Abstract
This
paper on Mentoring: Helping other to learn tries to explore the concept of
mentoring from the point of view of different scholars as well as its brief
historical background in the western and in the eastern culture. The terms used
in the mentoring practices as mentor, mentee, the role of the mentor, qualities
of the mentors are elaborated being based on the different literature found in
this area. Similarly, it tries to make the distinction between the terms
mentoring, coaching, counseling and training, which are often confusing for the
many of the novice learners. The basic concepts for the rationale behind
mentoring in the teacher education which is crucial to develop mentor, mentee
and the institutions are rationally presented in the paper. Finally, with the
reflective conclusion, the paper tries to summarize the implication al part of
mentoring in the Nepalese context. The need of mentoring is duly recognized in
the Nepali context as presented in the paper; however, it focuses on the weak
implicational aspect of the concept in teacher education for the novice teacher
to cope up with the school settings.
Key
words: Mentor, mentee, coaching, counseling, training, teacher education.
Setting
the Scene
Mentoring
is not a new term in the field of education. However, it is somewhat neglected
and differently taken term. If we see its importance and coverage in different
fields, it can be quite essentially used in education, management, business,
and politics, low and high class of jobs. A cobbler may mentor his/her child
for the same job. Similarly, a teacher helps in the adaptation process and
development of professionalism in the novice teachers’ will to dedicate his/her
life in the same field. The mentoring process is found both in the eastern and
western culture. In the western culture,
in eighth or ninth century, Homer wrote an epic
called “Odyssey”. In this epic, Homer describes Odyssey as a hero who prepares
for ten years voyage. So, Odyssey asks to his trusted friend, Mentor to guide
and counsel his son, Telemachus in his absence. While Odyssey has gone, mentor
served as a sage adviser to the younger man, helping him grow intellectually,
emotionally and socially. In this classic tale we can see that mentoring is one
of the oldest forms of influence and as a tool can be powerful and popular way
for people to gain personal and professional skills.
In
the eastern culture, Balmiki was the mentor for Lava and Kusha, the sons of
Ram, in making them knowledgeable, skillful and powerful like their father.
Similarly, it is found that Gandhi mentored Nehru in India. And this powerful
technique is applicable in the today world in educational sector for the novice
teachers from the skilled and experience teachers. However, it is not always
essential that a mentor should be a ‘father –figure’ or much older in years
than their mentees. It is the experience and the expertise counts to be a mentor,
not essentially an old age.
With
the change in time and the concept to assist the novice teacher ‘mentoring has
emerged as a holistic scheme’ (Mirza, 2009). We talk about ‘subject mentors’,
who are responsible for some aspects of the school based mentors who look after
the specific subject being expert in the field, ‘‘phase mentors’ who are responsible for guiding and
instructing the trainee in general educational matters’ (ibid). ‘‘Super mentor’
could be hired who could overlook subject mentors and continuous training
process’ (Shaw, 1995 and Mirza, 2009). The latest development in the field of
mentoring is that it is viewed to be assisting in the induction process in the
United States and Australia (Cater 1997, Cochran-smith and Paris 1995 as cited
in Mirza 2009). Similarly United States Office of Personal Management
categorizes mentor as Career Guide, Information source, Friend and Intellectual
guide (2008). Whatsoever are the types, mentors’ role is significant in
enhancing career development in the novice teachers and professional who seeks
career in their intended fields.
