Mentoring is a partnership created to help and assist mentee teachers to reach their highest levels of professional and personal development. So, there are some keystones that must be included in any mentoring program.
Key Stones of Effective Mentoring Program:
- Active listening.
- Classroom observation and teacher conferencing.
- Role modelling for teachers.
- Giving and receiving feedback.
- Leading reflective professional conversations.
And, a mentoring program, to be effective, must set the following aims.
Effective Mentoring Program Should Aim At:
- Identifying and meeting mentees’ personal and professional needs.
- Facilitating the growth of mentees personally and professionally.
- Providing mentees with ongoing support, professional conversations and supervision.
- Reducing the problems that mentees may encounter during their teaching practices.
- Supporting the development of mentees’ knowledge and skills.
- Providing mentees with the opportunity to analyze and reflect on their job and roles.
- Building a theoretical foundation with mentees for teaching and learning.
- Providing mentees with various resources to get information.
- Developing mentees’ understanding of teaching strategies, delivery skills and classroom management procedures.
- Familiarizing mentees with subject content concepts and activities that facilitate learning.
- Supporting mentees’ understanding and implementing of various means of students’ assessment in the classroom.
As an ELT supervisor, I realized that it is very important to be concerned about creating a successful relationship with my teachers from the first day of the school year. This will make teachers enthusiastic, respectful, and admirable of their work and me; their supervisor.
Out of my long experience in supervising teachers and delivering a mentoring program to some of them after taking teacher mentoring training, I can offer the following tips to those who are about to mentor teachers so that they can do this job more effectively.
My 8 Tips for Mentoring Teachers Effectively
- Explain what you can offer to the teachers clarifying that your goal is to collaborate with them to develop their teaching and language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
- When you want to observe a class, declare that your goal is not to watch how the teachers teach but in order to learn along with them.
- Give suggestions and ideas that teachers can put into use and be ready to collaborate with the teachers to implement these ideas.
- Provide teachers with basic teaching resources that they can use and adapt for their students.
- Role model some teaching practices engaging and motivating the students.
- Guide teachers to write focused and meaningful objectives for lessons.
- Help teachers reflect on their teaching by providing them with the time to contemplate on the day’s lesson.
- Convey encouragement and support along with professional respect and personal interest.
Final Word
Mentors should be eager and excited about teaching and learning and share these positive feelings with their teachers. Being an active listener and giving the feeling of partnership is necessary to give teachers a head start during the school year.
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