Mentoring experiences?

[samuel]

Hello everybody!

I am starting this thread to learn more about your mentoring experiences. Personally, I did some mentoring back when I was in CEGEP. It was not English mentoring, but rather French. I was paired with 2 students whom I had the responsability to evaluate their learning and help them improve in certain aspects of the language. It was a great experience! One of my students improved greatly when it comes to making less mistakes. When I first saw him, he made 41 mistakes in a 200 word text and after the mentoring, he did a second dictation and made only 15 mistakes. This was a significant improvement and I was proud of him.

I am sure you guys probably did some mentoring as well at some time in your lives. I would like to know more about your experiences!

Thank you !

Samuel C.

[amrifa]

I’ve been seeing a lot of requests for mentors and information/help, but I haven’t really read many actual mentoring experiences and would be curious to know more about it. Don’t be shy, and if you have done any in the past or have been mentored by a mentor it would be quite interesting to read about those experiences. Feel free to share these experiences on the forum. I think many others, other than me, would be interested in learning a bit more about this. It is a fairly new concept to me, and I am sure I am not the only one.

[JEEPYY]

Hey Samuel! :D

I can share with you my mentoring experience at QHS. It was awesome! I taught math in English, so I was able to practice my teaching and english skills at once with student with difficulties. The first thing I can tell you is to encourage them. Most of the students are intelligent, but they don't understand stuff like most people do. You have to find a way to show them something so they will understand. In three weeks, I was able to double a girl's average in math (from 35% to 70%) just because I gave her the confidence she needed to go through what she had previously thought to be impossible. Confidence is the most important thing. Some students have lower grades because they lack the confidence to go through stuff... So you have to work that as well using positive reinforcement.

I tell you this is an awesome experience and you should consider doing that. And also coming back to another post I replied to you, this is how I got my paying job in QHS, I starter as a tutor and they liked the results so much they gave me a job. ;)

[jeffreyrod]

Hi Samuel,
I see you an avid blogger and I have some questions for you or anyone who deems himself fit to answer. Is it common practice to have a mentor like that? Because personally, until a few seconds ago I didn't know it even existed! Although I don't know much about it, I think it's a wonderful idea though. But like, how does it work? Is there an agency to work with or just come across someone and they become your Mentor? Do you have to pay them? Does he or she need to be qualified in some ways?

[enirak]

Samuel, you should not only be proud of your student, but of you too because you helped him! :)

Personally, I would like to know if some people have done English tutorials because I see some job offers for that and I would like to know people's point of view about such a job. What is it like? Do you have to plan all your lessons or the school provides you with stuff to use? How much is it paid? How many hours are you teaching? Can you teach at the same time of being a full student at the university (do you have enough time to study?).

Even if you are not tutoring in English, it would be great to hear about your experiences!

[NatGagnon]

In response to your post Samuel, I believe that no matter in which language you have done your mentoring experience, it is still a useful one to your professional development. I have done some mentoring myself with all types of students of different levels. I have mentored an Indian family whom moved to Canada for a better way of life, a business owner in need of vocabulary related to his domain, young children in need of an immersion type of education before moving to Alaska, etc. I believe this type of experience has a priceless value for what we will be doing later on: teaching people with different types of needs. I remember that when I was young, I had a French mentor working with me since I was all confused between English, Spanish, and French. This lady was the sweetest and most motivating person I have ever met. She completely changed the way I saw French (as an optional factor to my life) and made sure I was just like everyone around me, to avoid mockery or rejection. I believe she is my main motivation to become a teacher: I too would like to help others join the marvellous world of multilingualism.

[jetard]

I also have some mentoring experience. I did mentoring with children in French (first language). I helped them to overcome difficulties in reading and writing. They actually improved a lot during that summer!
I mentored an adult who was doing his secondary V French class (first language). I helped him by giving him tools and most of all, working methods. After several meetings, he finally went back to school to write his exam. He successfully passed his exam!
I also did mentoring in English (second language). I mentored two Korean university students. This was challenging because the only language we had in common was English! I had to find strategies and ways to help them.
Mentoring really helped me to confirm my profession choice: ESL teacher. : )

[jaipmaron]

Hey there!

Last year, I had the privilege of teaching French to 2 Inuit sisters and what a great challenge it was for me to achieve. Alice was the one I spent the most time with. It was both in-class help and a one-hour period per day to practice the very basis of French. Alice was a grade 1st student and still is this year because it was better for her to take her time to truly adapt to the language as well as her new environment. Half a school year was obviously not enough for me to get her to reach the same level as her other classmates. Despite this fact, I know I did right and that she is now pursuing her normal path of learning French.

[eigosekai]

This year, I've had the opportunity to work as a monitor of English at the school I did my second practicum at the elementary level. I was paired up with 3 students. In the context of the classroom, those 3 students were not very good in English and did not participate a lot. However, when they were with me, they were highly motivated and even asked me to speak English at all times to them. My personal explanations and tips to learn their vocabulary words were very helpful and they improved exponentially! My associated teacher was very impressed and even told me they were more confident in the classroom and their grades improved. This was a great opportunity for me and I will surely do it again next year!

[cathjean]

Hello Sam,

I actually did some mentoring last summer. It was one of my day camp children whom decided that she wanted to learn English better and that she needed my help.
Her mother agreed and then I started some little classes.
Mentoring implies mostly discussions and a question section for me.
I did it like that becuase she wanted to improve her pronunciation and her vocabulary, so communicating orally with me was the best way !
Then if she had any questions about grammar or else, I would answer it quickly but completely at the end of the class.

[Debrah]

Hi Samuel!

Those of us who have been mentored know that it takes an extraordinary person to touch and affect people's lives in such a unique way. Mentors must be many things, but they must primarily be a person who draws everything there is to be gained from an experience. The joy of thinking about someone else instead of my own selfish needs is an ongoing benefit of mentoring.