Towards Developing Students’ Soft Skills: The Case of ENSAM Students

ABSTRACT: Building students’ soft skills has started to gain ground within the realm of higher education in Morocco. However, the development of these skills requires a real-life context which simplifies their learning. In this regard, the present study is mainly conducted to investigate the effect of the out-group collaborative learning method on the development of students’ soft skills. Data for the study comes from 20 semester two students at “Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts et Metiers” (ENSAM), Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, by implementing a one-group pretest-posttest research design. The qualitative and quantitative findings confirm that there is a statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest results. Therefore, the adopted treatment, the out-group collaborative learning method, has improved students’ communication, adaptability and presentation delivery skills. The findings of this study can be useful for future studies and give language teachers insights into the importance of using the out-group collaborative learning method in their teaching of the soft skills.

KEYWORDS : collaborative learning, soft-skills, out-group collaborative learning method