Enhancing vocational English learning through peer tutoring

Background This study aimed to explore how the pilot Peer Tutoring Programme in Youth College (Kowloon Bay) enhanced students’ vocational English learning. The findings showed that the program had positive effects on the students’ academic performance, increased their learning motivation, boosted their confidence and encouraged active learning outside the classroom. According to Topping [1], peer tutoring, which involves students helping their peers to learn and, at the same time, helping themselves to learn through teaching, is one of ‘the longest established and most intensively researched forms of peer learning’. If organized appropriately, it clearly benefits students academically, cognitively and socially. This approach had been tried out by a few language teachers in some of the Vocational English classes in Youth College (Kowloon Bay) since 2009.