A cooperative approach-based Speaking Learning Model (SLM) has been developed to improve speaking skill of Higher Education students. This research aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of cooperative-based SLM viewed from the development of student's speaking ability and its effectiveness on speaking activity. This mixed method study combined evaluative descriptive and experimental designs. The population was the first semester students from Department of Indonesian Language and Letter Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education in 4 regencies of East Java Province, Indonesia. By stratified random sampling, 50% of populations were taken as the sample. The research instruments covered questionnaire, interview, FGD, and speaking test. Data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing became the data analyses phases upon questionnaire, interview, and FGD. The data from speaking test were analyzed by t-test in which normality and homogeneity tests were conducted previously. Statistically, both speaking ability scores were different because Fcalculation was 11.380 while Ftable was 3.91 at the significance level = 0.05. Since Fcalculation > Ftable, it can be concluded that cooperative approach gave significant influence in improving speaking ability and was more effective than the conventional one.