh [1] explained that “our mind is a field in
which every kind of seed is sown – seeds of compassion, joy and hope,
seeds of sorrow, fear and difficulties”.5
Thus, we should be careful about which kinds of seeds to grow. This is
due to the fact that

The quality of our life

depends on the quality
of the seeds
that lie deep in our consciousness.6

As such, being mindful is important for cultivating seeds and

harvesting fruits from our own crops of conceptions and presumptions.
Thich Nhat Hanh elucidates his theory and acknowledges that,
“…mindfulness is the capacity to recognize things as they are. When you
are mindful, you recognize what is going on, what is happening in the here
and now”.7 Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that we should devote the whole of
our beings to what we are doing. This notion does not mean that we should
forget the past and neglect what is likely to happen in the future. His
preaching strikes in our hearts the bell of awakening.

4
Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1987), 112.
5
Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology (Berkeley, CA:
Parallax Press, 2006), 25, 45, 244.
6
Ibid.
7
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 22.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 123

In particular, when people are aware of their own lives and people
around, they are inclined to think about the past differently. They are not
willing to allow anger, despair, craving, or discrimination to dominate their
lives. They are willing to transform their own sufferings to be
compassionate and considerate. Also, they are willing to get to know other
people around themselves. Their lives will be filled with love and
happiness as they get to know themselves and other people.
The awakened moment also helps people to go toward the direction of
the Noble Eightfold Path, as discussed in Buddha’s teaching (“Right
View”; “Right Thinking”; “Right Speech”; “Right Action”; “Right
Livelihood”; “Right Effort”; “Right Mindfulness”; “Right Concentration”).
This moment is called “Enlightenment” 8 , which enables people to see
deeply anyone or anything in their lives. The ultimate result of
“Enlightenment”9 is transformation and liberation.
Thich Nhat Hanh, also called “Thay”, a respected Vietnamese word for
a teacher, has lived righteously on his own principles by leading a simple
life and offering his immense love for human beings, for nature. With his
direct retreats and great work, he has healed the wounds in the souls of
many people and alleviated sufferings with his plain, ethical ideologies. In
Plum Village, France, Thich Nhat Hanh has been working relentlessly on
his teachings and his preaching delivered to many people, including
psychotherapists, teachers, businessmen, politicians, scientists, veterans,
etc. His philosophy of mindfulness has illuminated important issues in
many fields of human’s lives, especially in education.

Mindful Teaching and Learning

Many scholars have confirmed the profound impacts of mindfulness in

educational developments. In the past, with the emphasis of mindful
learning approaches, Langer [6] defined mindfulness as “a flexible state of

8
Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology (Berkeley, CA:
Parallax Press, 2006), 25, 45, 244.
9
Ibid.
124 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things
and sensitive to context”. 10 She was much concerned with learning
materials that lead students to see things from multiple perspectives and to
ask questions, such as: “Who decides what perspective is represented and
why?” [6]. However, Langer [6] noted that most teaching latched onto
mindlessness instead of mindfulness through the practice of memorization
and single-minded ideas. It is essential that teachers should interact
themselves with the information through their own mindful thoughts and
reflections prior to their own teachings.
Such reflection, according to Siegel [7], is an “intra-personal
attunement” 11 , which creates opportunities to demystify the nature of
mindsets. Siegel provided a thorough analysis of mindfulness in medical
applications and education. Particularly, mindfulness is about experience
that is primarily connected with deep understanding of the self and being
receptive to new ways of seeing and thinking. These ideas can be aligned
with the discussion of Houston and Turner [3] regarding mindful learning
and second language acquisition (SLA). They claimed that mindfulness
brings students back to themselves so that they can refresh their mindsets
vigilantly. They are able to decide which knowledge is valuable when
constructing their own meanings from learning experiences.
In an argument for young children’s mindfulness, Hooker and Fodor
[8] pointed out the lack of research on mindful education for children.
They believed that not only adults, but also children live in the world
where they do a series of tasks scheduled by their parents and teachers.
They suggested the integration of mindfulness in the curricula as
mindfulness practice is beneficial for children to be more aware of what
they are doing, to improve their memory, and develop their living skills.
Similarly, Elder [9] highlighted the importance of mindfulness in human’s
lives by reviewing numerous research on the application of mindfulness in

10
Ellen Langer, “Mindful Learning,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 9, no. 6
(2000): 220.
11
Daniel Siegel, The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being
(New York: WW Norton & Company, 2007), 1.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 125

medical treatments. For instance, “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction”12

(MBSR), as developed by Kabat-Zinn [9], was a mindfulness training
course resulting in improving physical and mental health. Elder
recommended the authentication of mindfulness practices in every walk of
life so as to attain high quality fulfillment and enjoyment.
There is a growing body of educational research on the effects and
application of mindfulness in education. Particularly, the environments of
educational institutions are multidimensional as they have been under
social, political and economic impacts of society. In the USA, since the
“No Child Left Behind Act” [10] came into effect, educators, teachers, and
students have faced the challenges of raising tests scores so the quality of
teaching and learning seems hard to be improved. Mindfulness, therefore,
is becoming necessary for current pedagogy.
Hollar [11] argued that mindfulness is not only a therapeutic tool, but
also the practice that can be integrated into the school curriculum to help
students to develop their attention, self-regulation, and emotional control.
It can also positively influence students’ neurodevelopment. Her paper
initiated an in-depth discussion of the facets of Buddhist meditation in
relation to the Buddhist Psychological Model (BPM). She contended that
Western science has applied mindfulness for its neurological impacts and
executive functions. The K-12 curriculum, incorporating brain lessons and
meditative skills, increased students’ awareness of their cognitive
development. The evaluation of this type of curriculum was based on the
“Mindful Attention Awareness Scale”13 (MAAS), as designed by Brown
and Ryan [12].
In terms of authentic applications, Michael [13] carried out a broad
quantitative study at eleven elementary schools in Suffolk County, New
York. By developing a conceptual framework of mindfulness, he
investigated the perceptions of both the principle and teachers in the matter
of better educational opportunities for all students. He found out that

12
J. D. Elder, “Mindfulness: A Potentially Good Idea” (PhD diss., State University of New
York, 2010).
13
Warren Kirk Brown and Ryan M. Richard, “The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and
Its Role in Psychological Well-Being,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84,
no. 4 (2003): 822–848.
126 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

mindful practices and strategies allowed teachers to be more open to

problematic issues in their classrooms and the whole school setting.
Similarly, Frauman [14] proposed a model of mindfulness in informal
education. With mindful practices, Frauman suggested a pedagogical
innovation to attract students and arouse their interest in learning. At the
same time, the outdoor programs provided ideal conditions for real life
practices.
In contrast, the respondents of the research that Ivey [15] conducted at
several schools (Boston Elementary; Pennsylvania Elementary, Middle,
and High; New Jersey Secondary) were suspicious of the success of
programs based on mindfulness. Although the findings revealed that most
educators confirmed the benefits of mindful practices, they were not much
interested in changes as they have been overwhelmed by educational
policies which produced stressful environment. Some participants who
were interested in mindfulness found it hard to implement mindfulness if
there was no support from the administrators in the schools.
Succinctly stated, the implementation of mindfulness in practical
situations demand well-defined strategies. Many studies aim to support
educators when they are ready to cultivate innovation for their own well-
being and professional development. In addition, research focuses directly
on the effects of mindfulness. One example is a study carried out by Araas
[16] at a southern university in the USA. With a belief that the first year
students are the ones who face many challenges after the transition from
high school to university, Araas invited a great number of participants who
were the first year students. The findings offered a better understanding of
the first year students and their conceptions of mindfulness programs. In
fact, they acknowledged that mindfulness could increase their inner
strength, reduce their stress and high-risk health behaviors. Focusing on
similar research subjects, Yamada [17] investigated how the mindfulness
awareness practices (MAPs) improved college students’ psychological
well-being and helped to increase their learning outcomes. 81% of the
students affirmed that MAPs had positive influences on their learning as
well.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 127

