The Role of Mentoring in Supporting Novice English Language Teachers in Hong Kong

The Role of Mentoring in SupportingNovice English Language Teachers inHong Kong

STEVE MANN AND ELAINE HAU HING TANGUniversity of WarwickCoventry, England

This article reports on qualitative case study research into theexperience and support of four novice English language teachers inHong Kong (HK). It describes their perceived experience and sociali-sation, particularly with regard to the induction and mentoring sup-port they receive during the first year of teaching. While the benefitsof different forms of induction support (mentoring in particular)have been established, few studies have focused on specific factorsthat affect the perceived effectiveness of mentoring, from the pointof view of both the mentors and the mentees. The current studytherefore breaks new ground in investigating the perspectives of dif-ferent stakeholders in the mentoring process. What is more, themajority of research reports the nature of the first year of teaching inone snapshot, often not paying attention to the professional develop-ment and changes throughout the year. This study follows a group ofnovice language teachers for the whole of their first year in teaching.

doi: 10.1002/tesq.38

The purpose of the case study is to give voice to the perspectives ofindividual novice teachers within the complex wider sociocultural

context that these teachers must negotiate. Consequently, the articlebegins by establishing key aspects of the HK context that impact theexperience that novice teachers have in their first year. It then pro-vides a literature review that details important contributions to aninternational understanding of induction and mentoring, as well asrelating these to the specific HK situation. After presenting an over-view of the research methodology, the article provides an analysis anddiscussion that details the needs and challenges of the four participat-ing novices and investigates the provision and perceptions of school-based induction and mentoring. In particular, it explores the role thatmentoring plays in their professional development, support, and soci-alisation. The article concludes by providing recommendations onhow schools can better support novice English language teachers.

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The research study investigates two main research questions:

1. What concerns and difficulties do novice English languageteachers have in their first year in Hong Kong?

2. What support do the teachers receive from mentors andcolleagues? What is the nature of this support, and how is itviewed by the various stakeholders?

CONTEXT

It is internationally recognised that a teacher’s work is highlydemanding, with complicated educational issues to be faced and thepractical demands of classroom teaching to be handled (e.g., Pollard,2008). Novice teachers in Hong Kong are often expected to performeffectively and assume full teaching responsibilities right from the firstday on the job (Worthy, 2005). In Hong Kong, it is claimed that therehas been a deterioration of employment and work conditions forteachers due to economic pressures (Choi & Tang, 2011). At the sametime, educational policy initiatives have had adverse effects on employ-ment security and made the teaching role more challenging. Thissection considers a number of HK contextual features (social,economic, educational) that impact novice English language teachers’experience and workload.

In Hong Kong, experienced teachers can find the job stressful dueto serious issues of burnout, teacher dissatisfaction, and turnover(D. W. Chan, 2009; Wong & Li, 1995). The attrition rate for teachersin Hong Kong is significant (3.9%–9.3% in the primary sector and3.9%–6.6% in the secondary sector, between 2001 and 2009). Rates ofjob dissatisfaction and morale among teachers are low (see Cheng,2009), and issues of workload are a core factor in this dissatisfaction(Choi & Tang, 2009; Chung, Pang, & Chan, 2006). Most teachers inHong Kong still work in government or aided schools (on an officialpay scale), but there is increasing privatisation of school educationthrough the Direct Subsidy Scheme. In this scheme, schools are freeto decide on their curriculum, fees, and entrance requirements(Education Bureau, 2011). Teachers’ “salary and fringe benefits neednot follow those of aided schools” (Yung, 2006, p. 99), and this has“disrupted the job security of teaching” (Choi & Tang, 2009, p. 769).Meanwhile, education reform has “spurred a quest for excellentperformance” with stronger reliance on “performance indicators,benchmarking, managerial and consumerist accountability, school self-evaluation and external school review” than previously (Choi & Tang,

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2011, p. 55). Increased workload has created extra stress for teachers(Choi & Tang, 2009), and changes in the curriculum and examinationsystem brought about by the New Senior Secondary Curriculum andthe HK Diploma of Secondary Education have also had an effect.Although the changes were designed to alleviate students’ exam pres-sure, they have led to more formative and school-based assessments,with teachers bearing the responsibility for designing and carrying outassessment. Furthermore, due to the requirement for all students tostay on at school longer, teachers now have to find ways to motivateand challenge less academically inclined students.

Economic pressures and a declining birth rate led to an unpopular“class shrinking and school killing” policy (Choi & Tang, 2009,p. 770), administered from 1997 to 2007. This process of school down-sizing and school closure happened at a time of rising unemploymentand inevitably increased competition for fewer teaching posts, whiletactics used to boost intake (such as the introduction of open days)have increased workload. Additionally, language policies running upto and after the 1997 handover, which prioritised the aim of trilingual-ism (Cantonese, Mandarin, and English) and made Chinese the med-ium of instruction in all public sector secondary schools, added to thepressure on English language teachers to increase English levels whencontact hours have been reduced. Gao (2011) documents teachers’professional vulnerability in a perceived context of “falling” Englishlanguage standards in Hong Kong. Much of this pressure comes fromparents; despite various HK government policies to raise the status ofCantonese and Mandarin, English is often the chief educational con-cern, being “a habitus for the community, a way of life to the millionsof westernised, cosmopolitan local residents” (E. Chan, 2002, p. 282).

