Implementing Peer Teaching to Enhance English Students’ Language Learning: Kurdish EFL Teachers’ and Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

The present study is aimed at introducing the idea of “peer teaching”, a student-centered instructional method that can engage students during class and outside the classto reveal common misunderstandings. The study also talks about the guidelines andpurposes of implementing the method, and benefits and difficulties of its implementationin English language classes. Data were collected through open-ended questionnairesdistributed among Kurdish students majoring English language at University of Garmianand English language teachers at both Garmian and Raparin Universities.The study findings show that the participants have positive perspectives towardsimplementing peer teaching in EFL classes to enhance students’ learning and languageabilities. The teacher participants have neutral responses on using the method in the past.They also mentioned a group of benefits of the model and a number of barriers to itsimplementation in college classes. Moreover, the student participants welcomed themodel and considered it as important as they relied on when they couldn’t understandteachers’ explanation and missed a session. Likewise, they asserted its usefulness forstudents who teach and are taught. Finally, students have different views on whetherpeers’ or teacher’s teaching more influential is. Most of them rely on peer teaching whennecessary, though they think the information students acquire the knowledge from teachers’ teaching then use it in peer teaching. While, a small number prefer peer teaching to teacher’s teaching.