Culture expectations in foreign language classrooms – A case in Vietnam

Abstract

This study explores Vietnamese EFL teachers' and Vietnamese EFL students’ opinions on cultural expectations of roles and styles related to teachers and students in the English classroom. The instrument of a five-point Likert scale questionnaire was deployed and delivered to both the teachers and students to collect the data. One set of the questions was about classroom expectations in an Oriental classroom culture (in the Vietnamese context), and the other asked the participants about the classroom expectations in a Western classroom culture (in the context of teaching English as a Foreign Language in Vietnam). The results revealed that both groups of the participants have a tendency to adopt the characteristics displayed in the Western classroom culture more than those in the Oriental classroom culture. Their perspectives on individual questions were quite similar, producing a consistent result for consideration. Some recommendations for future investigation are also included in the study for future researchers to investigate.