http://www.hrpub.org Universal Journal of Educational Research 8(11B): 5833-5848, 2020 DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.082217 Could the Procedures and Instructions for Promoting Cooperative Learning Affect Teachers' Practices in EFL Classrooms? Nurah Saleh Alfares Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, Umm AL-Qura University, Saudi Arabia Received July 17, 2020; Revised September 12, 2020; Accepted September 29, 2020 Cite This Paper in the following Citation Styles (a): [1] Nurah Saleh Alfares , "Could the Procedures and Instructions for Promoting Cooperative Learning Affect Teachers' Practices in EFL Classrooms?," Universal Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 8, No. 11B, pp. 5833 - 5848, 2020. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.082217. (b): Nurah Saleh Alfares (2020). Could the Procedures and Instructions for Promoting Cooperative Learning Affect Teachers' Practices in EFL Classrooms?. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 8(11B), 5833 - 5848. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.082217. Copyright©2020 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract This study aims to explore how teachers’ application of the procedures and instructions for promoting cooperative learning (CL) affects their practices. The purpose of this study is to explore teachers’ behaviors and perceptions while applying procedures and instructions to encourage CL in their teaching practice. The problem is that the application of CL in Saudi English as a foreign language (EFL) educational environments tend to be used more in group arrangements than as an effective technique to encourage learners’ communication and interaction. Still, the EFL literature has recommended appropriate procedures to promote CL for teachers. In this study, nine participating teachers were provided these CL procedures to apply in their daily teaching practice. The researcher applied mixed methods as follows: quantitative data from structured observations during EFL lessons and qualitative data from the teachers’ daily reports and open-ended questionnaire answers. The findings told that most of the teachers felt that the procedures helped them support their students and encourage them to work effectively and cooperatively in groups. Moreover, the findings indicated that the instructions helped the EFL teachers increase their students’ interaction and communication by prompting them to apply CL procedures. However, the majority of the teachers did not appropriately encourage their EFL learners to engage in CL even though they were aware of the procedures. Keywords Cooperative Learning, EFL, Procedures, Instructions, Teachers’ Practices 1. Cooperative Learning in EFL Lessons: What to Do and What to Avoid Cooperative learning (CL) is essential to learning a foreign language, as it opens opportunities for learners to communicate and interact with others. However, CL’s application is not sufficient enough to help learners get its complete benefits (Millis, 2014; Gillies, 2004; Azizinezhad et al., 2013). There should be guidelines and procedures for how learners interact to complete the tasks provided by EFL teachers (Millis, 2014; Koppenhaver & Shrader, 2003; Birmingham & McCord, 2004). Moreover, the type of group task should have some criteria that reflect on learners through interaction. Teachers’ CL procedures for group work may include the following: how to assign students into groups, how to arrange the classroom environment, the roles given to group members, the social skills that are to be developed, the size of the group, the academic tasks to be set, and how to evaluate and give feedback (Gillies, 2003; McCafferty et al., 2006; Cohen, 2014). Further, teachers need to consider