The Role of the Communicative Approach and Cooperative Learning in Higher Education

It has been widely accepted that language is not only a system of rules, but a dynamic resource for the creation of meaning. In that sense, it is essential to distinguish between knowing various grammatical rules and being able to use these rules effectively when communicating. This view has underpinned one of the most popular approaches to language – communicative language teaching. The aim of this paper is to present the growing importance of focusing on the processes and means towards the learning of a foreign language (FL) rather than the products of a language. With communication at the centre of any FL curriculum, cooperative language learning assumes one of the leading positions in the language teaching-learning process. The paper will try to show the positive effects of cooperative language learning and teaching, as based on the results obtained from the survey carried out on a group of students at the tertiary level of education. It will point out to the fact that cooperative language learning provides students with the necessary social and academic skills, promoting productivity and achievement, which are also the aims of communicative language teaching. The survey results might also be used to give further implications for the creation of FL curriculum.