LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 1 January 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.

HOME PAGE

AN APPEAL FOR SUPPORT

  • We seek your support to meet the expenses relating to the formatting of articles and books, maintaining and running the journal through hosting, correrspondences, etc.Please write to the Editor in his e-mail address languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com to find out how you can support this journal. Thank you. Thirumalai, Editor.

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Contributors from South Asia may e-mail their articles to
    B. Mallikarjun,
    Central Institute of Indian Languages,
    Manasagangotri,
    Mysore 570006, India     mallikarjun@ciil.stpmy.soft.net.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and booklength reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2010
M. S. Thirumalai
 
Web www.languageinindia.com

Mentoring Teachers to Motivate Students

B. Reena, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Candidate and Rosalia H. Bonjour, Ph.D.

Abstract

This review explores ways in which the mentors of trainee teachers can use research as a means of questioning, understanding and improving their own practices.

The first part presents an overview of empirical and theoretical research into mentoring relationships.

The second part presents four ways in which mentors might engage with this literature: (1) Generalisations, generated by research, can inform practice directly. (2) Mentoring can be better understood by reference to theoretical frameworks derived from the literature. (3) In-depth case studies can provide vicarious experiences of mentoring, and (4) mentors might use research methods to inquire into their own practice.

Keywords: research; initial teacher education; mentors: mentoring practice

Introduction

It is difficult to speak meaningfully about mentoring. Contradictions abound. Champions of mentoring often speak glowingly of its promise, while mentoring studies, commonly case studies, point toward multiple and perplexing challenges.

Mentoring Relationships Rarely Live up to Ideals

Several writers have related modern conceptions of mentoring to its mythological roots. Discussing mentor's support of Telemachus, they have located the source of mentor's helping in the older person's wisdom and greater experience of life. Mentoring has been defined as: "a nurturing process in which a more skilled or more experienced person, serving as a role model, teaches, sponsors, encourages, counsels and befriends a less skilled or less experienced person for the purpose of promoting the latter's professional and/or personal development" (Anderson and Shannon 1988). Mentoring functions are carried out within the context of an ongoing, caring relationship between the mentor and the protégé.

Ideal Mentoring Situation

For experienced teachers, an ideal mentoring situation is one in which they are made to feel welcome, accepted, included and supported. They appreciate being given a clear sense of direction in terms of advice and ideas, with regular, timetabled meetings for feedback and discussion; they identify constructive feedback on their own teaching as the most important developmental activity.

The ideal mentor demonstrates training, empowers students, is sympathetic, stimulated by new ideas, approachable, has students' confidence, good sense of humour, motivated, careful, patient and tolerant, accepts own failings, shows humility committed to pupils, wishing to develop .

Bullough and Draper (2004: 271-288) stated that since mentors were expected to fulfil a variety of roles, within a demanding conception of the 'proper' mentor, some of them, unable to live up to these expectations, embraced an attitude of 'cool professionalism' towards their mentees, masking their true feelings about teaching and mentoring.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Love and Language - A Socio-rhetorical Analysis of Love Texts on a Ghanaian Radio Network | Cross-Cultural Conflict in Bharati Mukherjee's The Tiger's Daughter | A Comparative Study of the Study Habits of the Students of The Islamia University of Bahawalpur in Pakistan | Analysis and Categorization of the Most Prevalent Errors of Intermediate and Elementary Iranian EFL Learners in Writing in Iran | Phonological Adaptation of English Loan Words in Pahari | A Study of Sexual Health Problems among Male Migrants in Tamilnadu, India | Arun Joshi and Eco Consciousness - A Study of The Strange Case of Billy Biswas | Code-Mixing as a Communicative Strategy among the University Level Students in Pakistan | Oatesian World of Violence and Female Victimization - An Autopsy | Importance of Practicum in Teacher Training Programme - A Need of the Hour | Mentoring Teachers to Motivate Students | Exploring the Preferences of Aesthetic Needs of Secondary School Students in Faisalabad in Pakistan | Affinity and Alienation - The Predicament of the Internal Migrant in Anjum Hasan's Neti Neti | Effect of Inquiry Lab Teaching Method on the Development of Scientific Skills Through the Teaching of Biology in Pakistan | Rate of Speech in Punjabi Speakers | A Study of Orthographic Features of Instant Messaging in Pakistan - An Empirical Study | The Call for Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) at the Undergraduate Level with Special Reference to Andhra Pradesh | Case and Case-like Postposition in Surjapuri | Rabindranath Tagore's Views on Education | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF JANUARY, 2011 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT.
This document is better viewed if you open it online and then save it in your computer. After saving it in your computer, you can easily read all the pages from the saved document. | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com

B. Reena, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Candidate
Department of English
Saveetha Engineering College
Thadalam - 602 105
Tamilnadu, India
reena_reena60@yahoo.com

Rosalia H. Bonjour, Ph.D.
Department of English
Saveetha Engineering College
Saveetha Nagar
Thadalam 602 105
Taminadu, India
rosalia_h_george@yahoo.co.in

 
Web www.languageinindia.com
  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknolwedged the work or works of others you either cited or used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian scholarship.