Mentoring
is a form of professional partnership which enables a novice or new learner to
enrich in the field of knowledge with the help of the skilled and experienced
partner. Arnold (2006) claims mentoring is a form of personal and professional
partnership which usually involves a more experienced practitioner supporting a
less experienced one. Similarly, Butcher (2002) as cited by Arnold (2006) maintains, ‘often the less experienced
one is new to the job, organization, or profession, gets sufficient help from
the experienced one.’ Here, my attempt is to make the concept of mentoring
clear about the experienced English language teachers mentoring newly-qualified
ones in the field to adapt in the situation, which enhances him/her to build of
a career in the teaching learning arena. Mentoring is successful if a mentor
development practice is materialized in the institutional settings. Mentor
development is the other essential part which incorporates the mentoring
process a success. The inspiration of mentor development came from a desire to
help teachers enhance their skills and potentially make a transition to teacher
training by providing opportunities for colleagues to practice training
techniques with, and on, one another (Stillwell, 2009). Mentor development is
an approach to peer observation that taps into teachers’ ability to teach themselves as well as their
potential to be valuable resources to one another providing frameworks through
which colleagues can work together to train themselves in the best practices of
observations and mentoring (ibid). Simply put, peer observation can work for
the mentoring process, which enables one another to look at other works and
develop accordingly in the self.
Qualities
of the Mentors
The
question of who can be a mentor is a challenging one. In fact, the perception
we have is that anyone who is erudite and scholarly and experienced is mentor.
However, mentoring is not a piece of cake and it is a blend of the experience
and the passion in the teaching field enhanced by the teachers. Regarding the
quality of the mentor Brooks and Sikes (1997) as cited in Arnold (2006)
mention, ‘Not everyone can, or should be, a mentor. Simply being a good teacher
is not enough, for mentoring is not a straightforward extension of being a
school-teacher. Different perspectives, abilities, aptitudes, attitudes and
skills are necessary.’ Similarly, Boreen et al. (2009) define, ‘A mentor is a
veteran teacher who works with a novice during the beginning teacher’s early
experiences in the classroom.’ ‘A mentor is a loyal friend, confident advisor,
trusted “Guru”, guide, coach, role model, patron or encourager’ (Peterson, 1989
as cited in Kafle, 2001). SO, to be a
mentor, one has to have the different perspectives, abilities, aptitudes,
attitudes and skills which are crucial for the mentoring activities. Similarly,
Brooks and Sikes mention some personal qualities of a mentor as ‘honesty,
openness, sensitivity, enthusiasm, sense of humor, organization, self-awareness
and reflective-ness (ibid).’ So, from the point above, a mentor should have the
versatile quality to help the mentee. One should have the sense of playfulness
and critical reflection of what he/she does. The mentors should be the masters
of the standard mentoring practices which includes as mentioned (Fletcher 2000;
Malderez and Bodo´czky 1999) as cited in Arnold (2006)
-
Model appropriate behavior, including
commitment and enthusiasm
-
Observe lessons analytically
-
Make explicit their craft knowledge
-
Give appropriate, honest, sensitive and
useful feedback on teaching
-
Notice and take advantage of learning
opportunities that present themselves
-
Set appropriate targets for mentee
development and
-
Assess and analyze a teacher’s strength
and weakness, and spot weak teachers. (p.118)
Feedback
is the most important aspect of the mentoring process. The teaching process is
the most essential and rigorous art of any teachers, in which, the positive and
appropriate feedback is an asset to develop and bring change in the process.
Fletcher (2000) as cited in the Arnold (2006) argues that giving appropriate
feedback is probably the most skilful part of the mentor’s role. It requires
accurate and detached observation and making available to mentees their own
craft knowledge. In my point of view, the positive feedback should enrich the
mentees to dispose the best in the classroom practices and it should encourage
the mentee to reflect and concern ‘high inference teaching skill’ (ibid).
the
Role of the Mentor
it is not easy to determine the role
of the mentor in a single verse. Rather, a mentor is a new individual to
establish a relation with the mentee. He is not like a doctor who can diagnose
the illness and prescribes the correct medicine to the patients. Mentors
generally provide two kinds of help. The first is help in an ordinary sense, a
mentor may offer to do things for the
mentee and to hold the educationally supportive process of scaffolding the learning
of the core skills of professional learning, thinking and action…(Malderez,
2009). A mentor brings a complete set of skills of
assignments which are directly or indirectly related to know the mentee. Mentors
aim to train or develop their mentee’s professional thinking skills (on, for,
and in action), and support mentees in aspects of processes of professional
decision making or learning (Malderez, 2009). In the course of time, he will be
able to establish a linkage with the mentee with the different roles he plays
in the course. A mentor plays a diagnostic or dynamic role (Doyle & O’Neil,
2006), dynamic in the sense of being active technically, applying common sense,
or perhaps, something more. It seems that a mentor has to have a range of
skills which he needs to develop during the process.
