國中生對同儕教學融入英語閱讀的看法

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學文學院英語學系英語教學碩士在職專班碩士專業實務報告 Continuing Education Program of Teaching English as A Second Language. Department of English, College of Liberal Arts. National Taiwan Normal University Professional Practice Report. 國中生對同儕教學融入英語閱讀的看法 Junior High School Students’ Perceptions on a Peer Tutoring Program of English Reading 張雅婷 Chang, Ya-Ting 指導教授：陳秋蘭博士 Advisor: Dr. Chern, Chiou-Lan 中華民國 109 年 6 月 June 2020.

(2) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It’s such an unimaginable moment for me to finally write down my appreciation for those who have been supporting me all the way. Without all your encouragement, company, and consideration for me, this professional practice report wouldn’t have been completed. First of all, deep in my heart, I’d like to express my gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Chiou-lan Chern, for her patience and constant guidance on my research direction and writing. I was so inspired and refreshed through discussions with her in every meeting. Thanks for listening to my thoughts and providing her profound opinions consistently. All those afternoons spent with her will be unforgettable memories in my life. But for her assistance in all respects, it’s not possible for me to step on this valuable journey. My committee members, Dr. Mei-lan Lo and Dr. Hsiu-chuan Chen, also contributed to the completion of this practice report. It’s my great honor to have their penetrating suggestions helping refine this report. I’d never forget their enthusiasm and generosity. Besides, I’d like to especially appreciate my colleagues and also friends, Mr. Yang and Ms. Hsu. Yang always offered his timely help to solve my technical problems, trifles in the research process, and so on. Ms. Hsu often set the research schedule for me. That really helped me a lot. At last, I’m deeply indebted to my husband, Leon Su, for his unselfish contribution to our family throughout the four years of carrying out my dream. My dear baby, Chris, always warmed my heart with his sweet smile in those late nights. Those whoever gave me their advice on my research are also in my mind. Thanks for Ms. Wong’s countless nice chat with me. Thank you all! i.

(3) 摘要本研究目的在探討國中生對運用同儕教學於六堂英語閱讀課的感受為何，主要關注其中同儕間的互動狀況及其後續對閱讀理解的效應。參與本四週同儕教學計畫的對象是來自桃園市立某國中的二十位九年級學生，透過學生的問卷回饋及半結構式訪談，本研究以質性分析的方式歸結出以下結論。在計畫的尾聲，大多數學生由於同儕小老師的協助，在改善閱讀理解方面給予正面的回饋。經由小老師的示範，學習夥伴也學習到如何運用本研究中所提到之處理閱讀理解的三項策略，依序為(一)預測(二)猜字義(三)從上下文推測文意。某些學習夥伴甚至進一步思考並修正自己原先面對閱讀文章的處理模式，同時因透過此同儕教學計畫，更能熟練地運用猜字義與從下文推測文意這兩項閱讀策略，而連帶增強了他們的自信心。此外，小老師也體驗到知識再建構的過程，以及如何更好地呈現教學。換句話說，經由檢視教授學習夥伴閱讀技巧的過程，能讓他們了解夥伴學習情形，也同時深化小老師的相關學科知識。因此，整體來說，同儕教學融入英語閱讀對小老師及其學習夥伴是雙方互惠的。文末也提出將同儕教學融入英語閱讀課的實施建議，希冀本研究能對台灣目前英語教學現場有所貢獻。. 關鍵字：同儕教學，閱讀理解，閱讀策略，思考過程，自信心. ii.

(4) ABSTRACT The aim of the present study is to probe into junior high school students’ perceptions of peer tutoring implemented in six English reading sessions. Peer interactions and the later effects on reading comprehension are discussed. Twenty ninth graders in a Taoyuan municipal junior high school participated in the four-week peer tutoring program. This was a qualitative study in which students’ feedback on the questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were included. The results were presented as follows. At the end of the program, a majority of students gave positive feedback on their improved reading comprehension with the guidance of their tutors. From the tutors’ demonstrations, the tutees learned how to apply the three reading strategies, i.e., predicting, figuring out word meaning, and making inferences from the context to cope with reading comprehension questions. Furthermore, some tutees even revised their previous mode of reading. Their confidence was also promoted since they became familiar with the adoption of the two reading strategies, figuring out word meaning and inferring from the context, through the peer tutoring program. Additionally, the tutors also gained the experience of knowledge reconstruction and learned better presentation of instruction. In other words, their subject knowledge could be deepened simultaneously through examining whether their skills of English reading were acceptable to the tutees. Therefore, it can be contended that the adoption of peer tutoring in English reading is mutually beneficial for tutors and tutees. Finally, some suggestions are provided for better executions of peer tutoring in incorporating peer tutoring into English reading classes. It is hoped that the findings of this study can make some contribution to the present context of English reading teaching. iii.

(5) Keywords: Peer Tutoring, reading comprehension, reading strategies, thinking process, self-confidence. iv.

(6) TABLE of CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………..i CHINESE ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................ii ENGLISH ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………..iii TABLE of CONTENTS............................................................................................... v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO. LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................... 3. An Overview of Peer Tutoring ................................................................................... 3 The Benefits of Peer Tutoring for Learners ............................................................... 4 Empirical Studies on Peer Tutoring ........................................................................... 5 The Role of Reading Strategies in Reading Comprehension ................................... 10 The Effects of Peer Tutoring on Reading Comprehension ...................................... 12 Summary .................................................................................................................. 13 CHAPTER THREE. METHODOLOGY .............................................................. 15. Participants ............................................................................................................... 15 Reading Materials .................................................................................................... 16 Instructional Framework .......................................................................................... 17 Teacher’s Role in Peer Tutoring ................................................................................. 21 Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 21 Instruments ...................................................................................................................... 21. Data Analysis ........................................................................................................... 23 Summary .................................................................................................................. 24 CHAPTER FOUR. RESULTS ............................................................................... 25. Perception Questionnaire for the Tutees .................................................................. 25 Tutees’ Perceptions of Their Tutors ........................................................................... 26 Tutees’ Perceptions of the Peer Tutoring Program .................................................. 29 Tutees’ Adoption of the Three Reading Strategies .................................................. 30 Perception Questionnaire for the Tutors .................................................................. 32 v.

(7) Tutors’ Perceptions of Their Tutees ........................................................................... 33 Tutors’ Perceptions of the Peer Tutoring Program................................................... 34 Benefits of the Peer Tutoring Program Received by the Tutors ............................. 34 Summary .................................................................................................................. 36 CHAPTER FIVE. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ................................... 38. Vocabulary Size ....................................................................................................... 38 Article Length .......................................................................................................... 39 The Three Reading Strategies .................................................................................. 39 Self-Confidence ........................................................................................................ 41 Implications .............................................................................................................. 42 Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................... 44 Conclusion................................................................................................................ 44 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 45 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................. 51 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................. 65 APPENDIX C ............................................................................................................. 67 APPENDIX D ............................................................................................................. 69 APPENDIX E ............................................................................................................. 71. vi.

