Linguistic, Social and Cultural Factors Influencing Foreign Language Learning in the Context of Higher Education

Abstract

This research aims to reveal main linguistic, social, and cultural factors influencing foreign language learning process from students’ perspectives at non-linguistic (engineering) departments in one of the Kazakhstani universities, as well as to analyze the relationship between these factors and English language proficiency. The results of this study are presented in three sets of data obtained through observation, questionnaire and interview. While observation results revealed the factors that might influence engineering students’ foreign language learning, the results of the Likert scale questionnaire displayed the influence of linguistic, cultural and social factors on the development of learners' foreign language proficiency. The last set of data describes the students’ perceptions of the most important linguistic, cultural and social factors influencing their foreign language learning. Although linguistic and cultural peculiarities of the target and native languages differ considerably, it was found that social factors were the most influential ones from the students’ perspectives.