On top of these pressures, newly qualified teachers face specificchallenges. They compete in the open market with experienced teach-ers, and their initial employment is often short term. Novice teachersalso face “unstable work conditions at the system level,” which have“impeded collegial support” (Choi & Tang, 2009, p. 771). At the sametime, there is an increased need to “comply with the current school inorder to increase chances of re-employment” or “invest time in seekingwork elsewhere” (Draper & Forrester, 2009, p. 79) while working fulltime with no reduced workload.

There are considerable variations in the amount and type of sup-port that these novice teachers receive. Induction is not mandatory,and there is no prescribed pattern of support or noncontact time.Although mentoring often exists in some form, it is not always for-mally adopted. The only official document available to schools for sup-porting their new teachers is the Induction Tool Kit designed by thegovernment-funded Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and

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Qualification (2009). Schools are advised to use the tool kit at theirown discretion, adapting the tools to suit their needs and to keeppaperwork minimal.

NOVICE LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCE

Beginning to teach is internationally recognised as a particular andcomplex stage of a teacher’s career (Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development, 2005); it can quickly become a battlefor survival, as teachers become swamped by the complexity of the roleand the demands and expectations of students, colleagues, andparents. Teaching is generally a stressful and demanding job, and fornovice teachers it can be overwhelming (Bullough, Young, Hall,Draper, & Smith, 2008). There continue to be higher rates of attritionand turnover in teaching compared to other professions (Ingersoll &Strong, 2011), at least partly because novices are faced with the dis-crepancy between the expected (ideal) and the actual realities ofteaching, and this constitutes a “transition shock” (Corcoran, 1981,p. 19). Veenman’s (1984) international perspective established themain challenges (classroom discipline, motivating students, assessingstudents’ work, organising class work, dealing with individual studentdifferences, coping with insufficient or inadequate teaching materials,and dealing with parents). Recent international studies (e.g., Bulloughet al., 2008; Totterdell et al., 2008) have confirmed that these sameproblems are still viewed by novice teachers as the most challenging.

It can be argued that nonnative-speaking novice teachers of languageencounter additional challenges in terms of language teaching skillsand, in some cases, issues with their actual or perceived linguistic com-petence (Tsui, 2007). However, while the first year of teaching has beenwell documented in general education, not many studies have beendone in the area of second language teaching (Farrell, 2008; J. C. Rich-ards & Pennington, 1998). Borg (2010, p. 88) claims that “experientiallywe know a lot because we all work with these people [novice languageteachers] but empirically in terms of research not much has been pub-lished.” Most studies “address the transition from specific language tea-cher education courses to learning to teach on the practicum” (Farrell,2006, p. 212) and not the first year of actual teaching. Kanno and Stuart(2010), for example, offer an instructive account of two teachers andthe reciprocal relationship between novice teachers’ identity develop-ment and their changing classroom practice, but this is part of theirmaster’s programme. Of the studies that do feature novice languageteachers in their actual first year of teaching, most are comparisons ofexperienced and novice teachers (e.g., Akyel, 1997; Gatbonton, 2008;


Tsui, 2009). Farrell’s (2008) collection of articles, however, concen-trates solely on the experience of novice teachers and provides valuableinsights into their experience and support. It contains studies under-taken in 11 settings. One of the papers features HK novice languageteachers: Urmston and Pennington (2008) report that it is difficult forthese teachers to adopt interactive and innovative approaches that theyhave been exposed to in their teacher education courses due to con-straints such as public examinations.

We now consider relevant literature concerning the induction pro-cess and mentoring in particular. Induction is the process by whichnovice teachers “adapt to and learn about their roles as teachers”(J. Schwille, Dembele, & Schubert, 2007, p. 89). Mentoring is under-stood as the “support given by one (usually more experienced) personfor the growth and learning of another” (Malderez, 2001, p. 57), andthe role of mentors is to facilitate novice teachers’ induction into “theculture of the profession” and the “specific local context” (Hobson,Ashby, Malderez, & Tomlinson, 2009, p. 207). In recent decades,teacher mentoring programs have become “a dominant form ofteacher induction” and “indeed, the two terms are often used inter-changeably” (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011, p. 203). However, mentoring isnot the only form of support. Induction can refer to a variety of differ-ent types of support for novice teachers, including orientationsessions, subject-related collaboration, developmental workshops,reduced workloads, and extra classroom assistance. Ingersoll andSmith’s (2004) study reveals that the most effective induction elementsare having a mentor from the same field, common planning time withother teachers teaching the same subject, and regularly scheduledcollaboration with other teachers.

