In the area of teaching, mentoring is becoming a common practice whereby an experienced teacher provides guidance to and coaches a novice teacher for the purpose of familiarizing him/her with the teaching practice and the new teaching context (Ganser, 2002). Novice teachers were found to face problems in several aspects of teaching like classroom management, discipline problems, planning and experience lack of self-confidence and the feeling of isolation. Mentoring has been found to benefit both mentor and mentee through sharing ideas and reflecting on teaching. The purpose of this research is to investigate how mentors and mentees perceive the mentoring system employed in a first-year university English language program, to assess this system, and make recommendations for development. Two surveys were given to mentors and mentees to elicit responses on the current practices employed in their mentoring system, its perceived effectiveness, the challenges faced, and ways to improve it. The results were mostly positive, showing the role mentors played in orienting novice teachers to the program, providing guidance in material selection, teaching techniques, and time management, besides providing moral support. Mentors also expressed their satisfaction with the system which benefited their teaching through the process of reflection required while mentoring and helped them gain new ideas from novice teachers. Among the problems reported were the difficulty encountered while trying to fit mentoring obligations into already tight schedules and doing the necessary paperwork. The other results of the surveys, the conclusions, and recommendations will be shared with the audience.

Authors:
Amani Demian, American University in Cairo, Egypt
Afaf Mishriki, The American University in Cairo, Egypt

About the Presenter(s)
Ms. Afaf Mishriki is currently a Senior English Language Instructor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, with a BA in Business Administration and MA in TEFL, from the American University in Cairo. She is currently teaching Academic English

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