Creating Opportunities for Group Work and Speaking Skills Through Cooperative Learning in an EFL Classroom

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper is concerned with an action research study conducted by a developing teacher at a Colombian high school. It was intended to explore the usefulness of cooperative learning to promote English oral production in an EFL class. Through teacher and student journals, learners’ products, and a focus group interview, data were collected and subsequently analyzed following an inductive analysis model. This showed that cooperative learning considerably enhanced opportunities for the learners to speak the target language thanks to conditions suitable for oral production set by cooperation such as shared responsibility, peer support, and self-directed learning.