According
to Malderez and Bodoczky (1999) as cited in the Malderez (2009), ‘mentors are
models of a way of teaching…; acculturators; supporters, sponsors and
educators. So mentors are not assessors, advisors, or trainers in the most
usually accepted sense…’ and a mentor is not a decision maker, a critic, an
assessor, a rescuer or a provider of a quick fix (Doyle & O’Neil, 2006).
Provide
Appropriate Support
The
mentor should be able to provide personal as well as the professional support
to the mentee. They are the supporters of the mentee as a person during the
often emotionally charged process of transformation that the learning can
require (Malderez, 2009). The personal support involves the lessening the
feeling of insecurity due to the lack of adaptation in the institutions and
professional support involves enhancement of the mentee’s need to be a professional teacher. For that a mentor
should be a competent (Doyle & O’Neil, 2006). Mentors must be able to find
time to provide support that is purposeful, constructive and pro-active. (Hobson,
2002 as cited in Arnold (2006.)
Provide
Appropriate Challenge
The
level of challenge and the adequacy of it in the mentoring process is a must.
Challenge makes a mentee cope up with the time of difficulties, which is
inevitable process to grow towards the mental maturity and professionalism.
Martin (1996) as cited in the Arnold (2006) argues, ‘Challenge is a matter of
right (for novices) and of responsibility (for mentors)’. Arnold (2006) says,
‘Mentors need to go beyond supporting to enabling mentees to attain a full
understanding of teaching and learning through appropriate questioning and task
and target setting.’ Mentors should
encourage new teachers to explore what they do, and why they do it. A balance
between support and challenge is a must for the mentors’ and that is
essentially achieved from the way of reflective thinking and dialogic approach
between both of the mentors and the mentee. While creating such environment, a
mentor should be opportunistic (Doyle & O’Neil, 2006) creating a lot of
opportunities to explore the mentee.
Establish
Trusting and Working Relationship that Lasts
In any relationship, the essence of trust is not in its bind, but in its bond. If trustworthy environment could not be created in the process of mentoring, the whole process goes in vein. ‘Trust developed very quickly and the mentees felt comfortable and confident to express their concerns openly to members of the group (Jane, 2007).’ For the trust building both the mentor and mentee must rely on the abstract notion of respecting each other. And it is mentor’s job to take positive action to gain the trust of the mentee. As the morning shows the day, the first meeting of the mentor and mentee is crucial for the long and lasting relationship of them. The inferiority of the mentee and the superiority of the mentor may create a gap between them which may distract the whole process, and it is the job of both of them to rely on what they are supposed to do to each other to fulfill their duty. The value of self-esteem, self-respect, self confidence, and self worth is to establish a good relationship between them, which inevitably creates the trustworthy environment for the work.
Mentoring
and other related terms
Mentoring
is defined as a personal, helping relationship between mentor and a mentee or
protégé that includes professional development and growth and varying degrees
of support. While mentoring relationship is reciprocal, mentors tend to be
those with greater experience. (Hansford, Tennent, & Ehrich, 2003)
Mentoring tends
to be broader and more holistic in focus than coaching as it is not only
interested in ‘maximize (ing)… performance’(Whitemore, 2002)but concerned with
the person’s overall life development. Mentors are significant others who play
many roles and at times, they can be coach, counselor and trainer.’
Coaching is
the process of unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance.
it is helping them to learn rater that
teaching them. (Whitemore, 2009 as mentioned in Echrich (nd)). Expert coaches
facilitate learning and skill development in particular area of expertise. They
possess not only coaching skills, but also sound knowledge and practices of the
specialist area.
