Purpose

This study applies the theoretical concepts on children’s language learning by J. Bruner to explore its implications for foreign language teaching and its subfield of pedagogy for cultural context in language learning.

Design/methodology/approach

Bruner’s research reflects on early 20th-century language learning theories (such as Behaviorism-informed learning), providing insights on how children acquire language through dialogue and interactions. It emphasizes the cognitive learning process of language and discusses cultural context in language use and pedagogy. Previously, research on Bruner mostly scrutinized mother tongue learning, and few explored foreign language learning and cultural context pedagogy. Recently, scholars have discovered that Bruner’s theory includes interactive language teaching while exploring the cultural context of language use, and is furthermore able to connect foreign language learning and teaching methods. Therefore, this study first compares the historical development of modern foreign language teaching methods with Bruner’s language learning theory, placing foreign language teaching under the framework of Bruner’s theory, and then analyzes how his theory deals with cultural context in language learning. This study considers the implications of Bruner’s theory for foreign language and cultural context pedagogy in language teaching.

Findings/results

The study found that Bruner’s theory of language cognition can elucidate the trends of teaching method shifts throughout the history of foreign language teaching, highlighting the context of language teaching methodologies. Bruner’s observation of how children learn culture through language interaction can also be extended to cultural context pedagogy in foreign languages, which helps learning about cultural contexts in language.

Originality/value

The study found that Bruner’s ideas of games and dialogue activities in real-life contexts are helpful for students’ language and cultural context learning.

Implications for policy/practice

This paper compares Bruner’s theory with foreign language teaching theory, offering practical suggestions for interactive and activity-based foreign language pedagogy practices, and providing insights for integrating cultural context in teaching practices.