Abstract
Language learning has always been looked upon as a process of close teacher-students collaboration and cooperation bearing its main idea of gaining communicative competence. Roles of teachers in language acquisition were always clear but changing times require adjustment to gradually altering students’ needs and expectations. The main aim of the paper is to find out to which extent the principles of collaborative learning are used at EFL classes at the Institute of Economics and Finance, Kazan Federal University, the attitude students have to collaborative practices and to prove that collaborative environment brings proficiency in language learning and establishes modeling of real-life situations among non-native speakers. In addition, the article reveals the role that teachers should preferably play atEFL lessons and the scenario they should develop basing on students’ needs analysis which allows them to build a required synergy. The results gained by the authors rest on the survey carried out among English learning students at the Institute of Economics and Finance, Kazan Federal University.