Counseling is
a process conducted by counselors or psychologists who address psychological
issues and disorders. Mentors play the role of counselor when they provide
special types of support to others who find themselves in stressful or
difficult circumstances. According to Clutterbuck (2004), mentors who counsel listen, provide emotional
support, act as sounding boards, and help mentees to take responsibility for
their own actions. It is important that mentors are aware when professional
counseling is required and refer the mentee on to a trained p professional.
Training
is a structured process of teaching
whereby a trainer focuses on developing the skills, knowledge and attitudes
required to complete a task or perform a job. Training is a direct form of
instruction which remains different from mentoring and counseling in the mode
of conduction and delivery, where trainer works as a supplier working with
counseling and a mentoring of individual trainees too (White,1998).
Why Mentoring?
The success of the use of standards
for developing and assessing student teachers achievements relies on the sensitive
support given to the students’ teacher in the school by the mentor and in the
institution of higher education by the appropriate tutor. It is always an
essential factor that the mentor is to be responsible to enhance the quality of
the novice teacher in the institution. It is quite useful to know about the
formal and the informal modes of mentoring in the practices while mentoring
takes place. In fact, according to Cohen et.al (2007) a mentor should be a
‘critical friend’ to enhance the professionalism in the novice mind sets.
Mentoring is essential for the
support, encouragement and building a friendship so that a novice teacher can
adapt in the new environment (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007). Similarly,
mentoring promotes the networking and collaboration among the mentors as well.
It is equally beneficial for the organization as it helps to improve education,
grades and behavioral aspects of the students too (Ehrich, nd). Doyle and
O’Neill (2006) see that mentees increase the self-confidence level and the
mentors develop the interpersonal skills through the mentoring process.
Similarly, they focus on the development in the institutional leadership due to
the mentoring process.
Mentoring process needs as
affiliation to the institution where the role of mentee and mentor both may
affect the institutional role. Similarly, the mentor and the mentee both may be
affected by the institutional goal and stability too. Mentoring is basically
helpful for the mentee, which is an essential aspect of the mentoring process.
It helps in improving confidence and self-stem, creates the self-learning environment
for the mentee. Similarly, helps accessing to different perspective and experience
from the experienced mentor, it creates to sensitized the value of organization
which helps the mentee to set in the new environment. A knowledge and skills
orientation is an essential factor which is to be developed through the
mentoring process and it is a crucial matter to internalize by the mentee. As
it builds the level of confidence, it helps to develop leadership skills,
‘develops professionalism and gains some career development opportunities’
(United States office of Personal Management, 2008) in the mentee too.
Do the mentors get help from the
mentoring process as they are highly responsible experts for the task?
Definitely, mentors with the feeling of responsibility gets more job
satisfaction and enhance their own experience, knowledge, skills and expertise.
As the mentors renews their enthusiasm for the role of expert, and obtains a
greater understanding of the barriers experienced at lower levels of the
organization, it is vital for the increment of the generational awareness too
(United States office of Personal Management, 2008). Mentoring is crucial for
the mentors to be critically looking at their own learning journey and help the
mentee to develop. It provides an opportunity to be self reflective to their
own tasks for the mentors. Being or creating self-awareness skills, it helps
them to grow towards the educational leadership. The promotion of the
institution is another advantage that mentors can have from the process of
mentoring. It will help the mentors to be up to date accordingly changes in
time, knowledge and demand.
The institution is no longer
remaining unbeneficial from the mentoring process. The quality of the
institution is the first aspect which is developed from the perfection in the
mentoring process. Similarly, it helps to regulate, reformulate and synthesize
the plan and policy according to the change in demand and expertise. It
establishes a good environment to foster the overall growth of the institution
as well.
