Abstract
Recently, mentoring and its constructive effects on teachers, novice ones in particular, have become the focus of extensive studies on language teaching. This is undoubtedly due to the significance of mentoring in improving the quality of teachers’ performance. Therefore, the present study is aimed at performing an investigative review on some major works in this area in order to examine the role of mentors in formation and development of student teachers’ identity as teachers and in shaping their attitudes towards their profession. It becomes clear that depending on the type of mentoring roles, they may have both positive and negative effects on identity formation of student teachers. The study finishes with some possible research questions for further research.
Keywords:mentoring, student teacher identity, mentoring roles
Introduction
Mentoring came into existence to remove isolation and feelings of shock from teachers whether novice or experienced (Cark & Byrnes, 2012). Mentoring allows more integration and communication in teachers’ association and provides opportunities for student teachers (also referred to as novice teachers) to become more familiar with the expert knowledge applied in their immediate context of teaching reference. Through this integration, the mentor informs a student teacher (ST) on who or what they think they are and will be in their profession intentionally or unintentionally, which leaves a direct impact on teachers’ emotions (Izadnia, 2015). Emotion, in this context, can broadly be defined as a dimension of self which affects identity and the process through which it is shaped (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Thereby, mentoring has a direct role and involvement to shape the STs’ feelings, attributes and attitudes, i.e. identity, toward their profession.
While mentors’ integration and interaction can be of great help for STs to inform their identity, and achieve their desired self in the teaching context, it can also contribute negatively to the process (Izadnia, 2015; Carrington et al., 2011). It can reshape their conception about their role in the profession and ultimately result in retention or attrition of teachers in a short period of time from the commencement of their career. The influence may further be linked to the content and methodology STs choose for their classes. According to He (2009), teachers’ proper preparation for their future courses, i.e. choice of material and methodology, heavily relies on their social context including their mentors.
Notwithstanding this glaring influence of mentoring on ST identity and professional development, a full-fledged current view of the negative and positive impacts of mentors’ behavior, attitude, and dialogic interaction is yet to be clearly delineated in education in general (Izadinia, 2015) and Persian TESOL context in particular. This synthesis review attempts to address this gap by reviewing over 20 salient articles in the realm and analyzing keyword terms presented to describe the nature of the relation and roles assigned to mentors. Having chosen these articles from more than three renowned journals in teacher education field, the author attempts to illustrate the possible advantages and disadvantages of mentor’s role in shaping teacher identity and professional development. Initially, a general framework is presented to define different contemporary roles considered for mentors in the teaching context and their advantages and shortcomings with respect to development of ST identity. Subsequently, student teachers’ expectations from their mentors and mentors’ possible influences on alteration in ST identity are considered. In the last part, the general findings in the education context will be plausibly summarized and socio-cultural varieties are introduced as points for further research in Persian TESOL teacher education context.
Mapping Mentor Teachers’ Roles
Pachler and Field (2001) inspected the role of mentors in the early studies of mentoring. According to them, mentoring had been contemplated as “merely the ability to implement the dictates of the governments” (p.16). This technichest view presented the heavy taste of behaviorism in the complex interplay between teachers and initial teacher training. However, soon the rudiments of behaviorism were questioned and “fix solutions of single answers to problems” (Brookfield, 1987; p. xi) seemed implausible in real teaching contexts. The desire for raising awareness in personal images of teaching and developing the abilities to analyze class teaching topics and situations redefined supervised teaching and the role of mentoring in educational context.
Consequently, a great emphasis was put on mentor’s role as “advisor” which is defined by Li (2009) as “providing guidance on what works or what is viewed as experience-driven skills” (p.156). In this perspective, the mentor is seen as a source of knowledge/experience who establishes a top-down relationship with the ST and dictates what should happen in class. However, in his study which had taken 30 Chinese kindergarten mentors and their STs, he concluded that “the social and emotional support” (p.151) is an equivalent contributing factor which creates a less frightening environment for the ST, thereby, making it easier for the mentor to criticize the ST frankly with almost no after-effects on collegiality and effectiveness of teacher performance in the classroom, i.e. their identity in the long run. In his qualitative study, Li justifies the mentors’ social and emotional empathy through mentors’ comments such as “the student teachers needed to build up confidence” (p.152) or “I praised the protégé for her effort and substantial preparation of teaching aids” (p.153). Li’s study, at his time, marked the initiation of learner-centered mentoring as a more constructivist perspective of mentor-centered mentoring. Evaluation and assessment of student teachers “with warmth, encouragement, and understanding” (p.155) began to gain more value to mentorship process.