Hobson et al. (2009) provide an overview of various studies thatestablish positive developmental outcomes for mentees. However,there may be a danger in being overly positive about the importanceof the mentor. Colley warns against “favourable, even celebratory,regard” where positive endorsement is not matched by “detailedempirical investigation of mentoring” (Colley, 2002, p. 258). Ingersolland Strong (2011) find weaknesses and limitations in all the empiricalstudies they review; despite these doubts, taken together the studiesprovide “empirical support for the claim that induction for beginningteachers and teacher mentoring programs in particular have a positiveimpact” (p. 225), typically producing improvements in classroom man-agement as well as maintaining a positive classroom atmosphere.There are also positive benefits in the mentoring relationship for thementors themselves, including reflection on practice, professionalgrowth, and development of leadership skills (Ganzer, 1996; Hobsonet al., 2009; Lopez-Real & Kwan, 2005).

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THE MENTOR’S ROLE

Mentor roles vary from providing short-term technical assistance tobeing more long-term reflective companions, just as mentoring pro-grams can vary from a single mentor–mentee meeting at the begin-ning of a school year to a highly structured and frequent program inwhich both parties have timetabled release time (Ingersoll & Strong,2011). When more time is spent together, it shifts the balance towardsemphasis on socialisation and constructed learning and away fromthe transfer of knowledge from the teacher education programme(Hobson et al., 2009). Such a shift recognises that learning aboutteaching is a situated process, where the teacher is socialised into a“community of practice” in which novices “move toward full participa-tion in the sociocultural practices of a community” and gradually “learnabout the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activ-ities, identities, artefacts, and communities of knowledge and practice”(Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 29). However, there can be a tensionbetween the mentor’s roles as concerned with collaborative develop-ment and “enlightenment” and an approach whereby “the mentoringinitiative is based on meeting standards” (Ingleby, 2011, p. 17).

QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY

This section provides details of the approach and data collectioninstruments and briefly discusses issues of sample selection and gener-alisability. The research featured here is a qualitative case study andone of a growing number in the TESOL area (e.g., Hayes, 2010;Lamb, 2007; Tsui, 2007) that provide insight into teachers’ beliefs andexperience. Case studies are able to track complex social phenomenain a way that “cannot be adequately researched in any of the othercommon research methods” (van Lier, 2005, p. 195). Through a rigor-ous thematic analysis, the study aims to provide in-depth insight intocomplicated situated and social issues involved in providing supportfor a novice teacher.

The case study focuses on four novice teachers and their mentorsand so can be viewed as a collective case study (Stake, 2005), allowingthe researchers to investigate both the uniqueness and similarity ofthe novice teachers. The case studies are individually and collectively“bounded” (Merriam, 1988, p. 9), through paying attention to individ-ual schools and also the wider HK educational context. Duff (2008)argues that it is usual to select four to six focal participants for studyin one or more sites, thereby providing interesting contrasts andcorroboration across the cases. The four form a “strategic selection”


(K. Richards, 2011, p. 216) of novice teachers in Hong Kong; thereare novices working in different sectors (two primary and two second-ary) and different ability bands (1–3). Participants were invited eitherthrough emails forwarded by their preservice education institutes or bypersonal connection.

Case studies vary in the extent to which they are longitudinal, butan important contribution of this study is that it tracks novice teach-ers’ experience and support over a full year. Such longitudinal design,drawing on data collected from multiple sources, allows useful compar-isons across the multiple cases and increases reliability. Appendix Aoutlines the multiple data sets. In analysing this data, we followed thesteps of thematic analysis proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006). Afterdata collection, the data were systematically analysed with regard tothe main research focus (novice teacher experience, support, andmentoring). Relevant data were then assigned to corresponding initialcodes or themes. The themes were then reviewed, and attention wasgiven to how the different themes related to each other. Thematicmaps functioned as a heuristic in arriving at relationships, contrasts,and commonalities. Following the review, the themes were furtherdefined and related back to the wider literature.

Generalisability is not considered to be a feasible demand of a casestudy (see Gomm, Hammersley, & Foster, 2000). Rather, we take theline suggested by Keith Richards (2011, p. 216) that, rather than work-ing within an inappropriate trajectory from “representative sample” to“generalisable findings,” we provide a “strategic selection” of cases thatmight generate “illustrative outcomes” (drawing strength from “therich particularity of individual cases”). This article aims to provide out-comes that can be judged by readers in terms of

• the strength of their resonance with other researchers or profes-sionals,

• the success of the practical recommendations they make, and

• their contribution to the development of theory.

The multicase approach adopted here guards against the possibilityof unreliable accounts, and there is triangulation in the form ofaccounts from mentees and mentors, as well as field notes and otherdocuments.