(8) CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION. I have been an English teacher for fourteen years and been the homeroom teacher of the involved class for nearly two years. Due to students’ low motivation and expectation for their academic performance, especially in English, I have been looking for an instructional approach appropriate to my students. In addition, with the reformation of educational policy in Taiwan, the standards for students’ reading comprehension competence in Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students (CAP, 國中教育會考) are getting higher in recent years. Following the curriculum guidelines of English subject, CAP emphasizes basic, important, and core concepts. In addition, the language used in the test focused on global context instead of minor details such as vocabulary or grammar. Thus, in reading comprehension part of CAP, usually 25 to 35 questions out of a total of 41 to 43 questions focus on discourse comprehension. Take English exam of CAP in 2019 as an example, there were 26 reading comprehension questions included in the second part. The types of reading sources varied from a poem, transportation information, a biology report, Taiwanese culture, daily conversation, to UK royal history. At least 10 of the 26 questions emphasized the ability to infer information from the context. Additionally, there were 3 to 5 questions that focused on figuring out the meaning of the underlined word, which also involved with understanding the meaning of the paragraph. Therefore, exposing students to different kinds of reading materials is essential. Also, to meet the requirements of CAP, some instructional techniques are needed to promote students’ reading comprehension competence. On the other hand, more than half of the examinees in my school got C in CAP of 2019. According to the definition of level C in English from Research Center for 1.

(9) Psychological and Educational Testing (RCPET, 2019), students receiving C can only understand basic meanings of words and sentences when the topics are close to daily life, personally related experiences, or in plain contexts with simple sentences. Besides, they can only point out the gist expressed clearly, give rough conclusion, and identify the stance of the author. All these mean the examinees depend on overt clues to draw a surface conclusion. What’s more, low achievers feel very negative towards reading. For example, they often feel confused and frustrated when there are too many new words or too much information in the content. They also lack confidence in utilizing reading strategies they’ve learned. Due to the low academic achievement, they gradually lose interest in reading. What’s more, even when they have learned some essential reading strategies such as prediction, figuring out word meaning, and inferring from the context, they still have a hard time coping with reading comprehension questions. With a view to improving the situation, I adopted peer tutoring in my class with the hope to sharpen my students’ reading comprehension ability by virtue of turning teacher-led traditional instruction into student-led discussions which could motivate my students. Since there is limited research centering on how the interactions between the peers influence the effects of peer tutoring on reading comprehension, the present study aims to explore the perceptions of both tutors and tutees toward the peer tutoring program of English reading.. 2.

(10) CHAPTER TWO. LITERATURE REVIEW. The importance of reading comprehension competence in English learning can’t be overemphasized. Many researchers have focused on the importance of reading comprehension on learning a foreign language (Saito, Horwitz, & Garza, 1999). Nonetheless, with the growing tendency of bimodal distribution of students’ English proficiency, it’s quite demanding for teachers to customize their teaching to meet the diversity of learners’ cognitive traits, learning capacity, and knowledge levels (Verschaffel, De Corte, Lasure, Vaerenbergh, Bogaerts, & Ratinckx, 1999). To deal with the thorny issue, peer tutoring is commonly adopted and appraised in English teaching. Numerous studies have been conducted to explore the efficacy of peer tutoring, especially on students’ attitudes (Cohen, Kulik, & Kulik, 1982; Tella, 2013).. An Overview of Peer Tutoring Peer tutoring is a kind of collaborative learning (De Backer, Van Keer, & Valcke, 2012), and it can be presented in various forms, e.g., heterogeneous grouping, homogeneous grouping, role-alternation, class-wide peer tutoring, and cross-age peer tutoring (Hunsaker, 2014; Pastore, 2008; Stenhoff & Lingugaris-Kraft, 2007; Worley & Naresh, 2014). According to previous studies, before designing a peer-tutoring program, in a heterogeneous grouping, a high achiever as a tutor is often paired with a lower achiever as a tutee. The roles can be alternated or fixed. The pairs have to work on a certain content or lesson. Since there is usually an expected goal for these pairs to achieve, the more advanced learners would help the less-advanced partners by offering instruction, forming discussion, and clarifying some ideas or thoughts (Duran, Flores, Oller, & Ramirez, 2019; Miller, Topping, & Thurston, 2010). The types of peer tutoring for adoption depend on the goals of the teacher. Among all these forms, the 3.

(11) heterogeneous peer tutoring (HPT) is the most commonly adopted version (King-Sears & Bradley, 1995). Topping (2005) stated that students learned how to cope with problems by means of evaluating different solutions or strategies in an HPT setting. The constant discussion and communication with their partner for the duration also facilitated their commitment to their peers. Students involved in HPT became more well-behaved and also made obvious progress in academic achievement (Worley & Naresh, 2014). In addition, a great number of researchers have come to the conclusion that the maximal achievements can be obtained through cooperative learning only if the teacher’s expectation is clearly understood and the standard for successful learning is accepted by the members of each pair (Fielding & Pearson, 1994).. The Benefits of Peer Tutoring for Learners Whedall and Mettem (1985) stated that the main reason behind the rise of peer tutoring was due to the need for interaction between learners and instructors and the following thorny issues claimed by a great number of teachers in the early 1960s. It is still quite feasible to carry out peer tutoring when considering the present educational context. One of the major factors is the demanding need for ample individual instruction and the reassurance of learning efficacy of low achievers from their teachers. To meet the expectations of the much more diverse learners nowadays, peer tutoring is regarded as the instructional form that produces the most effects (Duran, et al., 2019). It’s obvious that students will be much more likely to learn well, provided that they can interact with their peers harmoniously. Further, they will be motivated for learning and seeking for better academic progress (Urdan & Schoenfelder, 2006). Duran et al. (2019) also indicate that the success of peer tutoring is on the premise of positive peer interaction. For the tutors, to instruct their tutees in an organized method requires full preparations, many modifications during teaching, and some reconstruction of mindset. 4.

(12) The tutors can strengthen what they’ve learned by means of integrating prior and new knowledge. On the other hand, for the tutees, they are aided with the adjusted and tailored support from their tutors (Robinson, Schofield, & Steers-Wentzell, 2005). Through constant interactions, learning outcome of both tutors and tutees can function to the full extent (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1990). Overall, the effects of peer tutoring on strengthening students’ learning efficacy are highly praised (Pastore, 2008).. Empirical Studies on Peer Tutoring As mentioned earlier, positive interaction in peer tutoring is vital for tutors and tutees to be mutually benefited. In the study of Worley and Naresh (2014), a middle school math teacher recruited 14 students to participate in the program of heterogeneous peer tutoring (HPT). Seven of them were intended tutors since they were more familiar with the advanced algebra concepts. The other seven students as tutees were paired with their tutors. The purpose of the program was to explore the perceptions of tutors and tutees in the process of collaboration and assist the tutees at pre-algebra level. Before the first tutoring session, the participants received the behavioral training to make the program function well. In addition, the teacher informed them of the importance of goal setting and supporting each other. During the three-round training sessions, tutors and tutees learned the importance of engaging in problem solving collaboratively. Peertutoring sessions were implemented once a week. The tutors were expected to have the concept of guiding the learners with proper questions and suitable strategies which were more meaningful than merely providing them with answers. The teacher’s proper intervention was also important and necessary. Furthermore, in the harmonious atmosphere, students became more confident in revealing their struggles and the tutees were even able to instruct their partners. The researcher owed the positive interaction to the proper reversal of the roles of tutors and tutees. For example, sometimes the tutors 5.