Supporting the integration of mindfulness, Huston, Garland, and Farb

[18] carried out a quantitative study with the students who were following
communication courses at a comprehensive community college in Concord
New Hampshire. The findings revealed that the group oriented toward
mindfulness was keener on dealing with reappraised situations in
communication and gained better scores of the trainings. The study proved
the mechanism of mindfulness as a tool for creating harmonious
communication and reducing negative expressions.
In the past two years, many studies have involved young children as
scholars believe that, during an early age, habitual actions formed are
likely to last until adulthood. Mindfulness, therefore, may be a kind of
potential practice for developing beneficial lifelong skills, especially when
it is incorporated into the curriculum. In order to examine the impacts of
mindfulness or mindlessness on the quality of learning and children’s
personal experiences in early childhood education, Capel [19] conducted a
qualitative research based on auto-ethnography and an intrinsic case study
method. From two personal narrative stories, Capel evoked a deep
discussion about mindful teaching and learning. In particular, by applying
mindful pedagogy, teachers may become sensitive to each individual
child’s characteristics. They may become more creative and innovative in
their own teaching to meet students’ needs, foster their unique capacities,
and encourage their growth.
From teachers’ perspectives, Forward [20] investigated how the
practices of mindfulness affected the third and fourth graders’ experience
in the classroom. The qualitative data were gathered from interviews with
teachers. Teaching methods and the curriculum were adopted from the
programs of Mindful Schools. Two major tools for research activities and
analysis were Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and
Minfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) [20]. The data showed that
mindfulness can help children to cope with stress, hold attention, sustain
self-regulation, and control their emotions effectively. This positive proof
is congruent with the findings of the study which was conducted by
Kanagy-Borofka [21]. The participants involved the fifth grade learners.
The group, which experienced curriculum-integrated mindfulness training,
128 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

improved its attention-to-task behaviors and social relations. There were

more implications for teachers’ engagement and assistance at this
elementary level.
Mapel [22] carried out a study at a university in New Zealand. Forty-
nine student participated in a mindfulness program. After learning basic
mindfulness skills and meditation, students provided feedback and their
comments on mindfulness and finished a form of questionnaires. The data
were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Consequently, the
majority of students appreciated their mindfulness-based knowledge as it
helped them to go further on their paths toward self-cognition. In addition,
they found it beneficial to utilize mindfulness-based practices in their own
personal lives.
In short, mindfulness has been an effective tool for both educational
programs and social activities. Cultivating mindfulness helps teachers and
students to attain sustainable health and academic achievements.
Mindfulness has, therefore, been a potential ideology for many research
studies at present and in the future. It has been integrated into the curricula
or many short-term educational programs in order to make education
preserve its heart of humanistic support, as McClain, Ylimaki, and Ford
[23] claim:

Sustaining the heart of education is not about taking, forcing or

imposing; it is about trusting, supporting and nourishing ourselves and
those in our midst through the timeless, intuitive reciprocity of
mindfulness, wisdom and compassionate action. It’s about moving the
world with the loving kindness, joy, equanimity and compassion, and
ultimately transforming the world together.14

With a view of reconceptualizing educational ideologies built upon this

movement, this chapter is going to represent one example of applying
Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophy to English teaching and learning.

14
Leslei McClain, Rose Ylimaki and Michael P. Ford, “Sustaining the Heart of Education:
Finding Space for Wisdom and Compassion,” International Journal of Children’s
Spirituality 15, no. 4 (2010): 315.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 129

APPLYING THICH NHAT HANH’S PHILOSOPHY TO

TEACHING AND LEARNING ESL

Mindfulness-Based Teaching ESL

Many novice teachers have started their career with a belief from the
saying: “Teaching is a precious job”. It is precious as it comes from all
teachers’ aspiration to train good generations, or, in other words, teachers
are regarded as heroes and heroines who can guide students through their
developmental stages so that they would grow with well-rounded
knowledge and humanistic consciences. It is common that any young
person who has decided to become a teacher is aware of such a great task.
As Ayers [2] states, “Teaching is at its heart an act of hope for a better
future”.2 That hope is likely to be tangible for a teacher who possesses a
mindful brain and a truthful heart. On the whole, mindful teachers are
aware of themselves, reflect on their own experiences with new lenses, and
then change the way they look at students. Also, mindful teachers actively
seek for innovations and create new pedagogical strategies that benefit
every student. In this sense, mindfulness pertains to the moment of
“reflection-in-action” and “reflection-on-action”.15 Thus, mindful teachers
act like practitioners, who, as Schon [24] describes, do not “separate
thinking from doing”11 and willingly think back to evaluate and modify
what they have done.

“Order of Interbeing”
Leading a fast paced lifestyle, it is not common for people to care
about the unity of body and mind. People hardly spend time seeing the
inner connection within the body and with the outside world. There is the
“non-self” or “absence of separate self” in the fabric of life. Everything
must be connected with one another. So simple questions may come to

15
Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (London:
Temple Smith, 1983), 56–61, 68.
130 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

mind: “How does our way of thinking lead to our actions?”; “In what way
does our behavior affect other people?”
The word “inter-be” has its roots in Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophy of
“Tiep Hien Order”, or “Order of Interbeing” [25]. “To be” is to “inter-be”.
People cannot just be by themselves alone. They have to inter-be with
every other thing. As everything co-exists together, we look back and forth
to get an insight of humanity and the world. We will have a better
understanding of our own actions, other people, and events.
As an experienced teacher and educator, Palmer [26] contends that
good teaching comes from the teacher’s self-awareness and moral will.
Conversely, teaching may turn out to be a monotonous job when teachers
lose their own “self” after many years coming to the class. Teachers should
ask themselves questions, such as: “How would I come to each class and
approach each student as if it were my first day of teaching?”; “How can I
improve to make my classroom a welcome place for all students?”; “Did I
not try hard enough to cultivate my knowledge and enthusiasm?” Early
Buddhist philosophy [27] states that a person should “learn first before
teaching others”.16 It is time to listen to the bell of awakening, to stop a
moment to learn deeply about everything, about mindful living and
teaching.
Thich Nhat Hanh gives an example of opening the door and closing the
door [5]. Commonly, some people may shut the door strongly without
noticing the loud sound disturbing others. Authentically, Thich Nhat Hanh
[28] asks us to pay attention to our body and mind. Each time we breathe
in, we feel a new air freshening our mind, our soul, by talking to ourselves:

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.

Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.17

16
Annada Maitreya, The Dhammapada (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1998), 46.
17
Thich Nhat Hanh, You Are Here (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2010), 32.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 131

Thich Nhat Hanh also reminds generations of teachers that “we need to
constantly check if we are guiding or teaching for the sake of fame, wealth,
or a superficial kind of power”.18 In fact, today many young Vietnamese
teachers may be discouraged from pursuing their careers by low salaries
and time constraints at school. Teaching can become a boring job if it is
not nurtured by inner aspiration and sacrifice. Instead, we can start a day
with the happiness of a smile [29].

Waking up this morning, I smile.

Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
And to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.19

Mindfulness-Based Teaching Strategies

Teaching does not just entail knowledge explanation as it is involved
in the whole process of social construction. Liew [30] asserts that, “As
social performers, teachers manage their own expressions, as well as the
impressions of diverse audiences, in relation to a set of professional norms
and cultural expectations”.20 Thus, the ways teachers perceive these norms
affect directly students’ cognitive awareness.
Thich Nhat Hanh initiated Engaged Buddhism movement with the core
principle of mindfulness that aims to challenge the existing ideologies and
build a peaceful world. Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings have been
introduced as a guideline for practices. Peace is a grounded practice of
these trainings. “Being peace”, according to Thich Nhat Hanh [31], means
being against “violence, ignorance and injustice in us and in other
persons” 21 , and the important thing is to look deeply and ask, “What
responsibility do we have for the injustice in the world?” Teachers,

18
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 32.
19
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1998),
102.
20
Warren M. Liew, “Effects Beyond Effectiveness: Teaching as a Performative Act,” Curriculum
Inquiry 43, no. 2 (2013): 263.
21
Melvin McLeod, The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2012),
188.
132 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

therefore, should practice peace themselves, before applying any teaching

strategies.
Accordingly, Capel [19] claims that a mindful teacher is the one who is
embedded with three traits: sensitivity, creativity, and innovation. This
means that teachers actively transform themselves by going beyond their
own views or biases. Teachers endeavor to get rid of stereotypes or labels
and support inclusive learning environment. In a particular classroom, the
teacher is sensitive to each child’s perspectives and listens to the children’s
voices with an open mind and receptive heart.
A creative teacher will know how to manage with curriculum
implementation while challenging students with new ideas of conventional
assumptions. Instructional strategies for ESL learners should be
differentiated to meet multiple language levels of learners in one
classroom. Language is the means of emotional and intellectual
expressions, so, for ESL teachers, establishing relationships with students
through communication is a priority. It is also essential to embrace
students’ multicultural backgrounds by introducing multiple perspectives
during classroom interactions.
Teachers are constantly innovative in pedagogical strategies when they
think about the curriculum design and make any modifications to serve
students. As Houston and Turner [3] state, “Teaching to mindfulness
parallels acquisition-oriented teaching”, so teachers need to set aside their
misconceptions or bias toward language teaching and learning. Langer
considered “myths about learning” [6] to be a hindrance for their
pedagogical aspirations. Langer [6] presented a few myths. Myth 1: “The
Basics Should Be Learned So Well That They Become Second Nature”;
Myth 2: “To Pay Attention to Something, We Should Hold It Still and
Focus on It”; Myth 3: “It Is Important to Learn How to Delay
Gratification”.
In practice, ESL teachers often get students drill grammar structures
and vocabulary through repetition and rote memorization (Myth 1).
However, Langer [6] claimed that such strategy brings about mindlessness,
in which learners have no personal connection with the information and
latch onto one single way of understanding the meaning (Myth 2) [32].
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 133

Besides, the quality of learning outcomes cannot be achieved successfully

if tasks do not engage learners in what they want to know and practice.
Hence, language teachers should be aware of those myths and
articulate their pedagogies. As such, it is vital that the curriculum and
instruction assist learners to decide how to apply knowledge effectively
based on their own abilities [33]. Mindful teaching, therefore, enable the
teacher to create “certain cognitive, affective, or behavioral changes in her
students”. 22 In other words, students will become active in learning and
mindful in their own learning approaches to reach the target of education.

Mindfulness-Based Learning ESL

Constructivism, according to the review of Eryaman and Genc [34],

regards learning as “a process in which the learner actively constructs new
ideas or concepts based on prior knowledge and/or experience”.23 In other
words, it is important for learners to be aware of what they acquire as
meaningful knowledge that fits their experiential domains. This awareness
can be a prerequisite of mindful learning as Hanh [28] states that
mindfulness is to begin looking deeply at what occurs at present. Hence,
first and foremost, learning mindfully means to explore the knowledge
actively and then create new meanings based on a reference of individual
experiences. From this vantage point, both active and experiential learning
will be highlighted. Furthermore, a concept of mindful SLA, which
illuminates Thich Nhat Hanh’s theory in the context of ESL teaching and
learning, will be suggested.

Active Learning
Bonwell and Eison [35] claim that, “active learning requires students
to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing”.24

22
Warren M. Liew, “Effects Beyond Effectiveness: Teaching as a Performative Act,”
Curriculum Inquiry 43, no. 2 (2013): 266.
23
Eryaman and Genc, Learning Theories, 534.
24
Michael Prince¸ “Does Active Learning Work? A Review of the Research,” Journal of
Engineering Education 93, no. 3 (2004): 223.
134 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

Being active in an educational process also means against traditional

learning styles of passivity that do not apply cognitive functions to classify,
analyze, and reflect. One of the first factors that Siegel [7] singles out in
his book about “The Mindful Brain” is that people stay curious about the
novelty in contexts after becoming mindfully aware of their own well-
being. In learning, it is essential that students keep wondering and try to
find new things about what they have known and what they have not
known.
Mindful learning includes activeness as the first step in which learners
actively orient themselves to what is happening now [6]. It is time for
learners to transcend their present views to “make room for better ideas
and truer perceptions”. 25 This means that the learners keep seeking for
more ways of understanding and doing by challenging their own
perceptions. Thich Nhat Hanh [28] acknowledges, “Everything is
constantly changing. Nothing has a permanent identity.”26 Active learning
also creates constant reflections and transformation in education.
In particular, an individual prepares one’s body and mind prior to the
lessons so that an individual is ready to acquire the language. In this case,
the brain initiates new functions, and it can activate prior knowledge. As a
result, an individual becomes more sensitive to the contexts that relates to
one’s experiences.
Furthermore, an individual becomes more responsible for one’s own
learning performance as “mindfulness asks students to see for themselves,
personally determine how to use their knowledge or skills, and determine
what is a meaningful outcome”.27 Active learning in a language classroom
is likely to involve engagement in communicative activities and flexible
applications of the language in authentic situations. In this sense, students
are interested in cooperative activities and experiential learning tasks that
help them to be excel in English language competence and enlarge their
knowledge of the real world.

25
Hanh, The Art of Power, 89.
26
Hanh, You Are Here, 103.
27
Tony Houston and Paaige K. Turner, “Mindful Learning and Second Language Acquisition,”
Academic Exchange Quarterly 11, no. 1(2007): 88.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 135

Learning, metaphorically, is an invitation to a party that students

would really like to come and join. As such, the language classroom, for
enthusiastic teachers and learners, is an educational party that helps
everyone to enjoy the construction of linguistic meanings while
conforming to collective tasks and pluralism.

Experiential Learning
The ideology of learning from experiences has been advocated in
education for a long time. Dewey [36] stated, “Education must be
conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experiences”28, which means
that pupils learn and grow through constructive activities grounded in the
correlation between their personal understanding and subject content
knowledge. Similarly, Montessori [37] pointed out, “education is a natural
process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired
not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment”. 29
Learners set off for the fields of knowledge and find out the meanings that
are beneficial for themselves. Meanwhile, these empirical attempts help
learners to be awake to the moment of being themselves [38].
Accordingly, the Experiential Learning Theory, as developed by Kolb
[39], encompasses four modes: Concrete Experience (CE); Abstract
Conceptualization (AC); Reflective Observation (RO); Active
Experimentation (AE). These modes recursively occur within education
through experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. Based on this
ideology, Yeganeh [40] connects mindfulness with experiential learning by
constructing a new notion of mindful experiential learning. He argues that
“mindful experiential learning is an engaged process of seeking and
producing novel opportunities to learn by being attentive to and aware of
momentary concrete experience”. 30 Mindfulness, according to Yeganeh
[40], supports learners’ autonomy development, and it leads to real
achievement.
28
John Dewey, “My Pedagogical Creed,” in The Curriculum Studies Readers, ed. David J.
Flinders and Stephen J. Thornton (New York: Routledge, 2013), 33–40.
29
Maria Montessori, Education for A New World (Oxford, England: Clio Press, 1946), 3.
30
Bauback Yeganeh and David Kolb, “Mindfulness and Experiential Learning,” OD Practitioner
41, no. 3 (2009): 13–18.
136 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

Yeganeh and Kolb [39] together created a practical model of mindful

practices that starts with focusing on the present moment in Concrete
Experience mode, showing non-judgmental attitudes toward people and
events in Reflective Observation mode, challenging personal beliefs,
accepting others’ perspectives or differences in Abstract Conceptualization
mode, and, finally, generating new, positive ideas of thoughts and
behaviors in the mode of Active Experimentation [39].