As far as possible, the cases have been studied in their natural con-text, although access issues have meant that the study relies primarilyon interviews. Following Kvale (1996) we have used a series of semi-structured interviews to elicit narratives and also to clarify and extendprevious insights gained. We recognise that interviews are co-constructed (see Mann, 2011; Talmy & Richards, 2011) and that,

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although we have a framework of themes or questions to cover, theseare adapted and shaped to ongoing articulations, understandings, orbeliefs. Through the later interviews, we sought to include noviceteachers’ own judgments about representativeness and typicality. Allinterviews were conducted in Cantonese (the participants’ mothertongue), but transcripts were translated into English (Cantonese hasno written form). This translation issue is complex (see Cortazzi,Pilcher, & Jin, 2011; Temple & Young, 2004), partly because sentencestructure and lexical nuance are inevitably changed. Despite this shiftfrom Cantonese to English, we have included some interactional fea-tures so that the translation is as close as possible to the original mean-ing and delivery. A transcription key can be found in Appendix B.

We aimed at anonymity for these teachers and mentors, althoughsuch an aim can be problematic in qualitative inquiry, because richdescription can make deductive revelation possible. Walford (2005)advances arguments for considering rejecting anonymity in certaincircumstances. We decided to keep the pseudonyms but havechecked both individual vignettes and the final version of the articlewith the principal participants both for ethical reasons and as a valid-ity check.

VIGNETTES

This section starts by outlining the first-year experience of theparticipating teachers through brief individual analytic vignettes (seeErickson, 1990) and a collective summary. In addition to providingbackground information from individual school contexts, the vignettesaim to describe novice teachers’ needs and challenges. We then dis-cuss the school-based support they experienced, focusing particularlyon mentoring. Drawing on perspectives from both mentees and men-tors, the section raises a number of prominent issues and concernsthat have emerged from the interview, observation, and documentanalysis process.

Mary had wanted to teach in secondary school but ended up teach-ing in one of the top primary schools in Hong Kong. Like the vastmajority of top schools, it used English as the medium of instruction.Many parents were educated and outspoken, and the principal oftenstressed the importance of not offending them. There was an induc-tion scheme, but the hierarchy created by the seating in the staff roomstopped Mary from approaching her mentor as often as she wished.Mary also felt a sense of isolation because most teachers were middle-aged, and there were few Mary felt comfortable talking to. High expec-tations for herself and for the students, as well as dealing with parents,


caused Mary to experience tremendous stress, and this led to sleepingproblems. In the end, however, she was glad she had survived the year,and she decided to stay for a second year.

Sarah taught in a low-banding secondary school. The students hadperformed poorly in school-based assessment at the end of their pri-mary education. There were a lot of behavioural problems, and it wasdifficult to motivate students. Students also had little respect for teach-ers, especially new ones like Sarah. Sarah cotaught each of her threeclasses with another more experienced teacher, and one of them wasalso her mentor. She benefited quite a bit from this in terms of profes-sional development and finding support, and other colleagues weresupportive and helpful. Despite the challenging school conditions, shestayed on for a second year.

Ray had just completed a second degree in education. He workedin a new school under the Direct Subsidy Scheme. The school wasgaining reputation and popularity in the area mainly because it wasan English-medium school and entry was very competitive. Mostteachers were young and passionate, and students were generally wellbehaved. Ray and his mentor were form teachers (homeroom teach-ers) of the same class, and they also taught students with similarEnglish levels. The mentor had only 1 year of teaching experience,and there were no guidelines, briefing documents, or preparation formentor teachers in the school. Nevertheless, Ray and his mentorworked together collaboratively on almost everything, including plan-ning lessons, designing materials, and resolving students’ behaviouralproblems.

Linda worked in a low-band primary school with challenging stu-dents who exhibited quite a few behavioural problems. Moreover,some of her students were new immigrants who had significantlylower English proficiencies than other students. There has been asteady increase of immigrants from mainland China (EducationBureau, 2011) posing particular challenges, because immigrant stu-dents often have lower English proficiency than HK students. Thesechallenges were exacerbated by a tight teaching schedule. Much ofLinda’s time and effort was therefore spent on planning classroommanagement and catering for diversity. Linda was the only partici-pant assigned two mentors instead of one; one mentor was the panelhead, who supported her on anything related to the English subject,and the other was the teacher in charge of the school’s inductionscheme, who helped her with administrative matters. Linda quicklygained trust and recognition from the management and was invitedearly on in her first year to be part of a special publicity team, whichinvolved offering courses to kindergartens as a way of boosting futureintake.

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GROUP SUMMARY

The classroom experiences of this group of novices suggest thatsome problems were shared and perceived as especially difficult. Theteachers particularly worried about the flow of lessons and students’negative responses. In the following interview extract Mary (NT)reveals to the interviewer (I) some of the anxiety that can build up forthe novice teacher when there are worries about classroom dynamicsand students’ ability to work at the level the teacher expects. Marytalks about her inability to maintain an appropriate classroom atmo-sphere, even when she has put a great deal of time into preparation:

208 NT: but even when you were in bed ((laughs)) your brain was

209 still running through what needed doing tomorrow

210 I: (.) so mainly you were thinking about what you were to teach

211 the next day were you?

212 NT: yeah

213 I: what else was giving you such pressure actually?

214 NT: ((laughs)) you know I was worried that the atmosphere in

215 class wasn’t good,

216 I: mm=

217 NT: =because sometimes I am concerned that I’ve prepared a lot

218 for a lesson but the students can’t give me the responses (.) I

219 feel really bad then.(Mary’s individual interview 18.03.2010. See Appendix B fortranscription conventions.)

