Bussiness

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1. Rationale

English has played a vital role in society and made considerable contribution to education, culture, science and technology. The number of people learning English for various purposes (such as for job, business, traveling…) is continually on the increase everyday. Therefore different kinds of English teaching and learning materials are available over the world, especially in Vietnam.

In our country, English has been regarded as the most important foreign language nowadays, especially since the Vietnamese Government carried out the open door policy. English has been taught for a long time in Vietnam. It becomes a compulsory subject in most universities and schools throughout the country. However, the emphasis on transmission of structural rules and forms often sever as the principal method of teaching English in Vietnamese schools and universities. Most of Vietnamese teacher tends to focus on teaching as much grammar and vocabulary as possible. In fact, this method cannot do much help for students to assure a successful communication in daily life. The students may get difficulty in achieving contextual, situational and cultural appropriateness in communication. Therefore, the failure or the cultural breakdown might easily happen in oral communication even though they learn English grammar well.

Thus, cultural knowledge is obviously an important key for Vietnamese students to succeed in learning English because second language learning is second culture learning. In order to acquire the second language, English, it is necessary to learn not only linguistic knowledge and interaction skills but also knowledge of culture. When understanding the cultural factors students may have chances to expose themselves to native speaking environments. Normally Vietnamese students tend to employ English based on their native culture and cause misinterpretation in oral...