Mindfulness-Based Practices

Concrete Experiences (CE)

 Diaphragmatic breathing, relaxing your body and mind
 Focusing on the senses

Reflective Observation (RO)

 Becoming aware of those times when you become impulsive
 Suspending impulsive thoughts and actions
 Sitting with your thoughts and feelings
 Practicing acceptance rather than judgment

Abstract Conceptualization (AC)

 Questioning your assumptions
 Considering other people’s perspectives
 Doubting your personal “truths”
 Seeking the shades of gray

Active Experimentation (AE)

 Practicing questioning
 Thinking of thoughts and behaviors that you admire in another
human beings and practicing them
 Experimenting by responding to people and events in the ways
that you normally do not

Figure 1. Mindful Experiential Learning. Practice guide [39].

Mindfulness-Based SLA
Combining Thich Nhat Hanh’s Mindfulness Theory and Experiential
Learning Theory, as articulated by Kolb and Yeganeh [39], mindful SLA
incorporates language demands, sensitivity to context, openness to multiple
perspectives, and anew and flexible language proficiency. Mindful SLA
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 137

comprises four phases that are pertinent to the mindfulness-based practices,

including “Bell of Mindfulness”; “The Body as Practice”; “Breathing”;
“Sitting Meditation”; “Walking Meditation”; “Noble Silence”; “Resting”;
“Dharma Sharing”; “Sangha Body”; “Sangha Building”; “Solitude”;
“Gathas-Poems”; “Beginning Anew”; “Going Home” [41].

Phase 1: Present Moment, Language Demands

Bell of Mindfulness
Learners are awakened spiritually by the bell of mindfulness that can
be a bell from their consciousness or the bell sounding at the beginning of
each class. Learners stop for a moment to pay attention to their own
bodies, breath, and movements. They come into an English classroom as
being aware of the fact that this international language would open the
world in front of their eyes and make desired careers within their grasp.

The Body as Practice

Learners notice their own well-being, maintain good health by doing
exercises and relaxing. In the classroom, this practice can be done in
collective activities as a whole class when learners together have exercises
or meditation.

Breathing
Keeping the breath as a natural flow of air within the body is a way to
set up calm and peace in the mind. Learners can recall the lines about
breathing in and breathing out (see the respective note above).

Phase 2: Sensitive to Context, Self-Reflection

Sitting Meditation
Learners spend time meditating in order to realize the functions of
intuitive senses and different emotional states, such as happiness, sadness,
or anger. It is time for learners to come back to themselves when they
understand how to keep calm and sustain their well-being.
138 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

Walking Meditation
This is another practice of meditation, but the movements with
counting each steps make learners think of constant changes in the fabric
of life. They stop, sometimes, to think carefully about their current
positions, to look back the way behind, and endeavor to step toward their
future targets.

Noble Silence
Silence is attached with the above-mentioned meditation practices.
Silence is useful for healing and refreshing the mind and body.

Resting
This is a transition among different phases as learners need to free their
mind and bodies from learning tasks for a short period of time during
classes. At this step, they have opportunities to interact with one another
and with their teacher.

Phase 3: Open to Multiple Perspectives and Interactive

Communication

Dharma Sharing
Dharma Sharing is an opportunity to benefit from each other’s insights
and experience. In one case, language learners share their experiences,
joys, difficulties, and questions related to learning. By practicing deep
listening while others are speaking, learners are able to open multiple
perspectives. Learners deepen their understanding of others’ sufferings and
difficulties. Sitting, listening, and sharing together, they recognize true
connections to one another. In another case, learners engage in a class
discussion, they are more aware of differences and show their respect to
different cultural values. This phase is enlightened with the practices of
communicative language skills.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 139

Sangha Body
After sharing ideas with one another, learners think of their
involvement in collective activities. “Sangha” in education means the
community in a classroom. Everyone has a responsibility to contribute to
the sustainability of “Sangha”. Thich Nhat Hanh compares “Sangha” with
a flower. A powerful community is embedded with awareness, sympathy,
and love among people.

Sangha Building
Thich Nhat Hanh claims that building “Sangha” is like planting a
sunflower. Thus, learners need to be aware of which conditions will
support the flower’s growth and which conditions will obstruct its growth.
They water the flower every time they come to the class. They together
build an equitable and constructive learning environment.

Phase 4: A New and Flexible Language Proficiency

Solitude
A learner works individually, but an individual is not separated from
the relationship with the community. Solitude is utilized in learning as a
way of reflecting on one’s own experiences. A learner will challenge one’s
own ideologies, think critically about subject content knowledge, and
prepare oneself for positive changes.

Gathas
Gathas are short verses that help people to practice mindfulness in
daily activities. In ESL learning, gathas can be poems, songs, dramas, or
plays to get learners to practice English with excitement. Gathas are
effective for communicative teaching and learning as students feel less
stressful.

Beginning Anew
To begin anew is to look deeply into the nature of the self and the
world and start a fresh beginning within the body and with other people.
140 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

As Brady [42] states, “True education has as its aim to awaken the student
to him- or herself and to the world”.31 This means that learners transform
themselves into active and critical thinkers. They succeed in searching the
meanings from their learning experiences. They are able to use English as
a tool of communication. Besides, they value empathy and compassion in
the community of classroom.

Going Home
Learners come back home with new conceptions of the world. They
continue to be mindful in everything they do and practice their language
during their later lives. The practices have gone beyond the classroom
setting as learners become both skillful communicators and ethical
individuals. Mindfulness can be magnified to its broad application in
families and societies.

MINDFULNESS-BASED CURRICULUM DEPLOYED IN THE

CONTEXT OF VIETNAMESE EDUCATION

Application of Curriculum Theory

The described curriculum project seeks to attain two main goals of

mindful teaching and learning. As for teaching strategies, the curriculum
project offers ESL teachers opportunities to practice mindfulness in their
daily activities by themselves and with their students. They can practice
both inside and outside the classroom during the curriculum project.
Mindful learning is initiated, basing on the conception of mindful SLA,
through mindfulness-based practices and subject content knowledge. As
such, it follows Doll’s [43] proposal of four R’s curriculum (Richness,
Recursion, Relations, Rigor).

31
Richard Brady, “Realizing True Education with Mindfulness,” Human Architecture: Journal of
Sociology of Self-Knowledge 6, no. 3 (2008): 87–98.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 141

 “Richness”: The curriculum provides a variety of lesson topics and

multiple meanings or interpretation. As Doll [43] states, language
latches on “the interpretation of metaphors, myths, narratives”, and
it is “integrated with culture, as one of the determinants of
culture”.32
 “Recursion”: Communicative abilities needs to be drilled through
repeated and inquiry-based tasks that helps a learner possess the
language for a lifetime. “Recursion aims at developing competence
– the ability to organize, combine, inquire, use something
heuristically”.33
 “Relations”: The mindfulness-based curriculum is designed to
advocate a set of relationship: learners-contents and learners-
teachers. Moreover, it aims to spark intercultural communication
that brings back high level thinking and cultural exchange.
 “Rigor”: This ensures the quality of interaction between
learners and the texts, and “the dialogue may be meaningful
and transformative”. 34 The curriculum is expected to make
transformation possible for individual learners, teachers and other
community members.