(13) couldn’t recall some basic concepts of algebra, but these concepts were familiar to the tutees because these concepts were often mentioned in their regular mathematics classes. This way, the tutees could have the chance to express their ideas. On the other hand, the tutors learned to be empathetic towards the hardship their partners encountered. To sum up, both tutors and tutees contributed to the HPT program with their different expertise. In addition, the research conducted in a Mexican high school also pointed out the importance of friendly relationship when peer tutoring was put into practice (Flores, Ibarra, Treviño, Campos, & Tejeda, 2018). The aim of the study was to examine the academic achievement after using some strategies of peer tutoring in English learning unit. The experiment group consisted of 121 students as tutors and 101 students as tutees. Another 112 tutees were placed in control group without the support of peer tutoring. The implementation of peer tutoring lasted 11 weeks. The preparations for the tutors in advance focused on how to assist their tutees to take class notes, monitor their practice exercise, clarify the content of the class, and expel their doubts. In the 50 minutes of English learning class, the teacher instructed in the first 20 minutes and the tutors then compiled their own notes and compared with those of their dyad. Besides, they also worked out the difficulties with their tutees if necessary. During the process, the tutees revealed they felt comfortable and free to express their confusion since the peers had built up a friendly relationship. In Weeks 5 and 11, the results of the two exams were analyzed to compare the differences between the experimental group (with peer tutoring) and the control group (without peer tutoring). The grades of the experimental group were remarkably higher than those of the other one. In addition, the change of the attitude in the bilateral sides could also be observed. For the tutees, the motivation for improving their own cognition was reinforced instead of simply surrendering to the difficulties they encountered. As for the tutors, influenced by the expectation of being good students, they were committed to helping their partners. The 6.

(14) main element leading to the success of the implementation of peer tutoring was the friendly learning environment for the learners. For example, the tutors would give feedback to the notes or the ideas provided by their partners. On the other hand, the tutees were willing to discuss their problems and share their opinions with their tutors in the process. In Ullah, Tabassum, and Kaleem’s (2018) research, 40 students out of a total 433,405 male students at tenth grade of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan were chosen as the sample with a view to examining the effects of peer tutoring on the academic achievement in biology. The 40 students were randomly divided into two groups: the experimental group with peer tutoring and the control group with traditional instruction. Three cognitive domains of Bloom’s taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, and application served as posttests to explore to what extent the students developed them after the peer tutoring session. The researchers stated that the development of cognition in tutors and tutees occurred constantly during the whole process of peer tutoring. In other words, from the preparatory step of the tutors to the interaction during peer tutoring, the evolvement of cognition corresponded to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. It revealed that peer tutoring expanded the students’ experience of knowledge and reached their zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Rizve, 2012). Besides, students made progress by learning from or imitating their peers since they were stimulated by more competent peers to perform better. The researchers also mentioned the necessity and importance of the planned and structured process of peer tutoring to improve the comprehension level of the target subject. The duration of the instructional treatment lasted 7 weeks with 30 lesson plans involved. The content of these lesson plans aimed to produce more discussions and interactions within the pairs. In the meantime, the experimenters observed the ongoing situation and encouraged the tutees not to be passive listeners but shared their thoughts with their tutors. In the end 7.

(15) of the experiment, the posttest revealed a significant difference between the two groups with respect to the cognitive domain; whereas there was no significant difference in the pretest between the two groups. Thus, the researchers concluded that peer tutoring was an effective approach to enhance students’ academic achievement. Apart from the intervention of the teachers, tutors should also be capable of modifying or adjusting their instructional approaches to meet the needs of their tutees. In Duran et al.’s peer tutoring program (2019), the reading comprehension data of 27 primary and secondary schools were chosen as samples. Among 974 students, 764 of them underwent fixed tutoring while reciprocal tutoring was implemented in the other 210 students. The duration of the program lasted fifteen to twenty weeks for thirty minutes a week. To ensure the function of each pair, initial training for both tutors and tutees was important. In this way, all members were aware of their duty and some needed adjustments for their own benefits. Besides, the tutors had to prepare themselves well to get the tutees to be familiar with reading the text out loud to promote their reading comprehension by means of audio file and worksheets, which included comprehension questions dispatched by the teachers. During these sessions, each pair predicted the potential content based on their prior knowledge and practiced reading out loud. In the process of working on reading comprehension activities, the students monitored their own thinking and their previous predictions to enhance their comprehension level. After the sessions, the students were required to make selfassessment through open-ended questions and reflection on the structure of these sessions. One of the characteristics of the program was that the students took up the responsibility for the modifications of the original activities to meet their needs. For the first few weeks of peer tutoring, the teacher explained to these pairs the structure of the peer tutoring session and put on some signs to remind them of the tasks or goals of the session. In addition, the teacher also observed the interaction in each pair and helped 8.

(16) deal with the challenges the students encountered. Moreover, teachers and students’ perceptions of the program were also analyzed through questionnaires and semistructured interviews. The results revealed that reading comprehension of the pairs with interventions of reciprocal tutoring improved obviously. On the other hand, the students in fixed tutoring group made more improvement in oral communication skills. In addition, both the students and the teachers gave positive feedback on the program. The interpretations of the results were as follows. First, the tutees’ motivation for speaking in English was strengthened through discussions in dyads and thus they felt more confident. Second, how the tutors guided their partners was quite an influential factor. For example, if they were capable of regulating the learning mode corresponding to the factual progress of their pairs, metacognition of both partners and the development of ZPD of the tutees were promoted. Finally, the tutors’ awareness of adopting proper strategies to support their tutees instead of simply providing answers during these sessions was fundamental. If the tutors made good use of some strategies, reading comprehension of the tutees could be achieved to a higher level. The results showed that one of the keys for the pairs was to promote more qualitative conversations rather than merely checking comprehension. This should be the goal of the tutors. Therefore, teachers should prepare training sessions for the tutors to understand their responsibility. Different from previous four studies, cross-age peer tutoring was implemented on third and sixth graders in Keer and Vanderlinde’s (2010) study. Twenty-one third-grade teachers with 405 third graders and 18 sixth-grade teachers with 357 sixth graders from 15 schools participated in the study. The researchers inspected the impact of cross-age peer tutoring on explicit reading strategy instruction, reading strategy awareness, reading strategy use, and reading comprehension achievement for both third and sixth graders. Besides, whether high and low achievers perceived the above activities differently was discussed. In this design, there were experimental (cross-age peer 9.

(17) tutoring) and control (traditional instruction) groups. The duration of the experiment lasted the whole school year and it was executed once for 50 minutes each week or sometimes divided into 25 minutes twice a week. Seven tutor-training sessions of a total of 350 minutes were carried out prior to the peer tutoring intervention as the researchers believed that the tutors should be well-trained (Nath & Ross, 2001; Parr & Townsend, 2002). In addition, seven explicit reading strategies were selected as the intervention. According to the data analysis, there were obvious intervention effects with reading strategy awareness and regulation for third graders. As for the sixth graders, the intervention effects on evaluation, cognitive reading strategy use, and metacognition were significant. On the other hand, the third and sixth graders from experimental condition both perceived the positive effects on reading strategy use. However, there was no significant difference between experimental and control groups of the third and sixth graders with respect to reading comprehension achievement. Noticeably, low and high achievers were unaware of dissimilar effects on them and that was probably due to the same benefits of the program they experienced. As the results showed that peer tutoring benefited the students in experimental condition, the researchers agreed that the interactions and communication contributed to the internalization of reading strategy use (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). To sum up, this study affirmed the effects of peer tutoring and further recommended the diversity of reading strategy instruction.. The Role of Reading Strategies in Reading Comprehension Johnston (1984) and Dochy (1994) both stated the importance of learners’ prior knowledge on reading comprehension for it can help readers pay attention to the potential development of the passage. Therefore, for EFL learners, making the most use of their prior knowledge and activating their predictions is essential in promoting their comprehension (Shin, Chern, & Reynolds, 2018). Also research has pointed out the 10.

