Socio-cultural factors effecting academic successes of 8th grade students of primary education at English class

The object of this study is to specify socio-cultural factors of 8th grade students of primary education and to determine the effect of these factors on their academic successes at English class. In the study, through the review of national and international literature, information regarding the importance of foreign language education, the historical development of foreign language education, foreign language education programs and factors effecting the academic success at foreign language class are provided. The environment of the research is the 8th grade students studying in state primary schools in Elazıg city center. Choosing the sample to represent the environment, the method of `stratified sampling? is used. A student personal information form developed by the researcher is applied to 8th grade students of state primary schools considered within the sampling. The analysis of data acquired at the end of the application is held using SPSS 13.00 package program. The features of distribution are inspected, data are analyzed using proper statistical techniques.As a result of the research, it is observed that such cases as the birth places of student and birth places of parents of the student, educational levels of parents, professions of parents, monthly income level of the family, total number of persons in the family, the number of siblings studying, having a study a room and Internet, the frequency of students? visiting foreign language websites on Internet, listening to foreign music, reading foreign books, watching foreign movies, watching the foreign channels, parents speaking foreign languages and the language they speak, helpful books-materials available at home for language education, the frequency of meeting of parents with English teachers, the frequency of family members? helping students with English lesson, whether students go to private teaching institutions or not and take private classes or not, daily work capacity for English lesson and whether they want to work in any area of foreign language in the future or not, effect the academic successes of the students at English class. Nevertheless, the gender of students is not effective factor in their academic successes at English class.