The mindfulness-based curriculum suggests Eisner’s [44] approach

that supports artistic learning, which gives students opportunities to get
valuable experiences and recheck their own conceptions. More
importantly, the mindfulness-based curriculum advocates Thich Nhat
Hanh’s concept of Engaged Buddhism, which envisages engagement not
only in social action, but also in daily life [28]. It means that students are
expected to transcend their own views of other people and the world. They
will practice mindfulness not only during class hours, but also in their daily
lives. The ultimate aim of the mindfulness-based curriculum is to
encourage both teachers and students to support social justice and

32
William E. Doll Jr., “The Four R’s – An Alternative to the Tyler Rationale,” in The Curriculum
Studies Readers, ed. David J. Flinders and Stephen J. Thornton (New York: Routledge,
2013), 216.
33
Doll, The Four R’s – An Alternative to the Tyler Rationale, 218.
34
Doll, The Four R’s – An Alternative to the Tyler Rationale, 221.
142 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

participate actively in Engaged Buddhist movement, which enlightens

ethical principles and compassionate understandings.
The mindfulness-based curriculum is being implemented with six
major modules, and each module contains up to three lessons with
linguistic topics: Module 1: “Awakening”; Module 2: “Noticing”; Module
3: “Self-Awareness”; Module 4: “Mindful Communication”; Module 5:
“Openness”; Module 6: “Dealing with Conflicts”; Module 7: “Building a
Sangha”; Module 8: “Lifelong Balance”.

On Some Current Issues of ESL Teaching

and Learning in Vietnam

The history of ESL teaching and learning in Vietnam is correlated with

the wartime and the national economic growth. As an official language, it
began to be used in the south of Vietnam for high level academic study,
work, and business activities during the period of 1954 throughout 1975.
Whereas in the north, three foreign languages – Russian, Chinese, and
French – were predominantly taught in public school systems. Among
them, Russian was the most preferable as people from northern Vietnam
communicated with people from the USSR. English was, then, considered
as an inferior language in the context of the divided nation under
colonization for many years.
After the wartime, Vietnam has strived to construct the national
facilities and stimulate more international trades and businesses. As a
result, in 1986, the Renovation Era was initiated by the Vietnamese
Communist Party, and many open door policies helping to create more
interactions with other countries were released. Since then, English has
changed its role in education. Gradually, more foreigners from English-
speaking countries have come to live and work in Vietnam, so the demand
for English language skills among Vietnamese people has significantly
increased. Since the 1990s, English has been a compulsory subject at
different levels of public schools and has been taught widespread outside
the formal educational systems as well.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 143

English is being taught in some affluent private primary schools, in all

public lower secondary and upper secondary schools. Children have
English lessons three or four times each week, and each lesson lasts for
forty-five minutes.
According to Trinh [45], the goals of English language teaching and
learning can be categorized into three themes of “culture goals, linguistic
goals, and learner autonomy development goals”. 35 This means that
students explore other cultures in the world by learning, gain a better
understanding of the national culture, and enhance their civic
responsibilities. The last goal is the most challenging goal to be attained,
and, in Vietnam, ESL teaching and learning has been recently focused on
pursuing this particular goal.
However, there have been some hurdles on the way. First, ESL
textbooks are predominantly grammar-based. Although the objectives
existing of ESL curriculum prioritize developing communication skills,
ESL textbooks are filled with grammar exercises. As such, in the
classroom, time is utilized mainly to cover all long, complex grammatical
issues, which make oral practices of language limited and ineffective.
Besides, managed by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET),
Vietnamese public schools apply the evaluation of students’ second
language competence through standardized testing. The national exams are
pen-and-paper tests that include grammar assignments, such as multiple
choice questions, sentence building, or vocabulary gap filling. Oral tests
that refer to speaking and listening skills count small percentages in the
total amount of scores as, in fact, those oral scores are very low. Some
internationally recognized tests, such as TOEFL, TOEIC, and IELTs,
which fully assess four skills (reading, speaking, listening, and writing) are
only prevalent in private institutions or language centers outside the formal
educational settings.
At the tertiary level, English is a prior course for students during their
first and second years. Although college students have spent at least seven
years studying English at their general grades, they are not confident to use

35
Lap Q. Trinh, “Stimulating Learner Autonomy in English Language Education: A Curriculum
Innovation Study in a Vietnamese Context,” 2005, http://dare.uva.nl/ record/220473.
144 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

English in everyday conversations. The low quality of language teaching

and learning at most universities and colleges is almost the same as that in
primary lower secondary and upper secondary schools.
Additionally, one of the obstacles for the development of pedagogical
strategy in ESL teaching has been a fixed curriculum for many years.
Although many teachers are aware of the modern trends of communicative
language teaching, most of them cannot apply this teaching approach
successfully. Some teachers find it easier to stick to content-based lessons
and spend most of the time covering the required parts in the curriculum.
As a result, there is a lack of teacher-student and student-student
interaction in the classroom. In particular, due to large sized classes (up to
seventy students), a teacher is not able to interact individually with
students as much as possible. As a result, a teacher does not know much
about students’ preferences or any challenging issues they may encounter.
In 2010, the MOET issued the new policy of teacher training that
requires thousands of English teachers throughout the country to pass the
test adopted from the Common European Framework of References for
Language [47]. The expected results were C1 English level for high school
teachers, B1 English level for elementary school teachers, and B2 English
level for middle school teachers. Yet, some figures reveal disheartening
facts [46, 47]. For instance, “In the capital, Hanoi, teachers are taking the
IELTS test and 18% have so far made the B2 grade…the pass rate is as
low as one in 700”.36 In another big city, “a paltry 15.5 percent of 1,100
teachers passed the test”.37 Some good teachers of English prefer seeking
for non-teaching lucrative jobs as they find it difficult to pursue the goals
of their pedagogical strategies. Thus, curriculum innovation should
indirectly appeal to the commitment and intrinsic motivation in teaching
careers for both veteran and novice teachers of English.
For ESL learners, it is necessary to practice their language skills with
their peers and with the teacher. However, the students cannot drill their
communicative skills as they often have only a few minutes to work in
36
Ed Parks, “Vietnam Demands English Language Teaching ‘miracle’,” The Guardian, 2011,
http://www.theguardian.com.
37
Viet Toan, “English Teaching in Vietnam: Teacher ‘re-education’,” Tuoitrenews, March 2,
2013, http://tuoitrenews.vn.
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 145

pairs or groups after learning grammar or vocabulary. Consequently, they

get low grades in oral tests and find it hard to speak English accurately and
fluently. In their recent study, Utsumi and Doan [48] conducted a survey of
students’ responses about their English classes. The data revealed that
outdated teaching methods and rote learning were prevalent in their
classrooms.
In such educational settings, students are “good listeners and good
imitators of their teacher”.38 Influenced by Confucianism, students rarely
express their needs as they think their requests may annoy their teacher.
This also affects negatively their passion of the subject, and most of them
keep in mind that passing the tests successfully is the only target of their
learning. They think that a good command of grammar and instructions are
prerequisites for their language competence. Accordingly, their
communicative practices are disregarded and drilled less than grammatical
or test-oriented exercises. It is necessary to create opportunities for
students to be become aware of authentic language learning approaches
and develop their lifelong skills during learning.
In short, the current issues of ESL teaching and learning are connected
with designing textbooks, testing systems, teacher training, and students’
learning. These issues call for a countrywide innovation to improve the
quality of teaching and learning, which can be initiated by insightful
curriculum inquiries.
Since 2010, MOET has conducted the “National Foreign Language
Project 2020” in Vietnam to implement new teaching and learning
approaches of foreign languages at all levels [48]. The goal of this scheme
is that, by 2020, the majority of Vietnamese young people are capable of
using the English language independently, confident in communication,
learning, working in an integrated, multi-language and multicultural
environment. This national project comprises many pilot projects that are
carried out at schools, colleges, and universities, both public and private
ones, from the grassroots.

