Targeted Support for College Students’ English Learning Based on Peer Mutual Assistance and Emotional Guidance: Take the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban (语你相伴)” English Learning Support Tutoring Group as an Example ()
1. Introduction
Under the background that higher education is gradually moving towards the popularization stage, and English teaching is also constantly developing in the direction of improving quality and efficiency, English, as a basic tool subject, will be directly related to the overall level of talent training in colleges and universities. However, there has always been a group of students who have difficulties learning English in colleges and universities, which has also become an important factor restricting the further improvement of the quality of English teaching. Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis proposed in 1982 believes that emotions can directly promote or hinder the acquisition of a second language [1], which provides important support for the study of this article. That is to say, the anxiety, inferiority, and other negative emotions in the groups with English learning difficulties in colleges and universities are actually constantly strengthening the effect of “emotional filtering,” which will directly hinder the effective absorption of language input. This is also the core theoretical basis for this article to integrate emotional guidance into the work of accurate assistance.
In order to solve this difficult problem of help, more and more diversified help models began to be promoted in colleges and universities. Among them, the help model led by the peer tutoring group has slowly become an important carrier in the English help work of colleges and universities, with the advantages of equality, affinity, and strong targeting. The core of the “precise help” mentioned here is to accurately find the difficulties of students’ English learning and their inner emotional needs based on individual differences among students, and then realize “teaching according to talent” through a series of personalized strategies, which is very different from the traditional “one-size-fits-all” help model. The “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group is a typical representative of this kind of help model. It is specially set up for students with English learning difficulties in colleges and universities. Its core positioning is “precise docking and emotional guidance.” The tutoring group takes the backbone students majoring in English as the main helpers. Many students, it selects excellent students with a solid English foundation, good communication skills, and a strong sense of responsibility to form a team. Relying on the natural emotional resonance and cognitive commonality among students of the same age, it provides more personalized English learning guidance for students in need. At the same time, the tutoring group also integrates the whole process of emotional guidance into the process of helping, focusing on the real psychological needs of students, taking the initiative to relieve their learning anxiety, helping them reshape their learning confidence, and building more solid emotional support for students’ English learning.
Judging from the actual situation of colleges and universities at present, there are still many shortcomings in the English learning assistance work of students in some colleges and universities. Either they focus on the transmission of knowledge but ignore the emotional care for students, or the help method is relatively single and lacks systematic planning, which ultimately leads to the effect of help not meeting expectations. Social-emotional learning is a comprehensive educational concept. Its core is to help students achieve more comprehensive development in self-understanding and managing emotions through systematic and scientific teaching methods [2]. This concept is highly compatible with the core idea of this study, which is “integrating emotional guidance into peer mutual assistance.” Unfortunately, there is an obvious lack of current help practice precisely in the dimension of “emotional care,” and the emotional elements have not been effectively integrated into the whole process of academic support. Based on this current situation, this study takes the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group as the core, focuses on the topic of accurate help for English learning in colleges and universities, and focuses on exploring the integration path and mechanism of peer mutual assistance and emotional guidance in the help work. By sorting out the help practice and accumulated experience of the tutoring group, we deeply analyze how it effectively integrates peer mutual aid and emotional guidance, applies it to the precise help of English students in colleges and universities, and helps students get out of the dilemma of learning and emotion. From the theoretical level, this study helps to enrich the theoretical system of emotional education and language teaching; from the practical level, it can also provide more practical references for the construction and operation of peer tutoring groups in colleges and universities and ultimately promote students to achieve more comprehensive development.
2. Research Method
This study uses a research design that blends practical observation with case analysis. The research observation cycle spans six semesters, from December 2023 to February 2026: the first semester of the 2023-2024 academic year, the second semester of the 2023-2024 academic year, the first semester of the 2024-2025 academic year, the second semester of the 2024-2025 academic year, and the first semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. About 1,800 students with English learning challenges who were chosen by the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group during the observation cycle make up the total number of students included in the analysis from 2023 to the present.
