Collaborative Learning in the Colombian Educational System: A Literature Review

Abstract

The Ministry of Education (MEN) in Colombia has shown interest in improving the communicative competence in English, which is why they have selected English as the official foreign language to teach. This decision is because English is the third most spoken language in the world and is used as a second language by over 200 million people. The aim of the Colombian government is to implement a bilingualism program. Since 2004, the Colombian government has implemented a national educational policy and different bilingual initiatives. The goal of having a multilingual nation by 2025 is still being pursued.

English teachers have been interested in including new technologies and approaches that facilitate the teaching-learning processes at all the educational levels, as it is show in the systematic review that was done to develop this research. This paper provides a general overview of literature on this specific topic through these stages: scoping, planning, identification (searching), screening, and eligibility. This study shows that during the last decades, the implementation of collaborative learning has had successful results mainly in the development of communicative competencies in English, at the same time student improved their social, interpersonal and meta-cognitive skills.