There is no reservation that
mentoring is of great help for the novice teacher, essentially for the mentors
as well for the institution. In addition to contributing to supportive
conditions for student teacher learning, effective mentoring can slow benefit
the mentors and the education system (Malderez, 2009). Mentoring is of a great
help in the condition that leaving the school or the profession is greater
problem. Stabilizing for the novice teacher is a challenge due to the newness
in the work environment, difficulties in the learning to do and building relations
with the students and the teachers. Mentoring helps to solve the problem of
release from the work place and the profession. Farrell, (2009) states, ‘when
beginning teachers were provided with mentors from the same subject field’ and
given the chance of collaboration, ‘they were less likely to move to other schools and less likely to
leave the teaching occupation after their first year of teaching.’
Mentoring is not away in itself
from the objections as well. It has its dark sides as well as it creates a kind
of frustration between a mentee and a mentor if the problem of status quo
remains. Overdependence on the mentor by the mentee, build up negativity by the
side of the mentee in his/her failure is another problem which can be for seen
in this process. Similarly, the time and the workload on the side of the mentor
is the another clue for the frustration. It kills the positivity towards the
tasks and increases the negativity to the mentoring process, mentee and even to
the institution. In the side of the
physical facilities and the opportunities provided by the institution, if
lacks, raise unwillingness to be participated in the process by both mentee and
the mentor. It creates a time rush in the institution as the separate time is
not allocated in the mentoring process. As whole, it creates a chaos in the
institution as well. However, the mentoring process is a crucial aspect to be
implemented in the educational sectors for the overall development of the
institutions as well as the institutional society. ‘If mentoring is to function
as a strategy of reform, it must be linked to a shared vision of good teaching,
guided by an understanding of teacher learning, and supported by a professional
culture that favors collaboration and inquiry.’ (Feiman-Nemser, 1996)
Mentoring: My
Reflective Conclusion
Mentoring is the process of guiding,
helping to adapt and develop the professionalism of the novice teacher. I
think, though not enough, during the first year of joining the school, thinking
teaching as my career, I got an opportunity to be mentored by a senior teacher,
who used to teach English in secondary level. Though it was a form of mentoring
to me however, many areas of the mystery in teaching field remained unsolved. I
had a little knowledge on theoretical aspects of teaching from the intermediate
course in education but the practicality remained unaddressed. I was unable to
know proper use of materials, Classroom management, scanty resources, use of
specific resources according to the text and the grammatical items, checking
the answer of the students, exercise books, correcting exam papers, addressing
the unwanted behavior of the students but I remained silent. The problems were there, but I didn’t try to
share it thinking that they will find my fault and I will be ostracized from
the job I got for the first time. These areas actually are the common areas to
be addressed in the schools but nobody was willing to help me prior to my
request. Their reluctances may be due to the lack of time or due to the lacking
in the practices. My envisioning may not be true, however, I suspected myself
not to be prepared for the help that I was supposed to get. I was scared to ask
the seniors and it was may be due to the feeling of inferiority. I did not dare
to ask because I was much concerned about the retention of the job rather than
learning the things. Maybe, we do not have such a practice of mentoring in a
fully fledged way in Nepali educational system. Except for a few cases I was
not mentored enough as it is not ‘formally practiced in Nepali schools’
(Pandey, 2009). My novice thinking in the professional development as a teacher
was not much supported but by the end of the year, I was grown up with
experience and a little confidence to teach, however the effort was just mine.
The problem of mentoring in the Nepali context is that, we have the status quo
or the unwillingness. We generally do not think of helping other, we have time
to talk for a longer time in the halls, betweens the breaks but the egocentric
feeling might influence the Nepali seniors and the novice teachers to help and
being helped. Given the proper attention, mentoring, a common pool for the
language teachers to be together for each other support and enhancement, can be
a better tool to help the language teachers to uplift the career ahead. As
Pandey (2011) says, ‘In
the context of Nepal, mentoring can be one of the best tools that the language
teachers can use to develop them professionally and personally…’
However, mentoring practice in the field of Nepali education is yet to begin
though it has the long history from the past. The English teachers in Nepal are
well familiar with the process of mentoring but the application in their daily
routine is not seen it may be because they wish to swim but the fear to sink
make them stand in the coast, observing the theoretical flow of teaching.
References
Arnold, E.