The development in providing support to student teachers through mentoring is not limited to emotional and social needs. Hennissen et al. (2008) considered four supporting roles for mentors in their dialogic interaction witht STs. “Imperator” role refers to the mentor using directive skills in leading teachers. “Advisor” takes directive skills in supporting STs but may not introduce topics in the discussion. Instead, the mentor welcomes teacher’s topics to be worked on in workshops and teacher education courses. “Initiator” addresses the mentors who bring the topic to teacher education sessions but use non-directive skills to raise teachers’ awareness of the issues regarding the topic. Lastly, an “encourager” mentor refers to topics which are brought to discussion by novice teachers. The mentor may also implement non-directive skills to encourage teachers’ creativity and awareness about the topic. Figure 1.1 illustrates the relationship (MERID model) as it was presented in a later study by Mena, Hennissen, and Loughran (2017).
Mena et al. (2017) argue for a productive mentoring which relies highly on the role of raising awareness on the ST’s side through a set of supervisory skills. These skills, “active listening, questioning or open-mindedness” (p.49) for example, may facilitate access to the mentors’ knowledge with full engagement of student teacher herself. Regardless of the theoretical propensity for putting STs in the center of attention in the new mentoring era to better encourage them and positively help them develop their professional identity, Mena et al. (2017) show a great tendency toward imperator role. Using the four roles advised by Hennissen et al. (2008), the study shows that the imperator role dominates the 16 Dutch mentors in their study (47.9%). The proportion indicates that almost half of the teachers advocate their own professional knowledge which leads to “situation-specific knowledge development of (student teachers)”(p.47). This process leaves teachers in bewilderedness of their own role performance as well as they may experience difficulty connecting the information coming from the mentor to their own performance in the hope of improvement. In other words, the directive role of the mentors makes them introduce their own topics and thereby impinges on STs’ acquisition of professional knowledge. This study, shows that only around 23% of the mentors took encouraging roles and tried to use non-directive skills.
In light of these studies, we can conclude that the current mentoring roles can broadly fall into two categories: mentor-centered and ST-centered. In mentor-centered approaches, mentors try to be directive and explicitly use their own professional expertise for the STs. This approach, however much preferred by novice teachers as it eases the complex process of teaching in the beginning, cannot play any significant role in reflection on ST’s own teaching and prescribes what should be done rather than raising awareness on teachers’ side and makes them creative teachers who are able to deal with dynamicity of classroom context. On the other hand, ST-centered approaches greatly value teachers’ feelings and attitudes toward their profession as well as assisting them to raise awareness of their own teaching to come up with creative solutions for issues in class through guided practice. Whereas the former approach may be of more help to STs, it may negatively affect their identity development as it rarely considers ST’s role as dynamic entities in the teaching profession and that of mentors as constructivist.
Mentoring and Identity Formation
Learning how to do your profession (teaching in this study), through a dialogic role of a mentor, can be envisaged as a complex process of identity formation (Kelly, 2006). The interaction that takes place between STs and their mentors can influence the identity STs are probable to develop in their professional development (Izadinia, 2015; Timostsuk&Ugaste, 2010). In this sense, identity formation may refer to how a person views him or herself within their profession via the interaction with more knowledgeable others (i.e. mentors). It is majorly categorized under the term self-concept or “self-knowledge” (Dornyei, 2009).
Aside from the focus of practicum being on mentor or mentee, the theme of the relationship seems to play a key defining role in development of the identity of the ST (Hudson & Hudson, 2017) as well as the self-concept they develop or predict for themselves in the profession. Hudson and Hudson (2017) define three major themes in which the relationship between mentors and mentees can be defined, namely personal, pedagogical and professional. Personal theme broadly refers to “a very big personality” (p.6) which promotes shrewd questioning skills that result in the development of “how”ness in teaching. This very big personality and the eliciting questioning techniques directly help the personal relationship. In other words, the mentor makes the under-discussion topic “our problem” not just the teacher’s problem. In their study as one of the mentors posits: “yeah, I like to be being soft on the people, hard on the problem”(p.6). Very clearly, this personal theme can present positive mentoring effect on identity formaion (Yuan, 2016). According to Yuan, STs are capable to pick up multiple identities (positive or negative) in their profession process through their mentors. By giving the teacher “a certain degree of autonomy” (p.192), the mentoring process may lead the ST to innovative ideas, while the mentor keeps being hard on the problem. Via this approach, the teacher may impede the creation of a “follower identity” and replace it with one “actual” identity that people themselves would like to become; i.e. creative and autonomous.
