The Use of Peer Tutoring in Academic Writing Class

This qualitative study was carried out to investigate the use of peer tutoring in teaching writing. Also, this research aims to figure out the obstacles faced by the teacher and students in using peer tutoring. It took place at English Language Education Department, UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh. The technique that is used in choosing the sample is purposive sampling. It focuses on one class which consist of 20 students from the 5th semester and one English teacher who applied peer tutoring in teaching academic writing class. The researcher used observation, questionnaire, and interview as main instruments of data collection. The result showed that using peer tutoring in academic writing class was very helpful and useful. Based on the observation and questionnaires, students admitted that peer tutoring benefits them in producing academic writing. By engaging in peer tutoring session, the students could discuss their writing difficulties, learn from friend’s writing, and inspire them to produce academic writing. In addition, teacher and students also experienced the obstacles in using peer tutoring where students cannot fully rely on their peers because the information provided by them might be inaccurate, lack of knowledge, and not the expert on the subject. While the teacher also admitted that the obstacle that faced was too many ideas and solutions given by different peers make students confused in making revisions. Also, the students that use peer tutoring as a guarantee in teaching writing which the tutor is not necessarily correct made the teacher afraid that the tutor would teach the students wrongly. Therefore, peer tutoring is a helpful and useful method used in teaching writing. However, both teachers and students also found obstacles in peer tutoring session where they could not fully rely on peers.