The fifth guest of our series is Sevde Yüksel, a new colleague of ours, and one of the previous year's mentees. It's a pleasure for us to publish her well-written comments on her experience regarding the mentoring system:
I believe the mentoring system should certainly go on as “genuine help” is one of the urgent needs that a new instructor really needs especially in the first weeks of the term. It really helps these instructors to survive in their new working environment. Before the term started, I was quite worried about what to do and how to overcome the difficulties I’d have especially about the procedures of the institution. However, from the first day of the term on, I’d felt quite lucky to be a mentee who had genuinely helpful mentors around her. That new status didn’t affect my daily routines. Actually, since I didn’t have any worries about what to do, I was not under pressure, so it made my daily life easier. Moreover, it really helps new instructors feel “safe” while teaching in addition to adapting to the new atmosphere. Seeing the satisfacton at the end, I really want to take part in this program in the following years to be helpful to my new colleagues who are really in need of support as I can easily put myself into their shoes and try hard to help them deal with these depending on the experiences I’ve had. I also feel quite lucky to have been involved in that kind of a system, which “inspired” me a lot, seeing that each and every day I learned something new and I’d go on learning more and more thanks to the support I got from my trainer, my mentors, and my colleagues/the other mentees.
After going through this tiring but extremely beneficial program, I firmly believe that each and every institution should have that kind of a program to help the newly-recruitted teachers to learn about the dynamics of the new instution and effective ways of teaching different skills keeping the student profile and materials used in mind. Especially if a sincere atmosphere is created from the very beginning of the program as in ours, cooperation and collaboration among colleagues with the traner’s guidance and the staffroom and classroom mentors’ constant support can teach and assist a new teacher a lot, which can be clearly realized at the end of the program as I do right now. Thanks a lot for this inspiring atmosphere, fruitful meetings, and constant support. I hope I can also be a member of this program when I am equipped enough with the necessary skills to be able to achieve it.
Actually, our mentoring system does not have disadvantages, but it can be more effective if mentors and their mentees are ‘perfect’ matches, if the mentoring system is established on ‘voluntary’ basis, and there are not so many ‘strict’ procedures to follow as both mentors and mentees have a stressful and tiring program to deal with.
We'd like to thank Sevde for her notes. More to come soon - keep following us!
I believe the mentoring system should certainly go on as “genuine help” is one of the urgent needs that a new instructor really needs especially in the first weeks of the term. It really helps these instructors to survive in their new working environment. Before the term started, I was quite worried about what to do and how to overcome the difficulties I’d have especially about the procedures of the institution. However, from the first day of the term on, I’d felt quite lucky to be a mentee who had genuinely helpful mentors around her. That new status didn’t affect my daily routines. Actually, since I didn’t have any worries about what to do, I was not under pressure, so it made my daily life easier. Moreover, it really helps new instructors feel “safe” while teaching in addition to adapting to the new atmosphere. Seeing the satisfacton at the end, I really want to take part in this program in the following years to be helpful to my new colleagues who are really in need of support as I can easily put myself into their shoes and try hard to help them deal with these depending on the experiences I’ve had. I also feel quite lucky to have been involved in that kind of a system, which “inspired” me a lot, seeing that each and every day I learned something new and I’d go on learning more and more thanks to the support I got from my trainer, my mentors, and my colleagues/the other mentees.
After going through this tiring but extremely beneficial program, I firmly believe that each and every institution should have that kind of a program to help the newly-recruitted teachers to learn about the dynamics of the new instution and effective ways of teaching different skills keeping the student profile and materials used in mind. Especially if a sincere atmosphere is created from the very beginning of the program as in ours, cooperation and collaboration among colleagues with the traner’s guidance and the staffroom and classroom mentors’ constant support can teach and assist a new teacher a lot, which can be clearly realized at the end of the program as I do right now. Thanks a lot for this inspiring atmosphere, fruitful meetings, and constant support. I hope I can also be a member of this program when I am equipped enough with the necessary skills to be able to achieve it.
Actually, our mentoring system does not have disadvantages, but it can be more effective if mentors and their mentees are ‘perfect’ matches, if the mentoring system is established on ‘voluntary’ basis, and there are not so many ‘strict’ procedures to follow as both mentors and mentees have a stressful and tiring program to deal with.
We'd like to thank Sevde for her notes. More to come soon - keep following us!
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