The pedagogical theme has a very sharp influence on ST identity. Yuan, through interview, field observation and reflective journals, shows how mentor-centered themes can negatively impact on pedagogical identity. In his qualitative study, as much as a participant named “Ming” who depicted teaching as “interactive, authentic and student-centered”(p.192) was eager to learn, the traditional mentoring approach imposed by the mentor was discouraging and made Ming feel like a “puppet” rather than a “teacher learner”. In the weekly journal, Yuang posits that the imperative role of the mentor alongside his traditional views of language pedagogy “Give the different identity conflicts i.e., communicative teacher versus traditional teacher; follower/puppet versus teacher learner, (and) Ming felt completely lost in the field school” (p.192).
Professional identity, as stated by Van Huizen, Van Ores and Wobbles (2005), is the “overall aim of a teacher education program which is best conceived as the development of professional identity. This very broad framework for identity “is formal with relationship with others and involves emotions” (Rodgers & Scott, 2008; p.733). Timustuk and Ugaste (2010) addressed the question of how the academic progress of the pupils can take place while teachers can simultaneously rethink their professional activity. Their study focuses on how teacher educators can prepare STs to do so in their professional development. Through semi-structured and focus-group interviews with 45 STs, they concluded that STs’ emotions can intensify the meaning of experiences and interaction they have during the practicum. Moreover, the sense of belonging to the teaching community, while rare and rather disappointing when present, could fuel professional identity to a great extent.
Overall, it can convincingly be argued that identity formation of STs in their practicum and during the initial process of becoming a qualified teacher can significantly be influenced by their mentors. Figure 2 illustrates a summary of how the interactional roles mentors take can shape different identities in their ST.
On the one side of the continuum mentor is the focal point of the interaction. This focus may lead STs to feel they need to follow the mentor’s vision whereas being creative and autonomous in their future job. This “puppet identity” can negatively impress the personal and professional identity of the ST. on the other side of the continuum, STs become the focus and mentors try to encourage them to come to solutions for their pedagogical problems. Throughout the body of research, this approach is believed to enable STs to become actual and autonomous teachers in their future profession.
The Gap
All the studies covered in this short review suggest a principal role for “emotion” to play in identity formation of STs through dialogic interactions with their mentors. Although the pedagogical role of the mentors alongside their educative role is requisite, personal and, on a bigger scale, professional identity of the STs hinges upon their emotion and emotional experiences with their mentors. The huge gap which suddenly appears in this context is that people’s “emotional experiences vary across cultures” (Heine, 2016; p.401). In other words, questions such as “who should be the center of attention in mentor-mentee relationship?”, “what kind of roles may STs perceive themselves to acquire in their interactions with mentors?”, “how would teachers describe their professional identity formation journey?” can heavily be affected by the cultural context in which teachers are researched.
The role of cultural diversities among per-service teachers has been a focus of a few studies. Larke (1990), for example, investigates the cultural sensitivity of 51 female STs from Latin and Anglo-American background. In her study, Larke concludes that STs are “more sensitive in some areas than in others” (p.27). This study informs us on the importance of cultural diversities for STs whereas they do not provide a clue about the role of more knowledgeable others in shaping the STs identity with social and cultural discrepancies. More specifically, Gu and Benson (2014) refer to the importance of socio-cultural differences in Mainland China and Hong Kong in identity formation of TESOL novice teachers.
To summarize, emotion is the effective construct in shaping STs identity. However, the STs variations in interpretations of emotional experiences vary from culture to culture. That is, the studies on mentoring and shaping identity conducted in various contexts are fundamentally culture-bound in terms of interpreting emotional experiences. Such being the case, the role of emotion and cultural variation is massively ignored and future studies might need to consider their role in shaping identity of STs through interactions with their mentors. In our local context, novice Persian TESOL teachers can be greatly influenced by their mentors. This influence can shape personal, pedagogical, and professional identities through the interaction with their mentors. However, the effect on emotional experiences and their interpretation, which is the leading factor in identity formation, varies from one cultural context to another and is yet to be discovered. Some of the possible future research questions are listed below:
1. To what extent different emotional experiences with mentors can affect student teacher identities in Persian TESOL context?
2. How can the socio-cultural conception in Persian TESOL teacher education context shape mentor-mentee relationships?
3. How mentors in Persian TESOL context perceive their role?
4. How do novice teachers in Persian TESOL context perceive their own and their mentors’ roles?
5. What are the differences between traditional pedagogical mentoring approaches and those of the new ones in Persian TESOL context?
6. What are the possible clashes in mentor-mentee relationships and their effects on identity formation of novice Persian TESOL teachers?
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