Developing ESL Writing Skills through the Cooperative Language Learning Approach

Cooperative Language Learning (CLL) approach or Collaborative Learning (CL) is used in the present paper to encourage third-year professional students to learn from their peers; consequently, they could enhance their writing skills. Further, the CLL groups’ students are trained for developing personal interaction and linguistic competence in a social setting. As part of the study, the experimental study was conducted with a group of professional students. In the study, there were two research tools, i.e. pre-test, post-test and student’s questionnaire used. The written scripts were evaluated concerning the aspects of spelling, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and coherence. The findings of the study discovered that the students’ scores in writing tests were higher for the post-test than the pre-test at a significant level. It was also found that the improvement was high though the students still made mistakes considering the stated points. It was found through the analysis of students’ questionnaires that they have developed positive attitudes in using cooperative learning to enhance language skills in general and improve writing skills in particular.