Peer Assisted Learning in Iranian Guidance Schools, and the Students’ Grammar and Vocabulary Achievement

Abstract

The present study was conducted to examine the nature of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) in Iranian Guidance schools and its effects on the students’ grammar and vocabulary learning. To this end, 60 Iranian guidance school students were chosen. These students were already classified and put in groups of 30 students by the school board. The researcher taught both classes. He considered one class as an experimental group and the other as a control one. Both groups were taught three lessons of the Iranian guidance school book called “Right Path to English”. Of course, the experimental group had the chance of experiencing PAL scheme, while the comparison group continued the conventional way of their language learning. To meet the requirements of the PAL scheme and handle the project successfully, the teacher appointed some PAL leaders from the class. These leaders were the students who had proved to qualify for doing the group leading job as well as solving the students’ educational problems. After six sessions of treatment, which lasted for about two months, the two groups were post tested through a multiple choice item test. The results demonstrated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of both vocabulary and grammar achievements. Finally, it was concluded that Peer Assisted Learning can lead to higher vocabulary and grammar learning in comparison to the conventional methods.

Keywords:Cooperative learning, Peer Assisted Learning, peer leader, peer modeling, guidance school, positive interdependence, individual accountability