(18) interference of limited vocabulary for reading comprehension and that consequently led to the failure in reading comprehension (Biemiller, 2004; Pressley, 2002). Even when the words can be recognized, sometimes young learners are still unable to infer the unknown word meaning from the context due to some content-specific words which are unfamiliar to students. Making use of context clues can compensate for a lack of vocabulary and have positive effects on reading comprehension (İlter, 2019; Parel, 2004). Pressley (2002) also stated that 70 to 80 percent of comprehension could be made up by way of inferring the meanings of unknown words from the context. Besides predicting content and knowing meanings of words, Easterling-Adams (2009) claimed that the essence of comprehending most of the reading content is to integrate new information with one’s general knowledge. In other words, to be proficient in second language reading, readers had to develop the ability beyond detailed information checking. Also, some researchers agreed on the importance of linking implicit ideas with pieces of information (Cain & Oakhill, 1999; Wang, 2016). In Wang’s research (2016), she concluded that poor readers were less capable of associating the main points with some potential sentences. Therefore, instructions on when and how to apply inference making are quite essential. To deal with transient information nowadays, it’s quite fundamental for modern citizens to be equipped with appropriate reading comprehension ability. In addition, the competence of reading comprehension also influences students’ ability to complete school and even their self-esteem (Juel, 1996). Overall, reading comprehension ability can have large impact on one’s daily life. Therefore, it’s vital to cultivate readers who can process texts of different types from early years (Jiménez & O’Shanahan, 2008; Law, 2011). Consequently, how to utilize different kinds of strategies to enhance reading comprehension is an issue deserving attention. Reading comprehension, in other words, is a “text-based and knowledge-based process” (Shin, Dronjic, & Park, 11.

(19) 2019). Since reading comprehension involves numerous and complicated factors (Shin et al., 2019; Spörer, Brunstein, & Kieschke, 2009), many studies focus on the effects of different reading instructional approaches (Spörer & Brunstein, 2009). Various kinds of peer tutoring models have been practiced with these approaches to promote reading comprehension of the learners.. The Effects of Peer Tutoring on Reading Comprehension With respect to the effective instructional approaches to enhance students’ reading comprehension, many studies have been conducted. Among these instructional approaches, peer tutoring or peer-assisted learning was highly promoted (Keer & Verhaeghe, 2005; Pastore, 2008; Topping & Bryce, 2004). With regard to reading, positive effects on the development of reading comprehension such as motivation, reading fluency, and peer interaction have been documented via various forms of peer tutoring instructional settings (Flores & Duran, 2016). Take class-wide peer tutoring as an example, it was designed to get students engaged in academic performance by increasing the instructional time and providing feedback such as “immediate error correction” (Delquadri, Greenwood, & Hall, 1989, p.372). It means that the tutors have to offer their immediate feedback on the mistakes of the tutees when needed. In the meantime, the frequency of oral interactions is significantly elevated (Delquadri & Greenwood, 1981; Delquadri et al., 1989). This characteristic increases the possibilities for the learners to be successful in reading activities (McMaster, Fuchs, & Fuchs, 2007). Paired students can obtain more chances of adopting various kinds of reading strategies than those in traditional reading classes (Spörer et al., 2009). When arranged in reading pairs, students are obligated to be engaged in applying those strategies they’ve learned to the pre-structured reading materials more appropriately and correctly because of the shared responsibility (Greenwood, Carta, & Hall, 1988). Mutual interaction can 12.

(20) reinforce reading comprehension since the pairs get to have the concept of selfregulation within the process of dealing with the challenges they encounter (e.g., understanding the reading material) (Almasi, 1995; Alvermann & Rush, 2004; Duke & Pearson, 2002; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2000). As far as tutors and tutees are concerned, the components of cooperative learning during reading activities such as the discussion about the literal meaning of the text, the sharing of perceptions of the reading content, and then further some needed modifications or implementations of reading strategy accompanied with evaluation afterwards are broadly reviewed (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1997). As for the tutees, perceiving the positive reinforcement from their tutors and the improvements on their reading competence, e.g., fluency and comprehension, they would feel more confident in themselves and be more motivated (Miller, Topping, & Thurston, 2010). With the feeling of self-confidence, the tutees with low academic achievement may be more motivated to show their engagement in reading activities. Thus, it’s quite important to help learners strengthen their motivation which further promotes their reading comprehension in the practice of peer tutoring.. Summary As mentioned previously, under the common circumstance of limited school resources, the adoption of peer tutoring is highly recommended. The advantages of peer tutoring for both tutors and tutees are mutual. In addition to academic performance, students can also obtain social benefits through constant interaction in peer tutoring sessions. In peer tutoring process, the tutors can prepare instructional methods acceptable to the pairs and also strengthen what they have learned at the same time. As for the tutees, sometimes they are able to remind their tutors of some concepts. Only with positive attitude towards peer tutoring can tutees obtain a sense of fulfillment and further develop strategies important to them to improve reading comprehension. 13.

(21) The present study will look into how the tutors and tutees perceive the peer tutoring program of English reading.. 14.

(22) CHAPTER THREE. METHODOLOGY. Participants The study was conducted in junior high school in Taoyuan city. There were twenty ninth graders, aged between fourteen and fifteen years old, participating in the research. Basically, they have learned English for six years. The students have four hours of English class each week following the national curriculum guideline. The researcher, also their homeroom teacher, has taught English for thirteen years. The main goal of an English teacher is to help students familiarize textbook contents, including vocabulary, grammar, and reading texts. The teacher has been in charge of this class for two years since these students entered the eighth grade. As the homeroom teacher, the researcher is quite familiar with these students’ level of English proficiency. There is an obvious bimodal distribution of English proficiency in this class. In fact, fewer than eight students could get more than eighty-five points in midterm and final exams. Roughly, six or seven students failed these exams, which meant they got less than sixty points. Owing to long-term English learning frustration, the students lack confidence in English, and moreover, they’re often reluctant to talk about whether they want to learn English. One of the major problems is their method of memorizing vocabulary. Even if there were only about ten new words for them to do dictation, seven or eight students would fail the quiz. According to the teacher’s observation, those who usually failed the vocabulary quizzes were incapable of making good use of phonics. They didn’t learn phonics well when they were in elementary school. This is believed to hinder their reading comprehension. The twenty students were divided into seven groups, with six groups of three students and one group of two students, according to their average grade last semester. 15.