(2006).Assessing the quality of mentoring: sinking or learning to swim? ELT Journal,
Clutterbuck, D. (2004),
Everyone needs a mentor: Fostering talent in your organization (4th
Ed.). Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development:
London.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). A guide
to teaching practice. London:
RoultageFalmer.
Doyle, B. & O’Neil,
N.V. (2006). Mentoring entrepreneurs:
shared wisdom from experience.
New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India
Ehrich, L.C.(n. d.). Developing
performance mentoring handbook. Queensland University of
Technology:
Department of Education, training and employment. Retrieved on February
5, 2014
from : http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/development/performance/pdfs/dp- mentoring-handbook.pdf
Farrll, T.S.C. (2009). The novice teacher experience. In A.
Burns and J.C. Richards ,(eds) The
Cambridge
Guide to Second Language Teacher Education (pp 182 - 189). London:
Cambridge
University Press
Hansford, B.C.,
Tennent, L. & Ehrich, L.C. (2003) Educational mentoring: Is it worth the
effort?
Education Research and
Perspectives, 39(1), pp. 42–75. Retrieved on February, 5, 2014
Jane, B. (2007). Mentoring in teacher education: an
experience that makes a difference for
fledgling
university students. In T. Townsend and R. Bates, (eds.)Handbook of Teacher
Education, (pp 179-192). Netherlands:
Springer
Malderez, A. (2009). Mentoring. In A. Burns and J.C.
Richards, (eds) The Cambridge Guide to
Second
Language Teacher Education
(pp 259-268) London: Cambridge University Press
Mirza, N. (2009). Mentoring: a concept for teacher
development. In S. Mansoor, A. Sikandar, N.
Hussain,
and N.M. Ahsan,(eds) Emerging Issues in TEFL Challenges for Asia. Pakistan:
Oxford
Pandey, S.
(2011).Mentoring in Nepalese context. NELTA
Choutari. Retrieved on January 24,
context/
Stillwell, C.
(2008). The collaborative development of teacher training skills. ELT Journal 63(4),pp.353-362. Retrieved on January 24, 2014 from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/
United States Office of
Personal Management (2008) Best Practices: Mentoring. Author
White, R. (1995). What is quality in English language teacher
education? ELT Journal, 52(2),
Annotated
Bibliography
Arnold, E.
(2006).Assessing the quality of mentoring: sinking or learning to swim? ELT Journal,
In his paper
Arnold describes a framework for assessing mentoring quality, which is then
used to evaluate a mentoring program conducted in a large military EFL school
in the Middle East.
The research
based article is a benchmark to understand the relationship between the practices
and the real life problems arises from the mentors and mentees. It also has
focused on the different perspectives to look at the mentor quality within a
school periphery. The article raises several issues of quality and type of
mentor training, the complexity of mentor role, its similarity to the role of
management and the need for support for mentors from within the school.
Clutterbuck, D. (2004),
Everyone needs a mentor: Fostering talent in your organization (4th
Ed.). Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development:
London.
Cutterbuck presents a coherent outlets in his book with the
four different parts which starts from the background discussion on the subject
mentoring and basically why parts. The following parts examine models and
methods of mentoring, the nature of formal mentoring programs making the case
for mentoring and the mentors and mentees matching, the third part produces the
coherent ideas of how relationship is important in the mentoring process and
focuses the mentor and mentee relationship. And the final part consists of the
specific mentor issues, such as e-mentoring and diversity mentoring. This book
provides a succinct, accessible and practical advice for mentors, mentees and
those charged with designing formal mentoring programs. The book bases the ideas on the
organizational mentoring, however, I find it equally important for the
stakeholders of the education sectors, who would like to initiate and establish
knowledge on the mentoring.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). A guide
to teaching practice. London:
RoultageFalmer.
The writer trio has
focused on the justice to be addressed to all the students on initial teacher
training courses. It covers all the important basic skills and issues which
students need to consider during their practice, such as planning, classroom
organization, behavior management and assessment. In addition to it, this book
contains the chapters on the foundation stage, legal issues, learning and
teaching and using ICT in the classroom, as well as new material on numeracy,
literacy, children’s rights, progress files, and gifted and talented children.
