Abstract

This issue of Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning includes research from scholars representing Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia, Nevada, North Carolina, New York, and Cyprus. Novice educators represent teachers whose length of service is less than two years in their careers, and the literature reports that their school experiences during these times are critical as they tend to leave the profession or move to different schools within 5 years of starting this career (Ingersoll, 2001). In a way to prevent and deal with the teacher shortage problem and to retain promising novice teachers, a number of schools implement mentoring programs, and many states support those induction activities financially. In a similar vein, to educate and train pre-service teacher, the use of mentoring, rather than supervision, has become more common practice as a part of teacher preparation programs (Zeegers, 2005). That means, mentoring in the pre-service teacher contexts focuses on building trust and rapport, providing support and advice, developing teaching skills and competencies, rather than assessing or making a judgment on student teachers performance as a supervisor (Hudson & Millwater, 2008). Several studies revealed the positive aspects of mentoring for novice and pre-service teachers such as teaching performance and teacher retention (Waterman & He, 2011). However, at the same time, several scholars also raised their concerns that the existence of a mentoring program does not guarantee to qualify mentoring relationships and those programs are sometimes uneven, ineffective and problematic (Meyer, 2002). Regardless of who is involved as a mentee, how mentoring is defined, what type of mentoring (e.g. peer mentor or learning community) is, how to facilitate building effective mentoring programs and relationships is a core issue, and the current issue focuses on the scholarly works that may possibly contribute to such discussions. Stella Kourieos, in the article Problematizing School-Based Mentoring for PreService EFL Primary Teachers, explored the mentoring practices in primary schools among pre-service and cooperative teachers who work in the area of English language teaching (ELT). Kourieos sought to identify factors which get in the way of school-based mentoring in relation to ELT. Drawing on interviews, Kourieos found a number of themes highlighting challenges of preparing student teachers for ELT through mentorship. MENTORING & TUTORING: PARTNERSHIP IN LEARNING 2019, VOL. 27, NO. 3, 231–234 https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2019.1639123