(23) Those who got above eighty points were tutors and the others who got below eighty points were tutees (see Table 1). The group members were decided in terms of their personality and communication skills, i.e., how they got along with their classmates, based on the teacher’s observation. The top nine students were assigned as tutors except for two students with weaker verbal ability in communicating with their peers. Therefore, a total of seven students took the role of tutors. Table 1. Grouping of Tutors and Tutees Tutors Tutor Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Score 95.3 90.3 97.3 80.2 88.7 85 86.2. Tutees Tutee Number 1 2 3 4 5 *6 7 8 9 10 *11 12 13. Score 63.5 48 53 61.7 69.7 89.5 77.5 57.2 47.2 58.7 81.5 49.7 68.8. Reading Materials To correspond with what the participants have learned, i.e., the framework of grammatical concepts and vocabulary size, the researcher chose six articles in the English textbook (Huang, 2020) in use at the school. To avoid the possibility that some students may have learned the content of these articles in advance, the researcher picked the six readings in the final part of this textbook called “Challenge Yourself,” (see Appendix A) which wouldn’t have been taught in school or cram schools.. 16.

(24) Instructional Framework The twenty students were assigned to form seven groups based on their average score last semester. Therefore, the students were clear about their own roles, i.e. either a tutor or a tutee in their groups. The six sessions of the peer tutoring program were adopted in the researcher’s classes, two 45-minute periods for four weeks (a session was postponed because of the consecutive holidays in April) (see Table 2). Table 2. Date of the Six Peer Tutoring Sessions Week. Date. 1. Mar. 18 & 20. Descriptions Introduced the flow of the six sessions. and. explained. the. adoption of the three reading strategies (Mar. 18) The first session began (Mar. 20) 2. Mar. 25 & 27. The second & third sessions. 3. Mar. 31 & Apr. 1. The fourth & fifth sessions. 4. Apr. 8. The sixth session. There were four stages in the whole process of the peer tutoring program. Before executing peer tutoring, the teacher spent a period (45mins) demonstrating to the whole class how to use the three reading strategies (i.e. prediction, figuring out word meaning, and inferring from the context) and explaining how the tutors and the peers support each other during the sessions of the peer tutoring program. As mentioned previously, the three reading strategies adopted in this research will help them cope with reading comprehension section in CAP. Therefore, in this peer tutoring program, how the tutees made use of the three strategies and what adjustments might be made by the tutees 17.

(25) through their tutors’ guidance were the focus of the program. Besides, to assure the tutors’ understanding of every article, the teacher summoned them to examine their answers and listened to how they would make use of the three or any other reading strategies before each session of the peer tutoring program. Concurrently, if any of the tutors had difficulty in guiding their tutees, they could discuss with the researcher. The procedure was described below.. Stage 1 (1) Preparation (20 mins) The teacher introduced the three reading strategies: (a) predict, (b) figure out the word meaning, and (c) infer from the context followed by the demonstration of the three reading strategies. First, the teacher guided students to make predictions of the potential content from the title, the picture (if there was any), or the first sentence of the passage. Second, teacher figured out the word meaning from the context instead of being interrupted by some negligible unfamiliar words. Third, teacher showed students how to scan for some key information of the passage rather than focus on trivial facts and further to connect them with the context. It would be helpful if the students could relate any background knowledge to the content so as to get the general idea of the reading content. Sometimes, noticing the stance or the tone of the text was also useful for them to comprehend the content. (2) Guidance on the Intervention of the Peer Tutoring Program (25 mins) The teacher required tutees to verbalize their thinking (i.e. explained how they comprehended the text and why they chose the answers). In general, the tutors wouldn’t interrupt the verbal report of their tutees unless they went in the absolutely wrong direction. It was more important to observe the tutees’ thinking process instead of 18.

(26) checking their answers. Tutors should lead their tutees to discuss the application of the three reading strategies according to the comprehension questions.. Stage 2 Prior Training for the tutors (This was done outside of the regular class time, with 20 mins for 4 tutors of the first 4 groups and 15 mins for another 3 tutors) As aforementioned, training for the tutors before the administration of peer tutoring is quite vital in making peer tutoring successful. Therefore, the researcher instructed tutors how to scaffold their partners, i.e. when to intervene and support them properly. To make sure the tutors could make use of the three reading strategies, the teacher went over the reading material of the week with them to examine their understanding and inquired about how they would guide their tutees and what difficulties they encountered during break time before each of the six sessions of the peer tutoring program. These participants were under great stress because they had to prepare for CAP; therefore, only twenty minutes were allotted to the tutors of the first four groups and another fifteen minutes were for the tutors of the other three groups. Besides, the researcher also reminded them of the importance of being patient instead of immediately providing their tutees with answers. During the prior training, the teacher checked the tutors’ understanding of each article and the adoption of the three strategies. How they guided their tutees was the main focus of the prior training. The teacher listened to tutors’ prepared instructional approaches and then provided them with alternative ways of guiding their tutees so as to extract their thinking process. Next, the teacher would check to see if tutors have any questions and to clarify their confusion about how to redirect their tutee’s response.. Stage 3 19.

(27) Reading Activities in the Six Sessions of Peer Tutoring Program (the whole activities were audiotaped) (45 mins) (1) Tutees had to describe how they comprehended the text while reading. For example, whether they understood the sentence and what hindered their reading comprehension. (2) Tutors observed their tutees whether they could make use of the three strategies effectively. If the tutees were unable to express themselves clearly, the tutors could intervene to help them solve the problems they encountered. Direct answers or hints were not allowed. (3) After the tutees finished the comprehension questions, the group discussed their reasons for the answers and further checked whether the application of the three reading strategies promoted tutees’ reading comprehension. (4) At the same time, the researcher observed the ongoing process of the peer discussions. If any group discussion got stuck or any of the group members seemed to be too quiet, the researcher would intervene and offer suggestions for them to proceed well.. Stage 4 Self-Evaluation After Six Sessions of the Peer Tutoring Program (1) Two different questionnaires, including open-ended Qs about the perceptions of the peer tutoring program for tutors and tutees, were dispatched in class. The teacher explained the questions and checked whether the students understood the meaning of some open-ended questions. The students were told to ask questions if any statement in the question was unclear to them. (20mins) (2) Students were encouraged to give their feedback. (25mins). 20.

(28) Teacher’s Role in Peer Tutoring After checking how well the tutors understood the reading materials and how they practiced the three reading strategies, the teacher initiated the peer tutoring sessions. Simultaneously, the interactions between the tutors and the tutees were observed and prompt feedback was provided in case any of the tutor or tutee wasn’t sure what to do. In addition to that, it’s equally important to ascertain that their discussion was on the right track. As mentioned earlier, the process of how they tackled reading comprehension questions were audiotaped using the participants’ cellphones. The audiotaped extracts of each session were regarded as another supplement for the teacher to give timely feedback or revision of the tutoring process among these groups in the next session. During the four weeks of the peer tutoring program, the interactions between the peers and their perceptions of the whole peer tutoring were the primary focuses of the present study.. Data Collection Instruments Two research instruments, including perceptions questionnaires and semistructured interviews, were employed to observe the participants’ perceptions of the peer tutoring program and analyze the effects on reading comprehension.. Questionnaire With reference to the regular peer tutoring evaluations of Umpqua Community College (Umpqua Community College, n.d.), Orange School (Orange School, n.d.), and the student journal prompts from Austin’s study (2008), the researcher retrieved from the perceptions of peer tutoring program included in both of the questionnaires from Umpqua Community College (Umpqua Community College, n.d.) and Austin’s study 21.