The other novice teachers expressed similar worries to Mary’s intheir individual interviews. Taken together, these views confirmGatbonton’s (2008) findings that novice language teachers were oftenpreoccupied with student behaviour and reactions to activities as wellas “maintaining the flow of instructional activities” (Akyel, 1997, p.678). Novice teachers were relatively comfortable when classes pro-gressed as planned but lacked a repertoire of pedagogical routines tocope with unexpected events arising during the lesson (see also Tsui,2009). This is evident in Linda’s writing class. She assumed that, byexplaining the task on the computer once, students would be able towork on their own. When students were not working and startedleaving their seats to ask her questions while she was helping the ones


who required the most assistance, she got “really annoyed.” The writ-ing lesson was always “chaotic,” and at the end of the year she had yetto find a solution to the problem.

One issue that was particularly problematic was negotiating policy,local practice, and individual beliefs regarding English-only in the lan-guage classroom. This was partly an individual decision (e.g., Rayinsisted on using English only with his students and their parents).However, the other teachers adopted a more pragmatic code-switchingapproach in the classroom to negotiate “tension-ridden spaces” wherethey needed to make interpretations “of policies/signs” around lan-guage use and how these seemed to be “received by colleagues andsuperiors” (Ramanathan & Morgan, 2007, p. 453).

The teachers also faced other challenges specific to the HK context.For instance (in comparison with more middle-class students), most ofthe working-class Cantonese-speaking students “typically live in a life-world where few will (and can) speak or use English for any communi-cation or sociocultural purpose” (Lin, 2005, p. 50). Some novices(Mary and Linda) had students newly emigrated from mainland Chinawith both economic disadvantage and comparatively low English profi-ciency. Catering for this diversity in the classroom was a further chal-lenge for the teachers. The new teachers found it hard to provideappropriate support and learning activities, given the class size. Someof the novices’ workload and stress also came from the schools’ desireto raise (or at least maintain) the number of students (in the contextof a low birth rate and school downsizing). Further issues are raised inthe following sections, which highlight prominent factors affectingmentoring that emerged from the thematic analysis.

MENTORS’ STATUS

None of the mentors involved had been formally invited or briefedon performing the mentoring role. It tended to be seen by the schoolas just one more administrative duty among the very many:

No one invited me (.) I found out that I needed to be a mentor whenI looked at the duty allocation (Mary’s mentor)

Other mentors said similar things (“It’s the school’s decision. . . . Iwouldn’t say I’m passionate about it” [Linda’s mentor]) and the hier-archical selection of mentors is partly a perceived issue of the low sta-tus of the role:

Anyway the school doesn’t see this duty as very important, you knowhow they put this duty? (.) under others (.) mentor to so and so (.) so

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I think they don’t really regard this as a big duty (.) no I don’t thinkso (Ray’s mentor)

Those “old enough” (Mary’s mentor) knew that all experienced orsenior teachers in their school were expected to mentor novices atsome stage, but it was not something that they volunteered to do.Mentors also had little involvement in deciding what the mentorshipwould involve. Linda’s mentor was the only one involved in designingthe induction programme and the only one with any mentor training.The others were not given any guidelines or job descriptions statingwhat was required and expected of them:

Apart from going through the staff files (.) I wonder what the school’sexpectations of a mentor are (Ray’s mentor)

Taken together, mentoring was seen as a compulsory duty ratherthan a self-selected professional development opportunity. There waslittle information about the role and little training, and even if train-ing was available, there was a perception that there would not be anyavailable time for preparation and training.

MENTORS’ ROLES

Although all participants were assigned at least one mentor as partof their induction programmes, there were important differencesin the ways in which their mentors both saw and performed theirroles. These ranged from local guides to educational companions (Feiman-Nemser & Parker, 1993). The following list establishes key features ofthe roles mentioned by either mentors or mentees:

• taking care of/looking after mentees

• giving advice and suggestions

• familiarising mentees with the physical setting of the school

• explaining the school-based syllabus, curriculum, and scheme ofwork

• dealing with administrative arrangements (e.g., arranging meet-ings)

• giving mentees everyday reminders (of the routines) and dailysupport

• answering questions and giving suggestions regarding markingand paper setting

• providing mentees with emotional support

• observing mentees’ lessons and giving feedback


• helping mentees with anything related to the classroom andteaching

• advising mentees in dealing with difficult students and class-room management

• helping mentees in dealing with parents

• helping mentees with technical problems such as using theschool-based computer systems

• explaining school policies (e.g., regarding applying for reim-bursement)

