Abstract

Background/purpose – The significant role of mentor teachers during the practicum studies necessitates a training that specifically addresses mentoring expectations in the teaching context.  Drawing on critical constructivist teacher education, this study aims at investigating the expectations of student teachers, mentor teachers and university supervisors from mentoring.

Materials/methods – The data were collected from 79 pre-service teachers, 37 mentor teachers and 6 university supervisors through the researcher-designed questionnaire and the in-depth semi-structured interviews.

Results – The analysis of the participants’ answers showed that all three groups chose giving feedback to student teachers and knowledge on mentoring duty as the most important two themes the mentor teachers should be trained for. In addition to those themes, observing student teachers was another prominent theme for the group of mentor teachers, whereas the group of student teachers underlined the theme of knowledge on practicum procedures as a concern to be addressed in mentor training program.

Conclusion – The results provided not only valuable data to inform an online mentor training program but also uncovered the concerns experienced by all three groups, informing necessary actions to be taken accordingly.

Keywords: mentoring, language teacher education, pre-service teacher education, student teachers

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