2.1. Choosing the Person to Help
The target of this study mainly focuses on English students in colleges and universities. Starting from December 2023, the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group will take the lead and take into account the current situation of students’ English learning, the degree of learning investment, and the psychological and emotional state. Every semester, 300 - 400 English students will be selected as help targets. Most of these students have a weak English foundation, insufficient learning motivation, and obvious learning anxiety. In the process of selecting the object of help, the members of the tutoring group pay special attention to the representativeness of the object, covering students of different grades and majors. This can not only ensure that the practice of helping can cover the actual needs of different types of students and provide strong support for the universality of research conclusions, but also lay a more solid foundation for the subsequent formulation of differentiated assistance plans.
The total number of students included in the analysis includes two groups: non-English majors (such as Primary Education, Psychology and other majors) and English majors (Translation, Business English and other majors) to cover the English learning needs of students in different majors. The definition criteria of “students with English learning difficulties” are as follows:
The score of CET-4 is less than 425 points, or the score of the college English final exam is less than 60 points in a certain semester.
There is obvious learning anxiety, lack of learning motivation, and it is difficult to keep up with normal English teaching in self-perception.
Apply voluntarily for assistance from the English learning support tutoring group, and conduct interviews with the tutoring group members to verify your need for learning assistance.
2.2. Maintaining the Integrity of the Specifications
This research takes the helpful practice of the peer counseling group as the core content. The tutoring group will tailor personalized help plans according to the specific situation of each student and carry out peer-to-peer mutual assistance and emotional guidance throughout the whole process of helping. The whole help cycle is one semester, that is, 18 weeks. The tutoring group will deliver high-quality learning materials in the QQ group every day, release daily learning punching tasks, and also provide one-on-one question-answering services; offline English corner tutoring will be carried out every two weeks, and the help content covers the improvement of English vocabulary, reading, translation, and other abilities, as well as learning method guidance, learning anxiety intervention, learning self-confidence reshaping, and other aspects, fully reflecting the core help concept of the tutoring group of “promoting emotional development with language ability improvement and feeding academic progress with positive emotions.” Combining the theory of emotional education and the theory of language learning, this study will divide the emotional changes of students into three stages, namely the initial resistance stage, the gradual adaptation stage and the active improvement stage. The observable indicators of each stage are clearly as follows.
Initial resistance stage: the frequency of failure to complete the daily learning and punching tasks on time is higher than 70%; be unwilling to take the initiative to ask questions or communicate with members of the coaching group and refuse to participate in group discussions.
Gradual adaptation stage: the frequency of not completing the daily learning punching task on time is between 30% and 70%; be able to take the initiative to ask simple questions, cooperate with the members of the tutoring group to complete the learning tasks, and begin to participate in group discussions.
Active promotion stage: the frequency of not completing the daily learning punching task on time is less than 30%; take the initiative to make learning plans, actively participate in group exchanges, and even help other students with weaker foundations.
It focuses on observing the learning behavior, emotional expression, and feedback of students in different stages of help. Through the observation of the whole process of help, the communication feedback of both sides of the help is carefully analyzed, and then the changes of students’ learning status are continuously tracked. The effective strategies of peer mutual assistance and emotional guidance are summarized. At the same time, the problems in the help process are analyzed, the implementation effect of the help strategy is objectively evaluated, and corresponding optimization suggestions are put forward for the shortcomings in practice to ensure the objectivity and practicality of the research conclusions.
At the same time, this study will also make an in-depth analysis of the typical cases of the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group in the practice of helping and analyze it from the aspects of the implementation method of peer-to-peer mutual assistance in the tutoring group, the integration path of emotional guidance, and the mechanism of the synergy between the two. Through multi-dimensional analysis, the intrinsic relationship between the improvement of students’ language ability and the improvement of emotional state is explored, which not only provides a practical basis for the construction of accurate help paths but also provides a reference for the tutoring group to optimize its own help mode.
2.3. Data Source
The supporting materials used in this study are rich and comprehensive, covering a variety of types of data to ensure the objectivity and rigor of the research conclusions. The specific data sources are as follows:
Questionnaire: Distribute questionnaires to the students who are helped, including the questionnaire on English learning status and needs and the questionnaire on the satisfaction of the help effect.