• evaluating mentees in the middle and at the end of the year

• discussing ways to motivate students’ learning

• talking about students and teaching on a regular basis

This list suggests that mentors were supportive in many ways and thatthe support was wide-ranging. Sarah’s mentor was not available forinterview, but there is a clear contrast between Mary’s and Linda’smentors, who primarily saw their role as fixing the new teachers’ prob-lems rather than treating them as co-inquirers into problems (Wang &Odell, 2002), and Ray’s mentor, who spent a great deal of time discuss-ing ideas and collaborating. Mary’s and Linda’s mentors established aprocedural mentoring relationship rather than a reflective one. This maypartly be because the relationship was “not established as a result ofchoice and goodwill” but “rather as a fulfilment of obligation and enti-tlements” (Rippon & Martin, 2003, p. 215). Also, while mentors tendedto focus on what they saw as their duties and responsibilities, such asgiving reminders and taking care of the mentees, prominent in thementees’ recollections (and probably what they valued) were thementors’ advice, suggestions, and emotional support as well as the oppor-tunities for discussion and regular contact. Except for Ray’s case, therewas little evidence of a partnership based on professional and interper-sonal collaboration beyond procedural requirements. The others weremore like a form of hierarchical apprenticeship (Carter & Francis, 2001) inwhich the majority of the role centres on reinforcing conformism.

AGE AND EXPERIENCE DIFFERENCES BETWEENMENTORS AND MENTEES

One interesting finding in the study is that it was not necessarily anadvantage to have an experienced or senior mentor. Although therewere pros and cons associated with both, Ray had the most positiverelationship and experience with his mentor. Whereas the other threementors were quite experienced (7 + years), Ray’s mentor only had

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1 year’s teaching experience. It was clear that Ray and his mentorcharacterised their relationship more as peers, and Ray would volun-teer to help her (e.g., with maintaining students’ order during thereading sessions) even when it was not part of his duties. Their collab-oration extended beyond the official mentoring relationship:

I don’t feel like a mentor to him because he’s helped me a lot (.) youknow I think it’s a relationship like this (Ray’s mentor)

There were high levels of cooperation between the two of them,embracing teaching, material design, and setting exam papers. A closerelationship and frequent collaboration was perhaps more possiblewhen there was not much of a gap in teaching experience:

How would someone with 10 years of experience work with you (.)who on earth would ever do that (.) they know everything and don’tneed any collaboration (Ray’s mentor)

Interestingly, Linda’s mentor (who was experienced) felt that some-one who had taught for only a year might be better suited as therewould be no generation gap and therefore would be more empathy,because his or her novice experience would be more recent. Ray’sexperience and Linda’s mentor’s views suggest that younger mentorshave several advantages: good sources of emotional and practical sup-port, perceived as more approachable, and with more attainable sug-gestions. Carter and Francis (2001) found in their study that youngmentors are better at empathising and recalling what it is like to be abeginning teacher. However, they also argue that physical proximityand general availability are much more important factors than age andexperience, and we return to these issues in a later section.

OBSERVATION

One thing that all mentors and some mentees thought would havebeen helpful in the development of a beginning teacher was havingmore reciprocal lesson observations. The main barrier to its implemen-tation was lack of commitment from school management (priority intimetabling). For example, Mary had the chance to observe her mentoronly once in the whole school year. The timetabling in all the schoolswas not particularly novice-friendly, except arguably in Sarah’s school,because she cotaught all lessons with other experienced teachers, soshe was essentially observing and being observed in all her lessons.

In some schools, lesson observations were still used only for assess-ment rather than developmental purposes. For example, in Ray’sschool, new teachers were observed in one-off whole-year assessments


by the vice principal. Ray’s mentor was not involved in any observa-tions, which she thought would have been helpful for both her andRay’s professional development.

PRINCIPAL INVOLVEMENT

There are ambivalent comments on the involvement of the princi-pal in the mentoring system. Although mentors resented the fact thatprincipals did not follow up on their role as mentors and that notmuch attention was paid to mentorship, all four mentors were actuallyhappy to be left alone:

actually it’s best that the principal doesn’t pay any attention on me((laughs)) (.) you know it’s fine now (Ray’s mentor)

When principals were physically present in meetings, it was inhibiting:

(.) it’s awkward whenever the principal is present (.) yeah . . . it’s sim-ply, you know (.) if the principal is there you dare not say anything (.)even for the experienced teachers (Linda’s mentor)

Neither mentors nor mentees felt discussions with the principalpresent were helpful (“you know no one will dare talk about it [infront of the principal], even I myself won’t tell the principal when I’vemade a mistake” [Linda’s mentor]). Formal meetings were perceivedas adding to workload, in contrast to informal meetings where novicescould share their mistakes and areas of uncertainty in the principal’sabsence. Although there was little contact between mentees and princi-pals, what the latter said had a strong impact on how the novices per-ceived themselves and their teaching. Paradoxically, for some teachershaving little contact was perceived as recognition of doing well. InLinda’s school there had previously been new teachers who were oftenasked to see the principal in response to parental complaints, so not see-ing the principal positively affected her perception of her teaching andidentity as a teacher. Mary, on the other hand, was particularly affectedby the principal’s comment about her being “cool” (shy), and this madeher even more conscious of her inability to socialise with other teachers.