38
T. Quoc Lap, “Stimulating Learner Autonomy in English Language Education: A Curriculum
Innovation Study in a Vietnamese Context” (Thesis, the University of Amsterdam, 2005).
146 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

Mindfulness-Based Curriculum Project: Context, Assessment

Tools, and Reflection and Implications

Context
The proposed curriculum project incorporates Thich Nhat Hanh’s
mindfulness-based philosophy in the real context of ESL teaching and
learning. The curriculum project takes place during the first semester of the
academic year and lasts for three months. The participants of the
curriculum project are the staff of English Language Section and the first
year students at Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Vietnam. The
number of fifty to sixty students in one class is often an obstacle for
classroom interactions, but it may be advantageous to collective activities
of outdoor meditation and short-term project work. Of course, the
curriculum project needs the support and collaboration of the
administrators, the curriculum team of English courses, other colleagues,
and students.
In general, the context of the project at Thai Nguyen University of
Technology is under the impact of the national circumstances. Some
dilemmas, such as textbooks, curriculum, and teachers’ professionalism,
are considered prior to the implementation of the project. There is a lack of
facilities and equipment for all English classes, for instance, some old
cassette players, computers, and one language lab.
Optimistically, despite their low English scores, many students are
really interested in acquiring English for several purposes. They are
excited to get acquainted with foreign cultures and have access to the
worldwide knowledge in many fields. A good command of English will
also help them to get better, well-paid jobs in the future. Furthermore, they
will also have chances to go abroad to obtain a high level education in the
English language. The curriculum project is definitely going to be aligned
with these students’ needs.

Assessment Tools
The assessment in this curriculum project envisages both formative
and summative assessment approaches as there are many activities within a
 Applying Thich Nhat Hanh’s Philosophy to Educational Contexts 147

three months’ time. Students’ engagement in mindful practices, learning

approaches, attention, and self-regulation are observed and evaluated
carefully on a regular basis. The tool for measuring the impacts of
mindfulness trainings are the “Mindful Attention Awareness Scale”
(MAAS) [12] or the “Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire” (FFMQ)
[50].
At the beginning of the curriculum project, the project leaders conduct
a survey to examine both teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward
mindfulness practices. Also, individual teachers’ journals and students’
mindful notes are important sources for the evaluation of the
implementation of the project.

Reflection and Implications for Curriculum Units of ESL

It is expected that an integrated curriculum will become beneficial to
students’ intellectual, mental and physical development and help them to
gain valuable knowledge of mindfulness for their own well-being. It is also
expected that this mindful approach to teaching and learning ESL will
encourage students’ involvement. This is also an opportunity for students
to interact with one another and with the teachers, develop their English
language skills, think critically about the here-and-now moments, and be
open to multiple perspectives.
Hopefully, the curriculum project will offer English language teachers
a precious chance to study more about the integrated curriculum, which
will help them to solve the problems in conventional teaching. Especially,
they will get a deeper understanding of Thich Nhat Hanh’s philosophy. His
humanistic ideologies will really help teachers to transform themselves
into active learners, compassionate teachers, and responsible family
members. Teachers will become more aware of the importance of
mindfulness in their private lives and in their teaching career. They will
also be able to practice mindfulness while being the students’ companions
on their paths toward education.
148 Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen

CONCLUSION

Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness-based theory has shed the light on

modern education, especially in the field of ESL teaching and learning.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s ethical ideology can be applied effectively together
with current pedagogy, which generates a new principle: teaching means
“understanding and caring” and learning means “sharing and growing”.
From this vantage point, the mindfulness-based curriculum aims to
ring “the bell of mindfulness” in both teachers’ and students’ souls. This
wonderful sound, echoing deeply, will help teachers to reclaim their love
of teaching and guide their students with compassion and understanding.

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 ABOUT THE EDITOR
Dr. Astrida Skrinda
Scientific Researcher, Center of Sustainable Education,
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences

Dr. Astrida Skrinda’s academic record includes an earned doctorate in

Education and the Postgraduate Diploma in TESOL (Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages) from Canterbury Christ Church University
in the UK. Her doctoral work was in English pedagogy and competence,
and her field of practice is in this area. For many years, she has taught
English as a foreign language at the tertiary level. Additionally, she has
taken up research positions. She has had leading editorial roles at a number
of academic journals, which are indexed by international databases and
platforms, including Scopus, ERIH PLUS (European Reference Index for
the Humanities and Social Sciences). Her main areas of interest are foreign
language vocabulary teaching and learning, individual learners’
differences, learning strategies, and, more recently, sustainable education.
 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Lu-Fang Lin is Professor of the Institute of Applied English, National

Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan, R.O.C. Lu-Fang Lin received a Ph.D.
degree in 2004 at Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of
Victoria, Canada. Lu-Fang Lin has great interests in teaching English as a
second language at the secondary and tertiary education. Her chief research
interests are in language learning strategies and English reading and
listening comprehension. At present, she focuses on applying the problem-
based learning approach and the reciprocal teaching approach to teaching
English as a second language.

Krzysztof Polok is Associate Professor at the University of Bielsko-

Biala, Poland. He received a Ph.D. degree in 2002 at the University of
Silesia, Poland. Also, he received his habilitation degree of an independent
scholar at the University of Constantine the Philosopher in Nitra, Slovakia.
He is an author of more than 100 papers and ten scientific dissertations,
most of them focusing upon the ways of introduction of creativity and
creative atmosphere into everyday teaching practice. His most popular
books are a three-volume handbook for teaching English through sport
titled “English in Sport” (GWSH Press in Katowice) and a collection of
quizzes titled “Quiz Yourself” (Branch of Lambert Academic Publishing in
Munich).
156 About the Contributors

Tatiana Szczygłowska is Assistant Professor at the Institute of

Neophilology, University of Bielsko-Biała, Poland. She received a Ph.D.
degree in 2009 at the University of Silesia, Poland. She lectures on
translation theory and text analysis to students of English philology. Her
main research and teaching interests lie in linguistics and translation. She is
particularly interested in discourse analysis and recently also in academic
discourse analysis. She has also conducted studies in the area of students’
attitudes to target language culture and pronunciation. She is an
experienced BA and MA diploma work supervisor in the field of
translation.

Thuong Thi Kim Nguyen is Senior lecturer in English at the Faculty

of International Training, Thai Nguyen University of Technology,
Vietnam. She holds a BA in English Language Teaching at Thai Nguyen
University of Education, Vietnam and a MS. (Master of Science in
Education) in Curriculum and Instruction at Oklahoma State University,
the USA. She is interested in language teaching methodologies, classroom
research, learning autonomy, authentic assessment, and ESL/EFL
curriculum development.
 INDEX

