ΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣ

ΚΑΘΗΓΗΤΗΣ ΑΓΓΛΙΚΗΣ

e-mail: georgiotis@sch.gr

ΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣ 2ο ΓΥΜΝΑΣΙΟ ΒΑΡΗΣ

Being a mentor teacher in the pre-service teacher training course for the 8^th semester students of the English Department of the University in Athens (during the academic year 2005-2006) was a rewarding experience in many ways. In what follows I will attempt to describe what took place during the teaching practice of the trainee assigned to 2^nd Vari High School and how it affected me as an EFL teacher.

To begin with, the purpose of the teaching practice was threefold. First, to provide trainees with the opportunity to take the position of an informed observer in an EFL classroom in a Greek school and to systematically follow and reflect on the processes of teaching and learning therein. Second, to familiarize them with classroom conditions and the discursive practices of participants in the teaching/learning process from the position of a teaching assistant. Third, to provide them with an opportunity to carry out supervised teaching for a short period of time (University of Athens, 2006, p.1). To this end, towards the end of the teaching practice, the trainee taught two teaching hours and was observed by the mentor teacher in order to be assessed for her overall performance.

In order to achieve these aims a range of teacher training activities were used. To mention but a few, the trainee prepared a questionnaire, in order to investigate learning styles. The questionnaire was conducted in a classroom and the findings were used as the data for a lecturette (i.e. a short lecture) (Wallace, 2001, p.46) for the teaching implications followed up by a constructive discussion. The trainee also developed lesson plans and supplementary material for the coursebook, assisted the teacher in conducting pair and group work in the classroom, and actually taught specific parts of the lesson before teaching a whole class.

The training practice which was at the heart of the programme, though, was observation. The trainee observed the mentor not in order to imitate his teaching, as in the outmoded strategy of the “demonstration lesson” (Wallace, 2001, p.16), but to reflect on the teacher’s decisions and refine the understanding of teaching in the case of both the observer and the observed. The trainee carried out specific observation tasks, designed and developed by the University, on many teaching aspects, such as maintaining control and discipline, openings and closings, the use of teaching aids, the stages of the lesson, organizing pair/group work, grammar presentation, vocabulary and the use of L1.

What is more, the trainee was allowed time and space to become familiar with the classroom culture, its agenda of customs, rituals, expectations, patterns and mores before actually trying on any active aspects of the teacher’s role (Wajnryb, 2002, p.7). This is crucial because the trainees/mentees lack, to a certain extent, confidence and the skills needed to manage a whole class. To this end, ( Roberts, 1998, p.135), they need to start teaching in relatively sheltered conditions and progress from observational learning to full responsibility of a class. Therefore the observation they were involved in was for professional growth and development (Beaumont, 2005, p. 243; Wajnryb, 2002, p.2).

However, I would like to stress the fact that during the mentorship programme it was not only the trainee/mentee who developed but the mentor/trainer as well. To illustrate this point I shall refer to specific areas of the mentorship programme that contributed to my professional growth and development.

First of all, in all the observations I mentioned we participated in a pre- and after- observation discussion relating the findings to methodology and theory of teaching. In this framework it is clear that professional discourse was promoted and encouraged (Moon, 1994, p. 350). This engagement in professional discourse offered me the chance to become more aware of my own practice. I realized that much of what happens in teaching is unknown to the teacher. In every post-observation discussion I discovered the usefulness of considering alternative ways for conducting my teaching and of having immediate feedback on the lesson’s effectiveness.

Secondly, it is a common practice for experienced teachers who have spent years teaching the same curriculum in the same classes probably using the same coursebook to form some established teaching habits which are routinely applied and usually not questioned. The mentorship programme offers the opportunity to examine this teaching context since the trainee in my case questioned many of my teaching practices, a fact which led me to look at my practice in a new light. I started rethinking my teaching and become reflective about it. This reflection process related not only to low-level matters such as a problematic lesson plan or an ineffective reading comprehension task but also to high-level matters such as assessment and classroom management. I can still remember how difficult it was for me to justify the way I handled a discipline problem in one of my classes and how this process led me to reevaluate my beliefs in this area.

What seems to be another advantage of the mentorship programme is that I had the chance to encounter new pedagogic ideas, since mentees are aware of the latest state-of-the-art methodology of teaching English. In this sense I updated my knowledge in a way which is not possible when I attend a one-off teacher training seminar which lacks the link to practice. In the mentorship programme the mentee introduced some new techniques which were applied and tested in the classroom. This process offered invaluable data to me and I adopted some of the mentees ideas in my teaching practice after the programme ended.   

I hope that it has been made clear that the mentorship programme offers many possibilities for professional development to the mentor teachers. However, in order for the full potential of the programme to be exploited, there are a number of constraints to be dealt with. Probably the most important is that the teacher mentor has an extra amount of work which is added to his/her teaching load. I think that the Ministry of Education, in this case, should take action and release the mentor teachers from some of their duties or probably reduce their teaching hours, which, by the way,  is the case for some other programmes taken up by school teachers. After all, the programme may be rewarding in itself, but this does not necessarily mean that the participants work should not be recognized.

To conclude, I firmly believe that the mentorship programme offers enormous potential for professional growth providing a channel for reflection and professional dialogue which may otherwise be missing from our careers. The fact that there is no formal recognition or formal sanction of the mentor teachers’ contribution does not in any way   diminish its importance for education in general. After all, it is through our participation in such programmes that we actually feel that we are teachers, not only by profession but by vocation as well. 

Thank you very much

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