Mentoring Practice: Teacher development through scaffolding (Randall &Thornton, 2003b), collaboration (Fanselow , 1988; Richards & Lockhart, 1992; Sheal, 1989) and reflection (Farrell, 2013).
Welcome to Mentoring
This Mentor Handbook is a resource and information site
created for mentors working in student-teacher and teacher training.
Reflexive Practice
Mentoring: My 1st definition
Being available to a teacher for discussion, advice, and brainstorming. Someone who provides emotional support and knowledge on teaching methodology, approaches and practice. With the goal of either helping facilitating or simply listening, sharing success, failure and strategies.
Mentoring: My 2nd definition
Being available to a teacher for discussion, advice, and brainstorming. Someone who provides emotional support and knowledge on teaching methodology, approaches and practice. With the goal of either facilitating facilitating or simply listening, sharing success, failure and strategies.
Mentoring: My 3rd definition
A mentor is a person whose purpose is to be there for the mentee, the sudent-teacher in this case: my experience .
For each mentee the type of support needed may be different.
For me with Gabriel, my mentee, I found it changed as our relationship became more defined and deepened. At the beginning Gabriel did not even want to have a mentor.
I read it between the lines in his first email and he mentioned the fact when we discussed the experience in our last meeting.
With Gabriel we estarted examining common ground through discussing grammar. For Gabriel it seems it was important to test my expertise and knowledge to value or begin to appreciate having someone to work with.
My definition of mentoring now:
- provide support
- listen
- ask the right questions
- scaffold
- gain mentee perspective
- empower
- share your own experience
- connect theory and practice
- explain how your suggestions are pedagogically valid and relevant
- know your grammar and teaching methodology OR know/figure out where to access those resources
A mentor is there to listen, share successes and failures. They are also there to give corrective and facilitative feedback. They are there to be involved.
The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an important current Teaching Methodology practice desired in many language education contexts. It is hard to find a language teacher CV that does not make reference to the communicative approach. But definitions and understanding of the concept varies widely across the board.
Harmer got into L2 teaching when he failed as a singer, song-writer. He did a 4-week course that focused on the PPP (present, practice, produce) approach. Years later, Harmer (1983) brought forth the CLT approach.
Hélène Bramwell - site author
Language teacher (of English, Spanish and French), language teacher educator and researcher in the area of applied linguistics.
Academic background: B.S.c in Biology and a M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Concordia University, Montreal, Qc. (Canada).
English teaching certification TKT and CELTA from the University of Cambridge, England.
Instructor at Concordia University in the Department of Education: TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) program.
Research focus: motivation in second language learning through visualization and goal-setting training.
Contact the author
Acknowledgements
This handbook and its contents were created by the author in collaboration with a peer from APLI 647, Jeremy Lane. Specifically, the observation grid titled “Observation Grid Bramwell” in the Mentor Resources section, the Quiz in the Approaches to Mentoring section and the Website format. Collaboration included reflection and discussion on ideas, and making decisions about how best to present the information. For a comparison of our work, see Jeremy Lane’s website at https://jdolane.wixsite.com/eslteachermentorship.