Oral proficiency and communication are the principal desired outcomes
of today's foreign language (L2) instruction. Recent research in theor
etical linguistics has recommended increased use of the target languag
e, the use of cognitive, metacognitive, and prosocial strategies, and
cooperative learning to help achieve oral proficiency and communicatio
n within the classroom. This paper describes a 21-day research action
project involving two Spanish II Honors classes and several cooperativ
e learning techniques. The project included 1) assessing student attit
udes toward participating in group work as identified by before and af
ter questionnaires; 2) implementing a variety of specific cooperative
learning activities; 3) determining what successes and problems occurr
ed in the cooperative learning groups and activities; and 4) observati
ons of the classroom activities by colleagues. Four cooperative learni
ng models were incorporated into the project: Student Team Learning, G
roup Investigation, Think-Pair-Share, and Three-Step Interview. Result
s suggested that students' actions throughout the term of the study an
d their responses to the final questionnaire all validate the use of c
ooperative learning as an effective strategy in the honors foreign lan
guage class. Since there was no control group, the findings are of nec
essity qualitative and subjective. However, this makes them no less va
lid. The study demonstrates unequivocally that cooperative learning is
an effective methodology in the honors foreign language classroom.