Reading Activities: A way to Foster Cooperative Learning in SeventhGraders of a Rural Institution

Abstract

This paper is a report about a mini-scale research that was carried out in a rural school in Aguazul (Casanare). During the development of the English classes, the teachers noticed that individualism was evidenced, students were always working in an independent way and those with dif- ficulties felt apart and insecure about their learning process. The aim of this pedagog- ical intervention was to find a strategy to encourage students´ cooperative work in order to learn and, more importantly, to work as a group helping each other. For this pedagogical intervention, students were required to read two texts and to solve some activities that allowed them to work as a group using cooperative learning. From a pedagogical perspective, co- operative learning provided the teachers with the possibility of making their students cooperate and to feel satisfied when help- ing others