INTERACTION WITH OTHER STAFF

All the teachers felt that interactions inside staff rooms were impor-tant and that these interactions were significantly affected by the physi-cal settings (e.g., furniture, seating arrangements) and the differencesin age between the participating novices and their colleagues. Novice

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teachers particularly valued interacting with the more experiencedteachers on a regular basis. Tellez (1992) finds that novice teachersvalue seeking “help from experienced teachers they perceive asfriendly and caring, independent of whether the teachers are formallyrecognized as their mentors” (p. 214). This kind of contact was muchmore possible in flexible staff rooms where novices were able to sitclose to mentors and other more experienced teachers. In Mary’s casethere was a physical separation between a more senior group (e.g., thepanel heads) and the “small potatoes.” Her mentor sat with the moresenior group, and this proved problematic because Mary would nottake the initiative to approach her mentor because of the perceivedhierarchy. On the other hand, in Ray’s school all English languageteachers sat together regardless of experience, and there was a com-mon room where teachers could work and eat together. Many naturaland informal conversations about students and teaching were there-fore made possible. Similarly, Sarah sat close to her mentor and allcoteaching partners, and there was no barrier to approaching them.

These interactions with other teachers often centred on students,especially their background and behaviour in previous years. Anothervalued topic was discussing schemes of work from previous years. Inaddition to student- and pedagogy-related discussions, novice teachersappreciated being able to grumble, mostly about how students were(not) behaving. This kind of emotional support was an important sur-vival and identity-building mechanism; grumbling gave “the teachersmutual confirmation that the students, and not the teachers, were to[be blamed] for the situations” (Kainan, 1994, p. 119).

INDUCTION TOOL KIT

The Induction Tool Kit (ACTEQ, 2009) has been widely promoted inHong Kong; however, it was only used in one of the four schools inthis study, and only then in a greatly simplified and adapted version.The fact that other schools did not use it at all is surprising, given thatit has been available since 2008. Comments elicited on it suggest thatit was seen as complicated and mechanistic:

It would be really complicated if we were to follow that kit, it’svery detailed and they don’t expect us to do everything (.) (Linda’smentor)

Although the tool kit’s supporting literature recognises the impor-tance of both community (mentors and colleagues) and autonomy(self-reflection and self-evaluation), the actual tools reinforce theimportance of existing practices rather than helping novices become


reflective practitioners. The emphasis is on the new teacher’s “perfor-mance” being in line with “existing school-based practices” andthat there should be “regular feedback on mentees’ performance”(ACTEQ, 2009, p. 5). Prompts such as “mentee’s satisfactory fulfill-ment of daily responsibilities” (p. 9) and “has the mentee fulfilled thefollowing?” (p. 14) reinforce the essentially evaluative dimension ofthe tools. Review profiles such as these assume that criteria of compe-tent teaching can be clearly itemised, widely agreed upon, and used asthe basis of teacher assessment (Calderhead & Lambert, 1992). The mainproblem with checklist-type competence-based lists is that they need tobe detailed enough to capture the complexity of teaching and can asa result become unwieldy and difficult to use (Randall & Thornton,2001). This may well be what happened in this case; the tool kit has20 pages of items and domains to check against and comment on.

IMPLICATIONS

This section presents a number of recommendations that havearisen from the preceding analysis and discussion. These are offeredas “illustrative outcomes” (K. Richards, 2011, p. 216). In making thesepractical recommendations, we hope that they provide resonance withother researchers or professionals involved in the provision of supportfor novice teachers in wider contexts. The following comments sum-marise our case study outcomes and make suggestions that we feel aremost important in helping support novice language teachers.

Mentors play a key role in supporting novice teachers and theyneed proper recognition within schools. Although lack of recognitiondoes not necessarily stop mentors from playing an important role insupporting novice teachers, it may limit their effectiveness. The casestudy found that mentor training in these schools was limited at best.The same can be said for ongoing in-service mentor support and theencouragement of shared practice. Principals, in particular, need tovalue and support mentors, provide training, and encourage the shar-ing of good practice when possible.

Mentors make the most positive impact on the novice’s first year ofexperience when they have opportunities to collaborate, to work onthings together (e.g., teaching the same classes, planning lessonstogether, sharing teaching ideas and materials). This study supportsthe findings of Ingersoll and Smith’s (2004) study, in which menteesparticularly valued collaboration, whether with the mentor or otherteachers in the school. The school can facilitate a more collaborativeapproach to mentoring by at least making sure that the novices andtheir mentors have some simultaneous free periods and that there are

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no barriers to easy access and support from mentors and colleagues inthe staff room. Schools should not overlook things that might looktrivial, such as where the novices are seated (so that there is proximityto mentors and other supporting staff).

Novices need priority in timetabling to allow them and their men-tors to observe each other’s lessons and to meet with each other.Opportunities for mutual observation are seen as key by mentors andmentees. If instruments and tools are used in observation or mentor–mentee meetings, it is better if they are developmental and reflectivein nature rather than mechanistic and evaluative. Overly evaluative lan-guage should be replaced by questions that prompt novices and theirmentors to be reflective and to collaborate.