Attendance record: Detail attendance records of the tutoring group’s offline English corner tutoring, online daily punching tasks, and record the participation of each student.
Chat records: The chat records of the tutoring group members and the helped students in QQ groups and one-on-one communication are used to analyze emotional communication and the learning guidance process.
Test results: The pre-test and post-test results of the students’ English ability, including vocabulary test, reading comprehension test and translation test, are used to measure the improvement of their English learning performance.
3. A Peer Counseling Group Pioneers Peer Support and
Facilitates Multilingual Adaptation
3.1. Personalized Mutual Guidance to Solve Learning Difficulties
Considering that the knowledge base of students with English learning difficulties is relatively different and the learning difficulties are also different, the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group abandons the traditional classroom centralized teaching mode and adopts “one-on-one tutoring” and “group pair learning” and other mutual methods to provide more targeted learning support for students. The members of the tutoring group will combine their own English learning experience and the knowledge learned in the preliminary training. Through questionnaires, daily communication, and other ways, they will gain an in-depth understanding of students’ learning shortcomings, clarify their specific difficulties with vocabulary, reading, translation, etc., and then formulate personalized and phased help plans accordingly. In the specific process of helping, the members of the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group will communicate with students as partners of the same age, abandon rigid teaching explanations, disassemble knowledge points in easy-to-understand language, and avoid using overly professional and rigid teaching terms, which can effectively reduce students’ fear of learning difficulties. During the vocabulary learning advice, the tutoring group members would discuss memory techniques and assist students in comprehending the meaning and mastering the particular usage in conjunction with particular instances. A silent writing competition for college English core words is used to gauge vocabulary growth. Each semester, 300 - 400 assistants make up the sample size. Every semester, the pre-test is administered during the first week, and the post-test is administered during the eighteenth week. The average vocabulary of the pupils who received assistance has been assisted for one semester, according to the test results. For sophomore students with an extremely poor foundation and a vocabulary of less than 1,000 words, the tutoring group focuses on vocabulary accumulation and basic grammar tutoring. Taking a sophomore in Geographical Science (Teacher Education Program) as an example, her vocabulary was only 1,290 words before help; after one semester of targeted tutoring, her vocabulary increased to 2,230 words. This kind of personalized mutual guidance can accurately meet the actual learning needs of students, help them gradually overcome the difficulties in learning, slowly build learning confidence, and lay a more solid foundation for the subsequent improvement of language ability.
Zone of proximal development guided peer helpers to design step-by-step learning tasks and provide appropriate scaffolding [3]. This approach helped reduce students’ learning anxiety and improve task completion. In early practice, we failed to fully consider individual differences in scaffolding adjustment, leading to uneven progress. This problem was later corrected by optimizing the scaffolding strategy. In line with the commitment in the method section, a paired-sample statistical analysis was conducted for students’ vocabulary, reading, and translation scores. Compared with the pre-test, post-test scores of all three measures were significantly higher (p < 0.05). Complete descriptive statistics and inferential statistical results confirmed that the intervention produced a significant improvement.
3.2. Imitation Learning Guidance: Develop Learning Habits
English students often lack scientific learning methods and good learning habits, which is also an important reason why their learning efficiency is low and their grades are difficult to improve. In the process of helping, the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group pays special attention to guiding students to imitate excellent learning behaviors and learning habits. Through the demonstration role of the members of the tutoring group, it helps students establish a more scientific learning model and achieve the organic integration of giving them fish and teaching them to fish.
The tutoring group members will share their practical learning experiences, including how to review wrong questions and arrange learning time, learning time arrangement methods, note sorting methods, etc., and guide students to imitate learning first, then adjust and optimize according to their own circumstances, and finally form learning habits suitable for themselves. For example, the members of the tutoring group will lead students to formulate daily vocabulary memorization plans and weekly reading practice plans and guide students to standardize and sort out wrong questions and accumulate common sentence patterns so as to cultivate their independent learning ability. At the same time, in the process of daily help, the members of the tutoring group will set an example, take the initiative to participate in English learning, drive students to actively devote themselves to learning with practical actions, gradually change their passive learning and perfunctory learning attitude, and establish the awareness of active learning.
