The present study examined how cooperative learning (CL) is implemented in Vietnamese classrooms, how local teachers' and students' perceived this approach to learning, and what were the local barriers that hindered its implementation. Forty teachers and forty students from twenty Vietnamese colleges completed a questionnaire about CL and follow-up interviews were conducted with ten students and ten teachers on their perceptions of this practice. The results showed that CL has become a common and preferred method of instruction in Vietnam. However, the functions of CL were often not understood correctly because the teachers and students maintained that CL mainly helped the students remember information rather than develop a deep understanding of the text they were studying. Responses also revealed that CL was hindered by a number of local cultural and institutional barriers such as class size, curriculum coverage and workload division. Future research may need to identify strategies to correct mismatches between CL principles and local barriers so that this approach to learning becomes more adaptive to the local context.