With the companion of the websites in it, the book is further explorative in
adding the knowledge via web. The thematic organization of the book contents
various illustrations, signposts to further reading, new and relevant contents
which are helpful for any student teachers wanting to improve the best
practice.
Doyle, B. & O’Neil,
N.V. (2006). Mentoring entrepreneurs:
shared wisdom from experience.
New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India
The writers show the
justice in the mentoring process in the book. As it is a think descriptive book
in mentoring, which helps the professional and the novice of any field,
development, education, organization, entrepreneurship? The experiential
presentation of the logical titles on the specific theme provides a dense
description on the subject matters, which is helpful for mentors and the
potential mentoring. The institution where mentoring is not practiced, this
book caters the advance knowledge to implement the concept to standardized the
institutional development. Though the book does not cover the educational
aspects as such, it is equally vital for the educational practitioners to
upload a huge knowledge through the book into daily practice in the school
setting. Basically, it provides an
understanding of relationships between
mentors and those they seek to help , emphasize the importance of trust between
the mentors and those mentored and tries to
illustrate how mutual trusts can be use to achieve satisfying results.
Ehrich, L.C.(n. d.). Developing
performance mentoring handbook. Queensland University of
Technology:
Department of Education, training and employment
Retrieved
on February 5, 2014 from :
The writer delivers the fact that mentoring is
an important part of developing performance. It supports and guides the
concerned professionals, colleagues, novice teachers, mentors, mentee, and the
organization itself to place the better disposal in the related area of
education through either systemic programs or informal mentoring relationships.
Mentoring is an effective way of sharing skills, helping to build
organizational capacity and strong teams. It also forms part of efficient
succession-planning strategies. This book clarifies the different types of
mentoring and is a guide to establishing programs and relationships to optimize
learning. It’s a sound reference document and an invaluable practical tool to
support mentors and mentees in the workplace.
The book is meant for the team leaders, team members, mentors and mentee
in the specific context of Queensland University, however, I believe, it
overthrows the boundary and I hope it is a good resources in teacher education
and teaching learning activities.
Farrll, T.S.C. (2009). The novice teacher experience. In A.
Burns and J.C. Richards ,(eds) The
Cambridge
Guide to Second Language Teacher Education (pp 182 - 189). London:
Cambridge
University Press
This publication is a collection of thirty original
articles by the scholars in the field of language teaching and teacher
education. The editors believe it would build on an early collection of work in
the area of teacher education in that it would provide a state of the art
survey of current issues, debates, and approaches in the contemporary second
language teacher education. Basically,
this book serves the wide range of themes as professionalism, pedagogical
knowledge and teacher development. Addressing the major areas of recent
development in the contexts of language teaching and teacher education this
publication is worth focusing on the key issues as distance education,
nonnative English- speaking educators, technology in the language classroom,
assessment and standards. This resource is essentially helpful for teacher
educators, teachers and educational researchers.
Hansford, B.C.,
Tennent, L. & Ehrich, L.C. (2003) Educational mentoring: Is it worth the
effort?
Education Research and
Perspectives, 39(1), pp. 42–75. Retrieved on February, 5, 2014
The article by Hansford, Tennent, and Ehrich, is a dense
review of 159 research based articles written in the educational mentoring. It
explores the different perspectives of the people in different writing about
the concept mentor and mentoring. This paper examines the aspects related to
the benefits and negative outcomes of mentoring programs for mentors, mentees and
the educational organization. The article focuses on the positive and negative
parts of the mentoring process claiming that
a higher incidence of positive outcomes associated with mentoring
programs, sufficient evidence suggested that a ‘dark side’ of mentoring exists.
In many cases, this paper provides how the mentoring gets fail even it has a
successful history.
