Enhancing Students’ Descriptive Writing Skills through Collaborative Learning Using Minangkabau Culinary

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the implementation of collaborative learning in enhancing Management students’ descriptive writing skills in English, particularly in creating descriptive texts about Minangkabau culinary, within the Business English subject at Universitas Putra Indonesia YPTK Padang in the 2024/2025 academic year. Specifically, it examines how collaborative learning supports students in organizing ideas, developing descriptive sentences, using business-related vocabulary, and improving grammatical accuracy, as well as how collaborative activities affect student participation, self-confidence, and interpersonal communication in academic and business contexts. This qualitative study involved 42 Management students. Data were collected through classroom observations, analysis of students’ writing assignments, and semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed qualitatively through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification, with source triangulation to enhance trustworthiness. The findings indicate that collaborative learning markedly improved students’ ability to construct descriptive texts, especially in organizing ideas, developing descriptive sentences, using business-related vocabulary, and improving grammatical accuracy. Collaborative activities also increased student participation, self-confidence, and interpersonal communication skills relevant to academic and business settings. The integration of local Minangkabau culinary content made learning more contextual, meaningful, and relevant to real-world applications. The study concludes that collaborative learning, when combined with locally based cultural content, is an effective approach for improving students’ English descriptive writing skills. It contributes to academic discourse on collaborative learning, English for Specific Purposes/Business English, and culturally responsive language pedagogy by demonstrating how local cultural content can mediate both language development and professional communication skills. In practice, lecturers are advised to integrate collaborative strategies with local cultural content, and curriculum designers should consider this integration to improve the quality of English-language teaching at university