This imitation learning guidance is highly consistent with Bandura’s theoretical view of social learning—people learn socially through observation in the environment, and only those learning objects that meet the needs of observers are more likely to attract the attention of learners [4]. Bandura’s social learning theory guided the design of modeling and imitation practices. Peer helpers demonstrated effective learning behaviors to help students form good habits. At the beginning, we lacked continuous positive reinforcement, so some students could not maintain stable engagement. This deficiency was improved by strengthening timely encouragement and feedback.
3.3. Cultivate a Supportive Space for Mutual Help and Greater
Learning Drive
The “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group attaches great importance to creating an atmosphere of mutual assistance, fraternity, and common progress. Through the formation of help groups and offline learning and exchange activities, students can feel the joy of learning in the collective atmosphere and further strengthen their learning motivation. In the help group, the members of the tutoring group and students exchange learning experiences with each other, share learning experiences, and encourage and support each other, forming a good learning atmosphere, which helps students gain a stronger sense of belonging in collective learning. In order to further stimulate students’ enthusiasm for learning, the tutoring group will also regularly organize English reading sharing meetings, oral exchange meetings, and other activities to provide students with a platform to show themselves, so that they can experience the sense of accomplishment brought by learning in the activities and enhance their self-confidence in learning. At the same time, the members of the tutoring group have always adhered to the principle of encouragement, giving positive affirmation and encouragement to students’ every progress, helping students get rid of the vicious circle of “the worse they are, the more afraid they are, and the more afraid they are”, and gradually develop a more positive English learning mentality.
Pekrun’s control-value theory guided the creation of a supportive learning atmosphere and task design [5]. We helped students enhance perceived control and value recognition to stimulate positive academic emotions. In early activities, we ignored the connection between learning content and students’ majors, which weakened students’ sense of value and participation. We then optimized activities to be more professional-oriented.
4. Trajectories of Students’ Emotional Changes Guided by a
Peer Tutoring Group
4.1. Initial Stage: Inferiority Resistance, Passive Escape
Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy explains students’ initial resistance caused by long-term failure [6]. Guided by this theory, we increased small successful experiences to rebuild confidence. However, early assessment overlooked emotional arousal and increased anxiety for vulnerable students. We later adopted milder and private evaluation methods.
In the early stage of the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group, carrying out peer help, most students suffered from long-term setbacks in learning, had a general inferiority complex, were full of resistance to English learning, and even deliberately avoided learning. In the face of the help of the members of the tutoring group, students are often passive and reserved. They are unwilling to take the initiative to communicate and learn from confusion. They are worried that their problems are too simple and will be laughed at. At the same time, they lack confidence in their learning ability. They feel that it is difficult to really improve their English scores even with help.
At this stage, the emotional state of students is mainly anxiety, low self-esteem, and resistance. They lack sufficient trust in peer help, and their enthusiasm to participate in help activities is not high. Most of them are in a state of passive acceptance of help. Some students will even deliberately avoid help and are unwilling to cooperate with the guidance of the members of the tutoring group. This negative emotional state not only seriously affects the development of helpful work but also restricts students’ own learning progress. In response to this situation, the members of the tutoring group will take the initiative to adjust the way of helping, no longer rushing to explain the knowledge but communicating with students as friends and slowly building a relationship of trust. Based on the three-stage criteria (<30%, 30% - 70%, >70%) and attendance data in Weeks 1 - 4, the proportion of low-participation students was significantly higher at the initial stage, showing obvious emotional resistance.
4.2. Transition Stage: Try to Accept and Gradually Adapt
The theory of self-efficacy also points out that verbal persuasion is an important way to improve individual efficiency expectations. Educators should pay attention to the use of verbal persuasion in teaching and stimulate students’ enthusiasm for learning and self-efficacy through positive feedback and encouragement [7]. In the help practice of the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group, with the continuous advancement of the help work, the patient guidance, sincere care, and personalized help of the members of the tutoring group have slowly eliminated the psychological barriers of students so that students began to try to accept the help of their peers, and the emotional state has gradually changed.
