Research Article
Jigsaw as a Collaborative Learning Structure in ESP Higher Education: A Framework for Three Disciplines at the Catholic University of Mozambique, Nacala
Elisio Alberto Tomas*
Issue:
Volume 1, Issue 3, September 2026
Pages:
155-160
Received:
12 June 2026
Accepted:
27 June 2026
Published:
15 September 2026
DOI:
10.11648/j.iedu.20260103.11
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Abstract: This conceptual and practice-based article, which reports no empirical data, argues that the jigsaw activity is structurally suited to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction in higher education. Three ESP courses in Mozambican higher education Business English for Human Resource Management, Maritime and Port English for Port Management, and English for Accounting prepare students for professional contexts in which communication is inherently collaborative, yet delivery typically remains teacher-centred. The jigsaw activity, a cooperative learning structure in which each student masters one segment of material and teaches it to peers, mirrors the distributed expertise of the real workplaces that ESP serves, such as the Port of Nacala. Drawing on the cooperative learning and ESP literature and on the author's teaching practice at the Catholic University of Mozambique, Nacala-Porto Extension, the article proposes a course-specific jigsaw framework that specifies, for each discipline, the carrier content, expert-group segmentation, jigsaw-group product, target language focus and individual-accountability mechanism. It grounds the design in the five conditions under which cooperative effort outperforms transmission pedagogy positive interdependence, promotive interaction, individual and group accountability, interpersonal skills and group processing and in the structural convergence between jigsaw's information-gap logic and ESP's target-situation methodology. A three-study agenda for empirical validation from the 2026 academic year is specified, comprising a quasi-experimental comparison, a cross-course implementation study and a baseline attitudes survey. The framework offers ESP practitioners in Mozambique and comparable resource-constrained contexts a concrete, locally anchored alternative to lecture-based delivery.
Abstract: This conceptual and practice-based article, which reports no empirical data, argues that the jigsaw activity is structurally suited to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction in higher education. Three ESP courses in Mozambican higher education Business English for Human Resource Management, Maritime and Port English for Port Management, an...
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