Learning English Conversational skills with collaborative learning: A case in a Taiwanese University

Taiwanese students begin learning English in primary school, but most of them are not able to fluently communicate in English. The present study employs a collaborative learning activity in an experiment to investigate its influence on 106 Taiwanese non-English major freshmen’s learning situation for English speaking and listening. Data were collected by observing students’ learning behaviours in both the experimental and control groups for a term, their pre-test and post-test scores, and a questionnaire survey. From these observations, the experimental group participants transitioned to have more active learning behaviours than the control group by the end of the term. The statistical results show that studying with collaborative learning can promote learners’ communicative competence. Furthermore, all participants gave positive feedback on the course arrangement, but the experimental group participants indicated a significantly stronger attitude towards the collaboration experience. Having more opportunities to practice speaking and listening to English, the participants received the language more favourably after learning it using collaborative learning.