In the process of helping, the members of the tutoring group not only pay attention to students’ learning progress but also pay more attention to listening to their learning confusion and psychological appeals, timely emotional counseling, alleviating learning anxiety, and helping students gradually establish learning self-confidence. When students make small progress in learning, such as mastering a grammar point and remembering a set of words, they will be affirmed and encouraged by the members of the tutoring group, which will gradually experience the sense of accomplishment of learning, and the resistance to English learning will also be slowly relieved. They will begin to take the initiative to participate in help activities and take the initiative to ask the members of the tutoring group questions.
At this stage, the students’ emotional state has gradually changed from the initial inferiority resistance to trying to accept and actively explore. Their enthusiasm for learning has improved significantly, and they can cooperate with the members of the tutoring group to complete the help plan and gradually adapt to the model of peer help. Based on the three-stage criteria and attendance data in Weeks 5 - 12, the proportion of low-participation students decreased significantly, while the medium-participation group increased notably, indicating clear adaptation.
4.3. Mature Stage: Take the Initiative to Participate and Actively
Improve
According to the theory of social interdependence, positive mutual dependence refers to the cooperative dependence of individuals who realize that their own success is tied to the success of others, and only by working together can they achieve their goals [8]. In the help practice of the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group, after a period of mutual learning, some students not only improved their English foundation significantly but also began to take the initiative to help other students with weaker foundations, realizing the role change from “helped” to “helper,” and their emotional state has also entered a more mature stage.
For example, a junior majoring in Biological Science (Teacher Education Program) joined the tutoring group in the second semester of the 2024-2025 academic year. She was full of resistance to English learning at the initial stage, with a vocabulary of less than 2,300 words, and her average check-in rate in the first month of help was only 45%. “The members of the tutoring group did not regard me as a ‘bad student’, but communicated with me as a friend and helped me find a way to learn English,” she stated during the interview. I became more confident over time. I now want to help people in addition to honing my English. This phenomenon is the concrete embodiment of the positive mutual-dependent effect. Students no longer passively accept help but take the initiative to make their own learning plans, actively participate in the communication activities of the help group, and take the initiative to share their learning experience and progress.
Some students will also take the initiative to expand learning channels and use extracurricular time to supplement English knowledge and improve their language ability. Their interest in English learning is getting stronger and stronger, completely getting rid of the previous inferiority and resistance, and forming a positive learning mentality. However, some students have failed to fully integrate into the atmosphere of help due to a weak English foundation and insufficient learning perseverance. There is still a certain degree of learning anxiety. The emotional state can be summarized as “slow improvement and occasional resistance.” This also reflects the diversity and complexity of students’ emotional changes, which requires further targeted improvement by the tutoring group in the follow-up work. Based on the three-stage criteria and attendance data in Weeks 13 - 18, the proportion of high-participation students increased significantly and became dominant. The overall shift from low to high participation provides strong evidence for the emotional evolution trajectory.
5. Conclusions
5.1. Research Significance
This study closely combines the real-world example of the “Yu Ni Xiang Ban” English Learning Support Tutoring Group, with the integration mechanism of peer mutual aid, emotional advice, and learning improvement. Peer-to-peer mutual assistance, in particular, offers students with learning difficulties in English a focused academic support platform through individualized guidance, group mutual assistance, and other methods to help students overcome learning challenges and lay the groundwork for learning improvement; emotional guidance acts as a “catalyst” for learning improvement through one-on-one communication, active encouragement, emotional guidance, and other methods to reduce students’ learning anxiety, rebuild their learning confidence, and make students more willing to participate in peer-to-peer activities and receive academic guidance. Conversely, learning advancements (such as increased vocabulary and test scores) will boost students’ self-esteem and enthusiasm to learn, encouraging them to engage more fully. A positive cycle of “peer mutual assistance to promote learning improvement, emotional guidance to ensure learning participation, and learning improvement to strengthen emotional positive changes” is formed via peer support and emotional communication.
