Socio-Cultural Influence on Cooperative Foreign Language Learning

Cooperative learning focuses on the interaction with peers in a learning environment. So, most important factor that affects learning is socio-cultural situation of learners that plays a role in learning. Some students are timid due to their piety while others are too extravert. Some students are not willing to interact because of their ideological differences while others behave more pragmatic. Socio-cultural differences are therefore quite important in the application of cooperative learning theory in the class. Sociocultural approaches emphasize the interdependence of social and individual processes in the construction of knowledge. Socio-cultural approach, theorized by Vygotsky, which is the fact that all learning takes place as a result of social interaction, giving rise to the concept of “social constructivism”, is actually a new concept in cooperative learning strategy. Socio-cultural approach supports collaboration as the means that would prove to be the catalyst to help the meta-conceptions mature into learned concepts. The aim of this study is to contribute to the research on cooperative learning in foreign language classes by investigating the social relations of Turkish students in the foreign language classroom. We examined the socio-cultural influence on cooperative learning in foreign language learning process from socio-culturalist perspective and tried to find out if there was any cultural and gender effect on cooperative language learning in the classroom at the university