(29) (2008). As for the student survey from Orange School, the researcher chose the version for the tutees which evaluated the tutors. In the evaluation from Umpqua Community College (Umpqua Community College, n.d.), it was divided into two sections. The first part consisted of eleven rating-scale questions concerning how the tutees perceived their tutor and two open-ended questions about reflecting on the strength and the weakness of their tutor. The following part was made up of three questions about students’ overall rating of peer tutoring program and four open-ended questions inquiring students’ opinions and suggestions for the program. Similarly, in the student journal prompts of Austin (2008), one rating-scale question and four open-ended questions were included with the aim to know whether peer tutoring enhanced the students’ math learning. On the other hand, in the student survey of Orange School (Orange School, n.d.), it contained four rating-scale questions centered on proficiency and personality of the tutors. Then, another two short answer questions were provided to examine whether the tutors were worth recommending and whether peer tutoring benefitted the tutees in other aspects. Based on the design of this study, some of the questions from the above-mentioned three questionnaires were modified to explore the students’ perceptions of peer tutoring and the factors which influenced the efficacy of the peer tutoring program for reading comprehension. This study primarily involved a student survey, comprised of two different questionnaires for the tutors and the tutees that inquired their holistic perceptions of the peer tutoring program. For the tutees, the questionnaire (see Appendix B for English version & Appendix C for Chinese version) put emphasis on whether the peer tutoring program made any difference to their learning effects on reading comprehension and their attitude towards their tutors. As for the tutors, in particular, they had to reflect on the merits or weaknesses with the practice of the program for themselves (see Appendix D for English version & Appendix E for Chinese 22.

(30) version). On the other hand, the feasibility of reading strategies for the tutees was also inspected in order to better understand which reading strategy was most or least frequently applied by them.. Semi-Structured Interview Questions In addition, there were two types of questions in the semi-structured interview designed to require the students to elaborate on their feedback. The first set of questions examined the interactions between tutors and tutees. It’s the main focus for the researcher to look into since the quality of communication or even the personalities of the peers could often dominate the outcome of the peer tutoring program. The second set was about the students’ perceptions of the peer tutoring program. The researcher would adjust the questions to inspect the key factors that led to the outcome of the peer tutoring program. Considering most of the students were not familiar with English writing and expressing themselves in English, the questionnaire and semi-structured interview were conducted in Chinese to ascertain the accuracy of the students’ responses.. Data Analysis After gathering all the feedback on the questionnaires and the audiotaped information, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews which were mainly based on the perceptions questionnaires of the tutors and the tutees. In response to the research question: “What are the perceptions of tutors and tutees on the peer tutoring program?” the factors contributing to the outcome were also analyzed through their questionnaires feedback and the interviews. The audiotaped interactions such as the communication and the instructional process between both sides were another subsidiary data to get the whole picture of the tutoring process. 23.

(31) Summary During the six sessions of peer tutoring program of English reading, probing into the perceptions of the students with English proficiency in a bimodal distribution was the major concern of the research design. Direct interactions between the tutors and the tutees were observed and analyzed mainly referring to their perceptions questionnaires. Semi-structured interviews and audiotaped tutoring process were also utilized as supplementary information to help explore the effects of the program on both tutors and tutees.. 24.

(32) CHAPTER FOUR. RESULTS. In this chapter, students’ perceptions of the whole peer tutoring program of English reading and their applications of the three reading strategies were analyzed. Qualitative data such as the audiotaped interactions between the peers and the interviews conducted by the researcher were also analyzed to offer complementary explanations of students’ feedback. Moreover, tutors and tutees’ experiences were also presented. Participants’ feedback on the program were divided into two subgroups, i.e., the perceptions of the tutees and those of the tutors. Some excerpts of students’ reactions to the open-ended questions were written in Chinese were presented and translated into English by the researcher afterwards.. Perception Questionnaire for the Tutees In the first part of the questionnaire for the tutees in use of Likert Scale and two open-ended questions, the outcomes revealed the overall perceptions of their tutors were quite positive (see Table 3). Table 3. Student Survey for Tutees Perceptions of Their Tutors. 1. 2. 1. My tutor was patient with me.. 0%. 0%. 2. My tutor communicated with me well. 3. My tutor understood the reading content well. 4. My tutor adjusted his / her. 0% 0%. 3 0%. 4. 5. 23.07%. 76.92%. 0% 7.69%. 30.76%. 61.53%. 0% 15.38%. 61.53%. 23.07%. tutoring properly to meet 0% 0% 15.38% 46.15% 38.46% my learning style. 5. My tutor knew my learning 0% 0% 23.07% 38.46% 38.46% situation well. *Likert Scale 1~5 in Perceptions of Their Tutors=strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree. 25.

(33) Table 3 shows that 99.99% of the tutees agreed on the tutors’ patience in the program, 92.29% of them thought their tutors communicated with them well and 84.6% of them expressed that their tutors were proficient in understanding reading content. As for whether the tutors could adjust their teaching to meet their tutees’ needs, the tutees still gave high remarks which reached to 84.61%. Besides, 76.92% of the tutees also agreed that the tutors were well-informed of their learning difficulties. These data showed that most of the tutees approved of their tutors’ performance in the process of peer tutoring. In subsequent excerpts from the tutees, their opinions about the tutors were elaborated. Tutees’ Perceptions of Their Tutors When giving feedback on how their tutors could improve to promote the program corresponding to the first open-ended question of the first part of the questionnaire, the tutees’ opinions could be classified into two aspects. One was about the teaching style of the tutors, and the other was about their personality while tutoring. Excerpt 1: During the teaching process, maybe he was too nervous and he just wanted to finish his instruction quickly. (tutee #5) Excerpt 2: He should speak more slowly instead of pointing out the key sentences. He should let me try. (tutee #4) Excerpt 3: Sometimes I didn’t exactly understand the topic and her pace was too fast. Because of that, I chose not to ask because she would become quite impatient. (tutee #9) Excerpt 4: I thought my tutor was too hasty for us to talk about the multiple choice questions because we hadn’t finished our reading. (tutee #10) Excerpt 5: She should be more confident. She should use ready stated sentences to tell us reasons. (tutee #6) It’s interesting to find that although some tutees expressed that their tutors lacked patience when tutoring, a majority of the tutees were still satisfied with their tutors’ performance. From another angle, it’s natural for some of the tutors to feel anxious 26.