The integrated application of peer mutual assistance and emotional guidance provides a more effective practical path for English students in colleges and universities to accurately help. At the level of language assistance, through a series of strategies such as personalized mutual assistance guidance, imitation learning guidance, and mutual assistance atmosphere creation, students can break through learning difficulties, cultivate good learning habits, strengthen learning motivation, and gradually improve their English language ability, which is also in line with the core requirements of language learning theory; at the emotional assistance level, through targeted emotional guidance, it alleviates students’ learning anxiety, reshapes learning self-confidence, and guides students’ emotional state to gradually change from inferiority resistance to active participation and active improvement, so as to achieve the dual goals of “language improvement” and “emotional nourishment.” The results of the satisfaction survey, which was made available via the questionnaire star applet during the eighteenth week of the first semester of the 2025-2026 academic year, indicate that the effective survey sample size is 159 after the invalid questionnaires were removed. Of the students who received assistance, 20.13% of them reported satisfaction, and 76.1% of them were extremely satisfied with the tutoring group’s overall assistance in enhancing their English skills. (See Figure 1)
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Figure 1. Mutual assistance satisfaction survey in the 18th week of the first semester of the 2025-2026 academic year.
The practice of this collaborative help model not only enriches the theoretical system of helping English students in colleges and universities but also provides a practical reference for the construction and operation of peer tutoring groups. As the main body of help, the peer tutoring group can effectively bring students closer to the advantages of equality and affinity, solve the short board of “emphasizing knowledge and neglecting emotion” in the traditional help model, and improve the relevance and effectiveness of the help work. At the same time, this collaborative help model can also promote the growth of the members of the tutoring group themselves. In the process of helping others, they can consolidate their English knowledge; improve their comprehensive abilities, such as communication and expression, organization, and coordination; and achieve a win-win situation of “student improvement and helper growth.”
Based on the conclusions of the study, colleges and universities should further strengthen the construction of peer counseling groups, optimize the collaborative assistance mechanism of peer mutual assistance and emotional guidance, improve the assistance strategy, and improve the quality of assistance. For example, strengthen the special training of the members of the tutoring group, focusing on improving their help skills and emotional guidance ability; according to the changes in students’ needs, adjust the help plan in time to achieve more accurate and dynamic help; create a good campus help atmosphere; encourage more excellent students to join the peer tutoring group; and combine the English application scenarios of different majors to optimize the content of help and improve the relevance of help. Through these measures, we will promote the continuous optimization of the peer support model and help more English students break through the learning dilemma and achieve more comprehensive development.
5.2. Research Limitations
Although this research is based on the helpful practice of the peer counseling group and strives for the objectivity and practicality of the conclusion, there are still certain limitations. In terms of the selection of help targets, the selected students mainly focus on groups that actively seek help and fail to cover those students who are unwilling to take the initiative to participate in help and deliberately hide their learning difficulties, which may lead to a lack of comprehensive research samples and cannot fully reflect the help needs and emotional changes of all English students. At the same time, in the process of implementing precise assistance, the adjustment of some personalized assistance plans is not timely enough, and the accurate docking of English learning needs of students in different majors is insufficient, and the content of assistance cannot be fully optimized by combining the English application scenarios of different majors, which further limits the maximization of the effectiveness of assistance.
The short-term process of peer assistance is the focus of this study’s observation cycle in terms of the research cycle. In particular, the observation unit lasts only one semester and is unable to monitor and record students’ emotional shifts and long-term learning effects. It takes time to strengthen the emotional and linguistic skills of English language learners. Their long-term change law could not be fully reflected in their short-term assistance practices. The research findings may be somewhat biased as a result of certain students’ short-term assistance progress not being consolidated in long-term learning.
Furthermore, this study mostly uses case analysis and practical observation techniques; it lacks more precise quantitative research methodologies; and the analysis of the integration mechanism of peer mutual aid and emotional guidance in correct support is still shallow. Future studies can broaden the range of research samples, lengthen the research cycle, incorporate more varied research techniques, thoroughly examine the fundamental principles of the integration and application of the two, further optimize the precise help path for college and university English students, and enhance the long-term efficacy of the help work.