Abstract:

This study determines the effectiveness of cooperative learning in improving the students' attitudes towards EFL learning in a group of students in the second semester of the career of Pedagogy of National and Foreign Languages in a public university of Ecuador. In this group, a problem related to the attitude of the students towards learning English was detected at the beginning of the academic year. This situation was the reason for this study, so it was decided to implement cooperative learning strategies in order to identify if they could improve the attitude of students towards learning English.

This is an interpretive and qualitative study in which a group of 25 students participated. Questionnaires were applied and two interviews were conducted at the beginning and at the end of the study in order to identify changes in students' attitude after having experimented cooperative learning in the EFL classes.

The main results indicated that there are benefits that can be attributed to cooperative learning such as enhancement in class participation, improvements in students' performance and achievement and more approval of tasks as well as creating better social relations among peers.

Keywords:

Cooperative learning, improve, attitudes, EFL learning, social relations.