Innovation or Limitations? A Comparative Study of Mentoring in a Foreign Language Teacher Certification Program

• In Event: Teacher Education in Linguistically Diverse Settings: Understanding Teacher Voice and Development

Abstract

This study aims to investigate how different practices of mentoring influence new Chinese language teachers’ learning to teach and their socialization into the K-12 foreign language teaching profession in a Midwestern state in the U.S., by focusing on four Chinese language teachers’ learning to teach and the influence of mentoring on their first year of teaching. These Chinese language teachers are from different linguistic and cultural/ethnic backgrounds (from the U.S., the People’s Republic of China, and Taiwan), but all studied in a Chinese Teacher Certification Program at a Midwestern university in the U.S., which is a post-baccalaureate program of Alternative Routes to Teaching (ACRs). Their mentor teachers are from various disciplines and worked with them in different ways.

Author

• Wenxia Wang, Florida State University