Session Title: Developing Mentoring Skills

Session Outline

 Have you ever been mentored and think that you would like to give back what you got? Have you been a mentor for a long time and  would like to refresh your repertoire and rekindle your love of mentoring? You have never been a mentor or a mentee?   Then this session is for you.

We will take you on a short trip at the end of which we hope you will be ready for a long journey into mentoring.

Abstract

We strongly believe that establishing meaningful mentoring relationships is a key to becoming a successful teacher. It is also a great way to maintain interest in teaching. This year's session will help teachers from any background and experience to identify how they can improve their experience of being a teacher by engaging in active mentoring relationships. We will talk about mentoring for professional development, discuss the different aspects of the mentoring relationship and how the ideal mentoring relationship can be established, nurtured and sustained. Our invited speakers will share their ideas and experiences and give guidance to the participants. Our goal is to help every participant plan, create and launch their mentoring journey.

Target Audience

Teachers of English who realise that it is meaningful professional relationships that make learning and teaching a life-long passion.

Interest Section Sponsors

TESOL: Teacher Education IS, English as a Foreign Language IS, Program Administration IS, Non-Native Speakers in TESOL IS, Computer-Assisted Language Learning IS

Join this session

Sign up for the session starts on January 6th, 2013. 

The action starts on January 13th, 2014.

Syllabus 

Weekly Outline

By the end of this online session, participants will have
1) an understanding of the roles and functions of participants in a mentoring relationship;
2) identified areas of their expertise where they could contribute to the professional growth of another teacher either in their own immediate professional environment or by developing their own Personal Learning Network;
3) identified areas of their own professional life where they need the support of a mentor;
4) developed a roadmap to achieve their mentoring objectives

Week 1  (Jan 13 - 19, 2014) Theme: Become a mentee

We believe that one of the most important assets a mentor needs is empathy, which is best served by personal experience.

Another important belief of ours is that everyone can only be as good as a mentor as good they are as mentees. 
Introducing the idea of Empathy Map to understand the problem to solve.

We encourage the creation of teams so that they can support and discuss ideas even role-play the mentor-mentee process.
This week participants will also get a chance to familiarise themselves with the different platforms and tools we use during the session. 

Week 2  (Jan 20 - 26, 2014) Theme: Awaken your inner mentor

This week we focus on the skills and characteristics of the mentor. Once we have identified these, we can look at different ways of developing them.
Task: Start putting together your plan - using the tools and examples provided by the coordinating team.
The main aim of the whole session is that by the end every participant (or team of participants) develops their own mentoring agenda and programme. 
During this week they can choose their topics, team up, start discussions. 
Identify areas to mentor and people to be mentored - Eg. An area you are good at (such as technology/classroom management/lesson planning.) Or something you would like to know more about it. 

Week 3    (Jan 27 - Feb 2, 2014) Theme: Tools and methods for successful mentoring

One of the keys to success in mentoring is the ability to keep the relationship alive, meaningful and active. There are many tools and methods that can facilitate both virtual and face-to-face mentoring. This week we are going to look at some of these methods and tools and encourage participants to experiment with them and integrate them in their own mentoring plans and goals.
Participants will also be encouraged to share their progress with developing their own mentoring agenda. (Via blog posts, video-audio recordings, messages, notes, etc.) 

Week 4     (Feb 3 - Feb 9, 2014) Theme: Stories from the past 

As participants are working on their individual mentoring plans, we will spend this week reflecting on previous experiences. Participants in orevious EVO sessions and metors from around the world will be invited to share their stories. Previous mentoring EVO participants share their stories of success and failure with mentoring.
These will lead to further discussions and "fine tuning" of the final mentoring plans. 

Week 5  (Feb 10 -16, 2014) Theme: Sharing plans and stories 

Participants get a chance to share and discuss their mentoring plans.
We will also discuss future plans for keeping the most committed members of the team together throughout the year. 

Moderators

	Avihayil,Maizie -  maiziea@gmail.com I am an EFL Teacher, English Coordinator, Teacher Trainer and am a trained Mentor to 1st & 2nd year teachers.
	Jakar, Valerie - vsjakar@gmail.com VSJ has been a  teacher counselor  and mentor for more than 30 years, but is still learning about it.  She has just retired from working in the Israel Ministry of Education  schools  and teachers' colleges system as lecturer (Educational Linguistics), teacher counselor, and academic coordinator for in-service education of teachers of English in the Jerusalem area.  Her special interests  are  sociolinguistics, multicultural   and peace education -   and the teaching of English  -  of one variety or another! -  combined with  those topics (as in 'CLIL' and CBLI). A focal area of her research has been  the dynamics and the strategies used by teacher mentors (teachers of  English) where one party (mentor or mentee) is a NNEST, and the reciprocal learning that takes place.
	Lorincz, Tamas - tamas@tamaslorincz.com I am a freelance teacher-trainer and English teacher. Learning about mentoring as a means of professional growth is one of my passions. I live in Dubai.
	Serra, Roselie - rfserra@gmail.com A very happy person, enthusiastic teacher, teacher trainer and developer, e-moderator and ELT consultant
	Tebovic, Debora - dtebovich@gmail.com  Debora is a freelance EFL teacher, iTDi mentor and online moderator based in Argentina. She is passionate about teaching and learning and she is enthusiastic about using technology to create memorable learning moments.

Digital Media

 
Our main communication platform is our Yahoo Group

We also have a blog

Twitter account  @mentorevo #mentorevo and a 

Facebook Page ELT Mentoring as well as a Facebook Group

Important: You don't have to use every platform all the time, check all of them out and decide which one or two you want to use regularly throughout the session.

The Electronic Village Online is a project of TESOL's CALL Interest Section

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Language, an international education association