Abstract:

The study examines the influence of cooperative learning as a methodological strategy to foster the students` English skills in the first semester of the career of Pedagogy of National and Foreign languages in a public university of Ecuador. This is an interpretive and qualitative study in which two groups of students participated: the control and the experimental group. The students of the experimental group learned English with strategies promoted by the cooperative learning methodology while the students of the control group learned English with traditional methods.

The purpose of this distinction was to compare both groups and to recognize whether there would be little of a great difference in the development of the English language skills at the end of this study.

Different research instruments were applied such as interviews, field notes, and observations. The main findings indicated that cooperative learning significantly helped improve the students’ English language skills through a motivating learning with strategies that promote cognitive development providing students with the opportunity to demonstrate their own knowledge complementing each other.

Keywords:

Cooperative learning, methodology, foster, English skills, motivating learning.