A B

access, 4, 10, 16, 50, 151 BA students, 91, 97, 98, 102, 105, 108, 109,
administrators, 129, 150, 151 110, 111
adults, 48, 127 behaviors, 129, 131, 140
age, viii, 48, 51, 71, 90, 109, 130 beliefs and expectations, 79, 85, 90, 92, 97,
American culture, 87, 88, 93, 106, 110 111
anger, 125, 142 benefits, 48, 69, 129, 156
anxiety, 2, 31, 33, 34 bias, 14, 15, 88, 91, 111, 135
application, 2, 4, 11, 12, 24, 34, 42, 44, 50, bilingual children, 47, 49, 75, 77
55, 56, 59, 60, 64, 67, 68, 70, 85, 122, bilingualism, 67, 68, 75, 77
123, 127, 128, 144, 157, 161 blank-filling (BF) section, 14, 26
applying mindfulness, 132, 136 brain, 127, 128, 132, 137
aspiration, 132, 134 breathing, 134, 141, 158
assessment, 53, 54, 70, 151, 168 Buddhism, 121, 124, 134, 145, 152, 161
assimilation, 53, 88 Buddhist philosophy, ix, 121, 122, 126, 133
atmosphere, 55, 167
attachment, 108, 111
C
attitudes, viii, 12, 33, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 90,
91, 105, 107, 111, 114, 117, 118, 140,
challenges, iv, viii, 121, 128, 129
151, 168
childhood, v, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55, 59, 61, 67,
aural input, 5, 21
69, 71, 74, 130
autonomy, 3, 139, 147, 168
children, viii, 47, 48, 49, 52, 55, 56, 57, 63,
awareness, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 15, 18, 33, 34,
64, 67, 68, 70, 72, 127, 130, 135
35, 60, 62, 72, 74, 81, 84, 87, 88, 95,
classes, viii, 13, 17, 27, 47, 67, 82, 83, 86,
106, 107, 111, 128, 129, 134, 136, 143,
94, 97, 104, 105, 106, 109, 142, 148,
146, 154
149, 150, 151, 155
158 Index

classroom, 3, 6, 11, 12, 15, 59, 64, 65, 66, culture, viii, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59,
69, 109, 122, 128, 130, 133, 135, 138, 62, 63, 67, 69, 71, 72, 74, 79, 80, 81, 82,
141, 143, 144, 147, 148, 150, 153, 154, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94,
156, 157, 159, 168 95, 96, 97, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109,
cognition, 5, 6, 54, 58, 59, 63, 75, 76 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117,
cognitive development, 53, 128 118, 119, 145, 147, 154, 159, 168
cognitive method, 47 curriculum, vii, ix, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 18,
cognitive necessities, 58 22, 31, 33, 34, 35, 47, 80, 85, 93, 107,
cognitive process, 3, 5, 6, 10 108, 111, 112, 122, 123, 127, 128, 130,
college students, 129, 148 131, 135, 136, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147,
colleges, 148, 150 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 168
communication, 1, 59, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, curriculum approach, 122, 144, 145, 152
87, 130, 135, 145, 146, 147, 159
community, 48, 82, 83, 123, 126, 130, 133,
D
143, 144, 145, 159
compassion, 121, 125, 131, 134, 142, 144,
decoding, 3, 5
153, 157
dependent variable, 24, 25, 30
comprehension, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13,
directed attention, 15, 30, 32
15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33,
diversification, 82, 87
34, 35, 36, 38, 121, 167
computer, 45, 156
conception, viii, 6, 79, 90, 92, 93 E
conception of culture, 79, 90, 92, 93
conceptualization, 21, 22, 34 early childhood education in English, v, 47,
consciousness, 6, 15, 125, 141 48, 49, 50, 55, 59, 61, 67, 69, 71, 74
construction, 10, 53, 68, 138 education, v, vii, 3, 5, 9, 38, 47, 48, 49, 50,
constructivist, 3, 9, 31, 42, 52, 77 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64,
contextualized situations, 10 65, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 74, 79, 80, 83, 84,
control group, 13, 17, 22, 130 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 99, 100, 102,
conversations, 20, 148 107, 110, 112, 121, 123, 126, 127, 130,
conviction, 48, 96, 107 131, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 143, 144,
correlation, 83, 138 146, 149, 152, 154, 161, 164, 165
creativity, 135, 167 educational contexts, v, 121
critical thinking, 9, 136 educational experience, 53, 90
cultivation, 3, 52 educational institutions, 62, 127
cultural education, v, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 89, educational process, 51, 52, 137
90, 92, 107, 110, 112 educational research, 124, 127
cultural element, viii, 80, 89, 92, 93, 98, educational settings, 9, 128, 149
102, 112 educators, 2, 3, 9, 10, 112, 128, 129
cultural norms, 111, 154 EFL classroom, 66
cultural practices, 86, 109 EFL education, 60, 61, 62, 64, 67, 69, 71,
72
 Index 159

EFL instruction, 49 financial, 36, 49

EFL kindergarten learners, 73 food, 56, 68, 86, 99, 102, 108
EFL learners, 49, 56, 57, 60, 65, 71, 73 foreign language, vii, viii, ix, 6, 9, 13, 47,
elementary school, 128, 149 48, 55, 71, 73, 83, 85, 87, 91, 107, 110,
emotion, 55, 131, 142 122, 146, 147, 148, 150, 165
empathy, 87, 144 formal education, 147, 148
empirical experiments, 9 formation, 60, 62
empirical studies, 3, 7, 9, 11, 20 France, 126, 141
Engaged Buddhism, 121, 122, 131, 141
English as a foreign language (EFL), viii, 4,
G
8, 11, 12, 13, 37, 38, 40, 47, 48, 49, 55,
56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69,
general education, 147, 151
71, 72, 73, 83, 87, 107, 113, 117, 118,
goal-setting, 18, 34
165, 168
grades, 147, 148, 149
English as a second language (ESL), v, 4, 8,
group work, 22, 155, 157, 158
80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 115, 121, 123, 132,
grouping, 93, 94
135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 143, 144, 147,
growth, 50, 62, 73, 123, 130, 143
148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 163, 167, 168
guessing, 27, 31
English as the TL, 80, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90,
92, 93, 106, 107, 110, 112
English language, 38, 41, 43, 44, 114, 118, H
146, 147, 149, 150, 164, 168
English studies majors, v, 79, 80 happiness, 125, 142
environment, 4, 10, 12, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, health, 129, 131, 141
56, 57, 58, 59, 63, 65, 67, 73, 127, 129, high school, 107, 109, 148, 167
138, 150, 157 history, 82, 91, 101, 108, 110, 146
ESL learners, 8, 83, 135, 149 homogeneity, 25, 30
ESL learning, 82, 143 human, 48, 50, 53, 54, 58, 73, 85, 126, 127,
Estonia, 106, 118 133, 138
everyday life, 56, 98, 108 Hungary, 106, 118
evidence, 2, 7, 31, 57, 62
exercise, 22, 23, 66 I
exercises, 22, 23, 141, 147, 149
exposure, 59, 60, 65, 71 identity, 87, 88, 137
external environment, 50, 56 ideology, 108, 122, 123, 131, 133, 138, 139,
150, 152
F immersion, 54, 77
immersive methods, 47
families, 56, 144, 151 improvements, 8, 27
feelings, 73, 124 individual sentence dictation (ISD), 14, 26,
films, 70, 103, 105, 110 27
160 Index