(34) when they are required to take on the duty of explaining difficult concepts or being in charge of helping their less-skilled peers to learn (Roscoe & Chi, 2007). It can be explained that most of the tutees can still sense their tutors’ willingness to help them despite of the occasional impatience or ignorance of their needs. The tutees were aware of their tutors’ efforts to help them. The comments in the second open-ended question displayed the tutees’ affirmation of their tutors’ guidance on enhancing their reading comprehension. Among thirteen tutees, five of them mentioned their tutors’ instruction on searching for the keywords or some sentences which were needed to understand the main idea or the gist of the target reading. Additionally, three tutees remarked that their tutors made good use of giving example sentences to help them figure out the word meaning. Some of their comments were as follows. Excerpt 6: My tutor didn’t ask me many questions. For example, he could ask me the reason why a certain answer was not accepted. (tutee #13) Excerpt 7: My tutor made efforts to fix my problem of reading word by word. For example, he showed me how to relate the key points in a sentence with the other ones in another sentence, so that I could further understand the reading content. (tutee #5) Excerpt 8: My tutor always provided us with many example sentences to promote our understanding of the unfamiliar words; moreover, this approach was also practiced while helping me understand the content of each option in a question. (tutee #10) Excerpt 9: My tutor knew that I could understand an English word if it is explained with graphic description, so she would try to take advantage of the stuff around me and let me think over the word meaning. (tutee #8) In the following, two excerpts of the interactions between the peers in the tutoring sessions were shown. The two interactions revealed how insufficient vocabulary hindered the tutees’ performance of reading comprehension.. 27.

(35) Excerpt 10 (interaction) Tutor #3: Why do you choose option (B)? Tutee #10: Because I see the word” family” in the second line of the third paragraph and then……to…... Tutor #3: To? Till the period? Tutee #10: Till the comma. Tutor #3: Ok. From the previous content, do you know what the old man is capable of? Tutee #10: ….... Tutor #3: Ok, what is the sentence about? you can check the former paragraph to get some ideas of the old man’s ability. Tutee #10: ….... Tutor #3: What ability does the old man have? Check the sentence in the very beginning. Tutee #10: Hmm… is it prediction? Tutor #3: Yes! So he can predict? Tutee #10: Typhoon. Tutor #3: And typhoon is a phenomenon of ? Tutee #10: A phenomenon of ? Tutor #3: In the first paragraph, the content mentioned some words such as rainy and windy. Do you know what “windy” is? Tutee #10: ……rainy? Tutor #3: See, now there is strong? outside the classroom. So can you guess what it is? Tutee #10: Wind? Tutor #3: Ok, in the next sentence, wind definitely appeared. Tutee #10: Yes. Tutor #3: Hence, which phenomenon are these words categorized into? Tutee #10: Weather. Excerpt 11 (interaction) Tutor #5: Show me your understanding of option (C) in Q1. Tutee #1: We love working in space…. Tutor #5: Space space space. Do you know “space?” What does “space” mean? Tutee #1: Does it mean “special” or “place?” Tutor #5: We all learned that from earth science Book 5. Where are those planets? Tutee #1: Outer space! Oh! This sentence means that we like to work in space. But if you ask us what we miss the most, most of us will say taking a real bath. The water does not fall, but…. does that mean the water is not saturated? 28.

(36) Tutor #5: What? The previous part you translated is correct, but the “water” part is weird. Tutee #1: The water does not fall but float around….The water can float?! Does “fall” mean “full?” Tutor #5: That’s “full.” Tutee #1: Does it mean “autumn?” Tutor #5: Ok, “autumn” is one of its meanings. Do you recall another meaning of “fall?” Tutee #1: I only remember “autumn.”………Does it mean “trip over?” Tutor #5: We should say “fall.” Think about whether it’s appropriate to describe “the water tripped over.” Since tutee #8 classified herself as a graphic learner, the researcher asked her during the interview to elaborate on how her tutor modified her instruction to meet her needs. Excerpt 12 (interview): Researcher: Could you explain how your tutor made you understand a word with graphic description? Tutee #8: For instance, she described a picture like somebody living above the earth to explain the word “space.” Researcher: And, did you figure out the word meaning immediately? Tutee #8: Hmm…I thought it was “sky” at first. Researcher: Let’s see. Please give me another example about how your tutor used graphic description to make you figure out word meaning. Tutee #8: Hmm…I cannot come up with any at this moment. Researcher: Now I’ll show you two sentences, and then tell me which one is more easier for you to figure out the word meaning. Sentence 1 is that it’s a kind of electric appliance that is often used in summer and is cheaper. Sentence 2 is that it’s a kind of electric appliance that can cause the air convection and is often used in summer. Tutee #8: I prefer the latter one. It’s easier for me to figure out the meaning “fan.” Researcher: So you mean your tutor guided you to figure out word meaning in this way? Tutee #8: Yes!. Tutees’ Perceptions of the Peer Tutoring Program 29.

(37) In response to the scale-rating question in second part of the perceptions questionnaire, 76.91% of the tutees agreed that the peer tutoring program of English reading was effective, especially the improvement in their inference making ability. Also, figuring out the word meaning was helpful for some of them to grasp the gist of an article. Some of the comments in the open-ended questions were presented below. Excerpt 13: With the assistance of my tutor, my ability of inference making was getting better. (tutee #4) Excerpt 14: Now I learned to adopt the strategy of figuring out the word meaning from the context. I always translated the passage word by word before. I think looking at the context is fairly useful for me. (tutee # 1) Excerpt 15: I used to search for the sentences or words in the question items which were similar to those in the article when coping with reading comprehension question. However, after the program, I was more capable of predicting the content through some keywords in the article. (tutee #2) On the other hand, three tutees held neutral attitude towards the efficacy of the program. Their opinions were as follows. Excerpt 16: As for me, what I did in the program was pretty much the same as my usual method to cope with reading comprehension. It didn’t make any difference to me. The most obvious difference is that I held back from speaking out what was in my mind because I always made a rough guess instead of fully understanding the reading content. Apart from that, maybe I couldn’t express the process of how I worked out problems precisely because I was afraid of misunderstanding the words or sentences and then I’d be corrected by my tutor. (tutee #11) Excerpt 17: It seemed that I often learned on my own because I always worked on the readings by myself. After I waited such a long time, my tutor came to my aid. (tutee #7) Excerpt 18: The time spent on reading articles was reduced, however, it was still difficult for me to scan for the answers from the context if the article was too long. (tutee #3) Tutees’ Adoption of the Three Reading Strategies The feedback on the third open-ended question in the second part of the 30.

(38) questionnaire showed the tendency of figuring out the word meaning and inferring from the context was equally helpful for these tutees. Among thirteen tutees, one of them adopted the strategy of prediction most frequently, six of them made use of the strategy of figuring out the word meaning, five of them used the strategy of inferring from the context most frequently. On the other hand, one of the tutees wasn’t in favor of any of the three strategies. Some of their explanations were shown below. Excerpt 19: I mostly utilized the strategy of figuring out the word meaning because sometimes I could judge the word meaning correctly from the context and obtain correct word meaning. (tutee #9) Excerpt 20: I mostly adopted the strategy of inferring from the context because it could promote my correction rate; however, it also took me much more time to answer reading comprehension questions. (tutee #2) Excerpt 21: I made use of the strategy of figuring out the word meaning mostly because I had very small vocabulary size and I’d try to recall the word meaning with the assistance of my tutor. (tutee #10) Excerpt 22: My most frequently adopted strategy was to infer from the context. It was not only practical but also saved time because all I needed to do was to search for the more important part rather than go through the whole article. (tutee # 6) Excerpt 23: I didn’t apply any of the three reading strategies. I was still used to answering the questions after reading the whole article, (tutee #7) When asked about how the peer tutoring program should be improved (the last open-ended question), some tutees mentioned the length of the articles. Interestingly, two tutees preferred shorter articles; whereas, another tutee hoped to be challenged by longer articles. Besides, one tutee agreed that the program had positive effects on him, but dealing with unfamiliar words was still an unsolved problem for him. Excerpt 24: I thought there could be more reading comprehension questions and the articles could be shorter because it was easier for me to scan for the answers. (tutee #13) Excerpt 25: The articles could be longer for me to practice adopting these reading strategies because I was often unable to grasp the main points from longer articles. (tutee #6) 31.

