Cultural and Sociocultural Elements of Language Learning for the Turkish Learners of English in Two Different Universities

Abstract

Culture is one part of the language learning process and it has been defined and categorized by several scholars. With the advent of social constructivism in education, the sociocultural learning theory has come to the foreground. Therefore, these two important concepts have affected the language teaching pedagogy. Thus, this study aimed at determining the cultural and sociocultural elements that were focused in language classes in two different universities in Turkey. Hence, for the purpose of this study, five students from a state university in Istanbul and five students from another state university in Eskisehir were interviewed to find out whether these elements were covered in the language classes of the School of Foreign Languages in these two different university contexts. Additionally, some other contextual factors that affected these learners’ sociocultural learning process were also questioned. The results showed that some aspects of culture were more stressed in language classes whereas some of them were neglected. Participants also stated that they benefitted a lot from the elements of sociocultural learning theory especially in terms of “scaffolding” as they cooperated with their peers whose level of language proficiency was higher than themselves to improve their language skills, especially writing and grammar.