individuals, 5, 89, 123, 124, 144 learning task, 138, 142

institutions, 89, 100, 148 learning TL culture, 79, 84, 90, 92, 94, 95,
instructional effects on L2 listeners, 5 97, 103, 105, 107, 111
integration, 88, 127, 130 leisure, 99, 102, 108
internalization, 48, 50, 59, 74 lesson plan, 122, 123, 148, 151
intervention, 25, 129 level of education, 84, 90, 110, 151
issues, 49, 50, 52, 53, 59, 61, 64, 80, 87, 90, light, viii, 152
101, 102, 108, 123, 126, 128, 147, 148, linguistics, iv, 5, 168
150 listening comprehension, v, 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11,
12, 13, 15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31,
33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, 45, 167
K
love, 17, 124, 125, 126, 143, 153
kindergarten, 43, 49, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 68,
69, 70, 73 M
kindergarten children, 64, 68, 69
MA students, 91, 96, 97, 99, 102, 107
majority, 48, 89, 95, 107, 131, 150
L
Mandarin, 13, 16
manipulation, 16, 19
L1 English-speaking world, 93, 94, 106,
materials, ix, 2, 14, 16, 17, 21, 27, 60, 88,
110
117, 126, 154
L2 listening, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 16, 18, 31,
media, 60, 102, 108
34, 35, 37, 38
mediation, 52, 96
language acquisition, iv, 44, 54, 59, 62, 75,
medical, 9, 35, 127
122, 123, 137, 140, 141, 144, 155
memory, 70, 127
language development, 64, 146
mental processes, 7, 52
language instruction, viii, 84, 115, 118, 121
mental translation, 15, 28, 30, 32
language proficiency, 7, 91
messages, 3, 66, 71, 72, 73
language skills, 8, 143, 147, 149, 152, 155
meta-analysis, viii, 47
languages, 66, 72
metacognition, 2, 3, 5, 6, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41
learner-centered pedagogy, 3
Metacognitive Awareness Listening
learners, viii, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
Questionnaire (MALQ), 15, 23, 24, 28,
15, 18, 22, 28, 33, 34, 35, 38, 47, 48, 49,
30, 31, 32, 41
51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62,
metacognitive knowledge, 6, 7
64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 81, 83,
metacognitive processes, 18, 33
84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 106, 107, 109,
metacognitive strategies, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 12,
111, 117, 122, 123, 128, 135, 136, 137,
15, 18, 22, 24, 28, 29, 32, 34, 35, 41, 44
138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 149, 152,
mindful experiential learning, 139, 163
153
mindful learning, 123, 126, 127, 136, 138,
learning environment, 135, 143
160, 163
learning outcomes, 11, 129, 136
learning process, 3, 123, 142, 147, 150, 156
 Index 161

mindful teaching, v, viii, 121, 122, 123, personal knowledge, 7, 15, 30, 32
126, 130, 144 personal relations, 99, 102, 108
mindfulness, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, personal relationship, 99, 102, 108
128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, Philadelphia, 88, 116
137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 146, planning and evaluation, 15, 16, 30, 32, 33
150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 159, 160, Poland, v, 47, 73, 74, 79, 84, 85, 88, 90, 91,
161, 162, 163, 164 106, 107, 112, 115, 118, 167, 168
mindfulness awareness practices (MAPs), politics, 102, 108
129, 161 positive attitudes, 33, 83
models, 8, 82, 85 positive influences, 3, 130
mother tongue, 48, 55, 56, 57, 63, 64, 65, preferences for learning, 90, 98, 99, 100,
66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 83, 106 101, 102, 105, 108
motivation, 7, 33, 35, 51, 66, 96, 107 preferred TL cultural element, 108, 110
multiple-choice questions, 14, 27 preparation, iv, 62
music, 58, 99, 102, 103, 104, 108, 109, 156 preschool, viii, 47, 67, 71, 72
preschool learners, viii, 47, 71, 72
principles, 71, 122, 124, 126, 146
N
prior knowledge, 5, 136, 155
problem solving, 5, 9, 39, 43, 76
national culture, 87, 147
problem-based learning (PBL), v, vii, 1, 2,
New Zealand, 131, 162
4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21,
No Child Left Behind, 128, 161
22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32,
33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 167
O project, 136, 141, 144, 146, 150, 151, 152,
153
opportunities, 4, 11, 31, 123, 127, 139, 142, pronunciation, 117, 168
144, 145, 149, 153 psychology, 5, 35, 49, 129
organ, 19, 58 public schools, 147, 148
organize, 56, 70, 145

R
P
reading, 12, 17, 20, 33, 105, 109, 148, 153,
parents, 62, 67, 69, 127 167
participants, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, reality, 54, 87
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, recognition, 55, 59, 80
57, 62, 65, 66, 74, 80, 91, 92, 93, 106, recommendations, iv, 19
107, 108, 109, 112, 129 regression, 24, 25, 30
PBL L2 listening program, 21, 35 regulations, 68, 71
peace, 124, 134, 141, 152 religion, 86, 89, 102
pedagogy, 2, 3, 9, 21, 31, 35, 44, 84, 87, research, vii, viii, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14,
115, 116, 123, 128, 130, 152, 165 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40,
162 Index

41, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 55, 62, 67, 68, teaching strategies, 22, 122, 135, 144
69, 74, 80, 82, 84, 89, 90, 93, 106, 108, techniques, 24, 27, 30, 60, 64, 66, 67, 69,
112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 121, 122, 70, 71, 72, 88, 155
123, 127, 129, 130, 131, 137, 153, 161, technology, 12, 28, 101, 102, 108
163, 165, 167, 168 tertiary education, 83, 85, 111
researchers, ix, 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 35, 81, 83 test scores, 13, 24, 25, 26
resources, 4, 83 testing, vii, 14, 24, 28, 52, 129, 148, 150
rules, 4, 59, 66, 68, 72, 98, 108 textbook, 11, 20, 22, 147, 150, 155, 158
textbooks, 66, 147, 151
theatre, 102, 108
S
think critically, 143, 152
thoughts, 6, 50, 53, 65, 126, 140
school, ix, 3, 49, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71,
TL cultural element, 80, 89, 90, 92, 99, 100,
76, 103, 109, 128, 129, 134, 146, 147,
101, 102, 104, 105, 108
149, 150
traditions, 59, 85, 99, 106, 155
science, 64, 102, 108, 123, 128
trainees, 85, 94, 96, 102, 106, 108, 110, 111
scope, 7, 57, 80, 89
training, 8, 18, 22, 27, 33, 85, 109, 127, 130,
second language, vii, 1, 2, 4, 41, 73, 80, 86,
131
106, 123, 127, 165, 167
transformation, 126, 137, 145
second language acquisition (SLA), 5, 38,
translation, 15, 28, 30, 32, 106, 110, 168
40, 76, 114, 118, 123, 127, 138, 140, 160
treatment, 2, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23,
second language teaching and learning, 2,
24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33
41
trial, 35, 51
secondary schools, 147, 148, 150
Turkey, 83, 109
self-awareness, 91, 133, 157, 160
self-efficacy, 7, 129
self-regulated learning, 7 U
self-regulation, 15, 128, 131, 151, 154, 160
senses, 52, 55, 142, 154 United Kingdom, 84, 165
sensitivity, 88, 110, 135 United States, 65, 84, 91, 128, 129, 168
significance level, 98, 105 universe, 86, 111
Slovakia, 73, 167 universities, 84, 90, 112, 148, 150
social activities, 131, 157 university education, 3, 111
social construct, 9, 63, 134
social network, 104, 105, 109
V
society, 9, 58, 59, 63, 65, 89, 123, 125, 128,
133
variables, 24, 26, 30, 32, 80, 84, 87, 90, 93,
solution, 19, 20, 52, 57, 58, 87
94
Soviet Union, 146
varieties, viii, 106
specialization, 79, 80, 84, 89, 90, 91, 93,
videos, 16, 17, 103, 153, 156
106, 108, 110, 112
Vietnam, 87, 116, 121, 123, 124, 146, 147,
specialization area, v, 79, 80, 84, 89, 90, 93,
149, 150, 152, 164, 168
 Index 163

vocabulary, 4, 12, 17, 20, 22, 23, 87, 91, workplace, viii, 11, 13, 27
136, 148, 149, 154, 165
VoiceTube, 16, 17, 20, 45
Y
Vygotsky, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58,
63, 67, 75
Yale University, 86, 115
young EFL learners, 55
W young learners, 47, 55, 61, 64, 69, 83
Young Learners, 40, 76
Washington, 76, 113, 161
ways of learning TL culture, 90, 92, 103,
Z
104, 105, 109, 110
website, ii, iv, 16, 17
zone of proximal development (ZPD), 50,
websites, 17, 84, 103
51, 57, 67, 68, 72
well-being, 49, 127, 129, 137, 141, 142,
152, 154, 159