(39) Excerpt 26: In fact, this program which changed my previous way of reading was quite helpful for me. Nonetheless, it couldn’t help me tackle the problem of the words unfamiliar to me. (tutee #2). Perception Questionnaire for the Tutors In the first section of the questionnaire for the tutors with seven Likert Scale items and one open-ended question, the results showed that the overall ratings of their tutees and the program were nearly positive (see Table 4). Table 4. Student Survey for Tutors Perceptions of Their Tutees. 1. 2. 1. My tutee was willing to learn.. 0%. 0%. 28.57% 57.14%. 14.28%. 2. My tutee communicated with me well. 3. My tutee could roughly understand the reading content 4. My tutee tried to modify his / her reading strategies based on the experience of the last session.. 0%. 0%. 14.28% 42.85%. 42.85%. 5. My tutee was able to offer his/ her own concepts and discuss with me. 6. After the four-week peer tutoring program, my tutee shortened his / her reading time. 7. After the four-week peer tutoring program, my tutee understood the reading material better compared with the last session.. 3. 4. 5. 0% 14.28% 57.14% 28.57%. 0%. 0%. 0%. 0%. 0% 14.28%. 57.14% 42.85%. 71.42%. 14.28%. 0% 28.57% 42.85% 14.28%. 14.28%. 0%. 0%. 0%. 42.85%. 57.14%. 0%. *Likert Scale 1~5 in Perceptions of Their Tutees=strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree. As indicated in Table 4, 71.42% of the tutors agreed on their tutees’ willingness to learn. 85.7% of them thought their tutees communicated with them well. However, only 28.57% of the tutors agreed on item three, which is about their tutees’ 32.

(40) understanding of the reading content. Similarly, as for whether the tutees could adjust their reading strategies according to the previous session, fewer than half of the tutors (42.85%) agreed on that. Whereas, 85.7% of them stated that their tutees were able to discuss their concepts with them. For item six, only 28.56% of the tutors thought that the tutees’ reading time was shortened. Lastly, 57.14% of the tutors agreed that the final reading material was easier for their tutees to understand.. Tutors’ Perceptions of Their Tutees As revealed in Table 4, in general, most of the tutors were positive about the progress their tutees made, especially in sharing their thoughts. On account of the tutors’ feedback on the open-ended question in the first section of perceptions questionnaire, five out of seven tutors indicated the progress their tutees performed in the end of the peer tutoring program. Excerpt 27: They got to know more and more vocabulary and were more clear about the essentials of the reading comprehension questions. Besides, they could predict the possible content of the target reading by judging from the title. (tutor #2) Excerpt 28: She gradually knew how to infer from the context as well as expressed the process of working out the questions more specifically. (tutor #7) Excerpt 29: The articles were more comprehensible to them. Moreover, they asked me the meaning of the other options in every question thoroughly. (tutor #1) Excerpt 30: Reading time spent by my tutees became shorter. In addition to that, they were more capable of pointing out where the keywords or the key sentences were located. (tutor #5) Excerpt 31: Ben seldom spoke out his thoughts, but he learned to express himself and presented some keywords he found in the last sessions of the program. As for the other tutee, she seldom raised questions. She often worked on the reading on her own because Ben needed more help. (tutor #4) Excerpt 32: Being more sensible of the article and some vocabulary within it, my tutees’ understanding of the content could be raised more or less although sometimes they were weak in pointing out keywords or key sentences to increase their correction rate. Furthermore, they became more courageous 33.

(41) to guess. Actually, the answers they presented were usually correct. Therefore, it increased their chances of responding correctly by making hypotheses confidently. (tutor #3) Tutors’ Perceptions of the Peer Tutoring Program In spite of some negative responses to some question items in the first part of the perception questionnaire (see Table 4), most of the tutors’ reactions to this program were generally positive. In response to the second part of the perceptions questionnaire, 71.42% of them approved of the peer tutoring program on account of their tutees’ improvement in dealing with reading comprehension questions. Many of the tutors expressed that their tutees became better in figuring out the word meaning from the context and understanding the reading comprehension questions in the second section of the perceptions questionnaire. Noticeably, a tutor emphasized on the significance of vocabulary size which had great influence on his tutees’ performance. Apart from that, another tutor mentioned that one of the factors leading to the positive effects was to tackle the comprehension questions from her tutee’s angle. Excerpts below were their remarks on their tutees’ performance. Excerpt 33: Due to their insufficient vocabulary size, they were incapable of applying the three reading strategies effectively. They still lacked self-confidence while they made a guess even if they were right. (tutor #3) Excerpt 34: My tutee learned not to give up so easily when encountering long articles and she also tried to think carefully about the meaning of the questions. (tutor #7) Excerpt 35: They got to know the meaning of the question, to figure out the word meaning from the context, and to predict the reading content. (tutor #2) Excerpt 36: My tutees understood the article more and their correction rate was promoted. (tutor #1) Excerpt 37: In the process of discussion, I could understand my tutee’s difficulty. What’s more, I could see the difference between my tutee’s thought and mine. (tutor #6) Benefits of the Peer Tutoring Program Received by the Tutors 34.

(42) All seven tutors claimed that they also gained some advantages while helping their tutees. Most of them thought that the process of preparing themselves for the reading program in advance and adjusting their tutoring approach to meet their tutees’ need was a good training. Excerpt 38: Through the preparation and instruction, my ability of oral expression and logic were sharpened. (tutor #6) Another tutor appraised not only the effects that tutoring process brought about but also the advantages of prior training he perceived. Excerpt 39: In order to teach my tutees well, it’s compulsory for me to comprehend the reading content, its comprehension questions, and every option as well. During the instructional process, I re-examined my grammar knowledge and some vocabulary once again. Apart from that, in the training process, some strategies or perspectives provided by other tutors to work out the reading comprehension questions inspired me to look at these questions from another angle. (tutor #4) Three tutors reported that they could gradually make sense of the weakness of their tutees when dealing with reading comprehension questions. Excerpt 40: I got to know more about how to teach my peers. Interestingly, many other thoughts about reading comprehension questions and their options proposed by my tutees struck me. Maybe sometimes I was ignorant of some possible reasons for choosing the distractors. (tutor #7) Excerpt 41: After the six sessions of peer tutoring program, now I felt more empathetic towards my tutees because I understood what problems they exactly encountered. (tutor #3) To assure how tutor #6 perceived her logic improvement, the researcher conducted an interview. Excerpt 42 (interview): Researcher: What do you mean by stating that your logic was sharpened? Tutor #6: I have to reorganize the concepts in the readings to better understand the content. Besides, trying my best to make myself understood by my tutee also reinforces myself to think logically. Part of the peer interaction audiotaped in the final session of the program revealed some tutees’ misunderstanding of the reading content. Such process of interpreting a 35.