The Effects Of Peer Tutoring In College English Reading

Peer tutoring, as an effective teaching method, has aroused a variety of interest among educational researchers and classroom teachers. It is a method of instruction in which learners with minimal training help each other under the guidance of a teacher, and in turn learn through teaching. It places teaching and learning commitments and responsibilities on students.Lots of evidence abroad supports the positive effects of peer tutoring. It shows that not only can peer tutoring make learning more efficient and pleasurable, but also can increase the cognitive abilities, self-confidence, and social communication of both who teach (tutors) and who are taught (tutees).While Peer Tutoring has been shown to be an effective instructional practice abroad, it has rarely been examined for its effectiveness in Chinese teaching context, and related studies have been limited within the theory introduction and theory evaluation fields. Thus, this study sought to investigate the effects of peer tutoring on the acquisition of college students' English reading skills compared with teacher-led instruction with an effort to highlight benefits and challenges, and to make informed improvements for college English teaching. In the autumn semester of 2007, 96 freshmen that major in business English from two regular education classes (Class 071 and Class 072) at South Vocational College of Changsha participated in the experiment. Both the experimental group and the control group were under the instruction of the same reading teacher (this author herself), used the same reading textbook and kept the same English level. The students in the experimental group were invited to join in a peer-tutoring scheme, and the control group received the conventional instruction. All the 48 students from Class 071 were invited to join in a peer-tutoring scheme. They attended a training course for peer-tutoring activities before the experiment and then worked in groups of two, and take turns to be tutors' and tutees. They were provided a total of 12 (once per week) tutoring sessions through the autumn semester of 2007. All data from including students' pretest and posttest reading comprehension sores, tutors and tutees' feedback on peer tutoring program, were collected and analyzed.Compared with teacher-led instruction, the study results showed several benefits for tutors: 1) learning through teaching; 2) becoming more responsible while doing something worthwhile to help others. Benefits for tutees included: 1) increased active responding, indicating more productive usage of class time, 2) improved levels of English language proficiency. And the study results also show that many students improved their reading achievements, reading motivation and self-confidence to some extents, but due to the individual differences and some uncontrollable factors, 13 students in the experimental group failed to improve their scores on the reading posttest. The study results showed that peer tutoring is a useful teaching strategy to improve the college students' English reading, but numerous factors can interfere in the implementation of peer tutoring programs.Furthermore, challenges and problems encountered in the process of implementing Peer Tutoring program have been also discussed as well as implications for classroom teaching practice and future research.