Stakeholders in this study expressed the view that it does not matterwhether mentors are experienced. Experience does not seem to bethe most important factor affecting the perceived helpfulness of men-tors. Indeed it may be a good idea to further encourage mentoring byrelatively new teachers. An alternative might be to provide two men-tors, with the experienced mentor playing a more advice- and informa-tion-giving role and the relatively inexperienced mentor playing acollaborative and empathetic role.

Finally, principals need to be sensitive to the relatively fragile profes-sional status that novices have, in which “being questioned by others(principal, parents)” about their “professional identity” (Kelchtermans,2005, p. 997) can lead to a culture of fear or complaint (e.g., encour-aging parents to approach the principal directly instead of first discuss-ing issues with the teachers involved). This adversely affects thedevelopment of new teachers, who already feel less powerful thanother more experienced teachers.

CONCLUSION

There is no doubt that in Hong Kong competition between schoolsis adding to the pressure on novice teachers. These pressures arevaried (having open days and being observed by parents, and runningextra language classes for prospective future students). Languageteachers often have “to negotiate their pedagogic roles with demotivat-ed students, unsupportive parents, critical mass media and educationalauthorities” (Gao, 2011, p. 495). However, mentoring currently playsan important role in negotiating these pressures and demands. This isnot to say that mentoring could not play an even more significant role.The fact that induction is not compulsory in Hong Kong and that nov-ice teachers do not feel that they have the right to mutual observation,for example, is problematic. This collective case study would suggest


that factors affecting the impact of mentoring, such as timetabling(for discussion, collaboration, and mutual observation) and proximityto supportive colleagues, are more important than whether the mentoris experienced.

As a whole, the collective case study shows that mentoring roles var-ied in the extent to which they played a significant part in the first-year experience of these four novice language teachers. In addition,we found little evidence of a structured programme of reflection anddevelopment. However, engagement and interaction with mentorswere seen by novice teachers as useful for their professional supportand development. Except in one case, the ACTEQ (2009) tool kit wasnot being used in the schools, and in fact the researchers consideredthe language of its tools to be evaluative rather than developmental.

All in all, we question Draper and Forrester’s (2009, p. 79) claimthat (in Hong Kong) professional development is “generally driven byindividual teachers’ self-evaluation and reflection, with no frameworkto guide or shape experiences.” Although we agree that mentoring sys-tems could be improved, we feel that the existing practice supportsassimilation into each school’s community of practice. This group ofnovice teachers all survived the first year, and although they found itdifficult to cope with the demands of students, staff, and parents, theywent on to their second year in the same schools. Although it is truethat novice teachers have a “pressing need to comply with the currentschool in order to increase chances of re-employment” (Draper & For-rester, 2009, p. 79), and that part of this socialisation could be charac-terised as compliance, we found evidence of useful mentoringinvolving personal and professional engagement, “the willingness andability to share understandings and values,” and the “whole school”(Sundli, 2006, p. 213). We also found that interaction and supportfrom other members of staff were as important as, if not more impor-tant than, support and engagement with mentors, and that in schoolswhere the atmosphere was more collaborative and supportive, mentor-ing seemed to work better.

THE AUTHORS

Steve Mann is associate professor at the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the Uni-versity of Warwick. He has experience in Hong Kong, Japan, and Europe in bothEnglish language teaching and teacher development. He supervises a researchgroup of PhD students who are investigating teacher education and development.

Elaine Hau Hing Tang is a PhD student at the Centre for Applied Linguistics atthe University of Warwick. Her doctoral project is on the support for and develop-ment of novice English teachers. Before furthering her studies in England, sheworked in Hong Kong and mainland China as an English language teacher.

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APPENDIX ADATA SETS USED IN THE STUDY

Coredata

Interviews Audio recordings of interviews with participants (novice Englishteachers) (N = 24)Audio recordings of interviews with participants’ mentors (N = 3)End-of-year focus group with all participants (N = 1)

Documents Induction Tool Kit (ACTEQ, 2009)School-based induction documents

1. Guidelines on appraisal (N = 1)

2. Guidelines on lesson observations (N = 1)

3. Lesson observation forms (one filled and one blank; N = 2)

4. Teacher appraisal form (filled; N = 1)

5. School bulletin (N = 1)

6. Induction programme—timetable (N = 1)

7. Induction programme—year plan (N = 1)

8. Induction programme—daily responsibilities: interim andfinal reviews (filled; N = 1)

9. Induction programme—individual domains: interim and finalreviews (filled; N = 1)

Other data Research diariesTranscriptionsSchool visit (N = 4)Lesson observation field notes (N = 4)

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APPENDIX BTRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS

[ Overlapping utterances= A second utterance being latched immediately to the first utterance with no

overlap(.) Short untimed pause within an utterance (less than 0.2 of a second)(2.5) Timed pause (in seconds). These may occur within a turn or between turns((……)) Description of nonverbal elements in the conversation, e.g., ((points to teaching

materials))