Jane, B. (2007). Mentoring in teacher education: an
experience that makes a difference for
fledgling
university students. In T. Townsend and R. Bates, (eds.)Handbook of Teacher
Education, (pp 179-192). Netherlands:
Springer
This book explores the international review of the current
state of teacher education, with chapters from an international group of
teacher educators. It focuses on major issues that are confronting teacher
educators now and in the days to come. The impact of globalization on the
profession, of teaching and the changes that the teachers are to be adapted in
the changing global scenario in teaching and teacher education is critically
overviewed with the writers and expertise around the globe. The work values the
aspects of the three major phases of teacher education: the period prior to
commencing in the profession, successful induction into profession, and the
ongoing professional development of teachers. The editors and writers in this
book have justified the movement of teacher professional education in the
coming days. In the research based article Jane highlights the mentoring
practices beneficial for pre-service teacher education students involved. The
views incorporate the flavor in understating the mentoring process more.
Malderez, A. (2009). Mentoring. In A. Burns and J.C.
Richards, (eds) The Cambridge Guide to
Second Language Teacher Education (pp 259-268) London: Cambridge
University Press
This publication is a collection of thirty original
articles by the scholars in the field of language teaching and teacher
education. The editors believe it would build on an early collection of work in
the area of teacher education in that it would provide a state of the art
survey of current issues, debates, and approaches in the contemporary second
language teacher education. Basically,
this book serves the wide range of themes as professionalism, pedagogical
knowledge and teacher development. Addressing the major areas of recent
development in the contexts of language teaching and teacher education this
publication is worth focusing on the key issues as distance education,
nonnative English- speaking educators, technology in the language classroom,
assessment and standards. This resource is essentially helpful for teacher
educators, teachers and educational researchers.
Mirza, N. (2009). Mentoring: a concept for teacher
development. In S. Mansoor, A. Sikandar, N.
Hussain,
and N.M. Ahsan,(eds) Emerging Issues in TEFL Challenges for Asia. Pakistan:
Oxford
This book is a collection of paper presented at an
international seminar organized by Age Khan University Centre of English
Language, in which presenters from Pakistan and the region examined the complex
issues of language planning in countries where English is a second language.
The volume incorporates the three different sectional variations as language
planning for higher education, teacher education, modern approaches in the
learning and teaching of English with sixteen different articles. Basically the
editors and the writers focuses on the complex issues of language planning and
make recommendations for a bilingual education policy in which English, the
national language, and the ethnic languages are part of a framework that leads
to additive bilingualism, thus enriching the verbal repertoire of Asians for
various purposes and providing them with equal opportunities to access higher
education and employment.
Stillwell, C.
(2008). The collaborative development of teacher training skills. ELT Journal
63(4),pp.353-362. Retrieved on January 24, 2014 from http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/
Stillwell
focuses on the descriptive modes of ‘mentor development’, a research based
article, a means of collaborative
professional development through peer
observation that was initiated by the author with 18 peers, all native English
speaker EFL teachers at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba,
Japan. It shows how such a program allows teachers to learn from one another
through classroom observations and peer mentoring, where observers practice
teacher-educator skills by taking on the role of ‘mentor’ in post-observation
conferences. A third colleague attends the post-observation conference with the
aim of helping both the mentor and observed teacher reflect on and learn from
their interaction during the conference, and to explore the implications these
discoveries may have for effective teaching and mentoring.
White, R. (1995). What is quality in English language teacher
education? ELT Journal, 52(2),
White begins with the relative reality of the quality as it is highly
articulated in the field of commerce and in the mainstream education however,
it gets less focus in the ELT and the teacher education fields. White
critically views the different definition of quality given by the different
stakeholder in the education field along with the definition of the teaching.
He provides a glimpse on the importance of training and its quality in the
teacher education as well. However, much of its concern seems to be concentrated
on the basis for defining objectives and for establishing the criteria by which
quality is to be judged. Finally, the writer gives focus to the point that
quality can be achieved and sustained by attending to process in training, and
developing professional skills and judgment, rather than by the acquisition of
craft skills alone.
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