Investigating the Tertiary Level Students’ Practice of Collaborative Learning in English Language Classrooms, and Its Implications at Public Universities and at Arabic Institutions

Abstract

The benefits of Collaborative Learning have been emphasized in the ELT literature; however, its positive implications have remained few and far between at the higher educational institutions in Bangladesh. CLT has been introduced in Bangladesh; however, the majority of Public Universities and Madrasa Systems conspicuously lack trained ELT professionals who are aware of collaborative learning. Thus, the practical use of CLT in classrooms still remains a myth let alone the implementation of collaborative learning. The current study sought to identify the impact of collaborative learning on students’ performance rate in their presentation test results, and to identity their overall perspectival response rates to (CL). The study analyzed three hundred and ten responses relating to their experience of studying in collaboration with their fellow classmates during the preparatory stages of knowledge production and gathering information that involved gathering ideas and having discussions on social media (i.e. Facebook) towards the accomplishment of their project assignments. Then, the study compares students’ previous presentation test results derived from presentations conducted in the pre-collaborative stage to the test results derived from the post-collaborative stage. Finally, the study ran several statistical tests, and found that students responded positively to collaborative learning, and they made significant improvements in the post-collaborative test.