Importance Of Active Mentoring

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Up till now, the paper has discussed areas that schools and teachers face in the local Hong Kong education system. It is important for the AT to be a successful mentor, there are of course many factors to consider when required to interact with the teachers to help support. In this part I would like to discuss the essential skills that a mentor is required to acquire.

Active listening
Being an active listener gives the opportunity for the mentee to tell their story. Pask & Joy (2007) explain that active listening includes listening for intention by ensuring that both mentor and mentee understand what it is that is being said. Therefore, clarifying, reflecting back, paraphrasing and summarising are key tools to the mentor’s toolbox. As …show more content…

How the mentee sees the process of the mentoring relationship is important. When a mentee views mentoring as a positive process, mentoring will be the most effective (Connor and Pokora, 2012). Mentors are often faced with difficult mentees but it is just as important to affirm the person as they are. Mentors may not agree with the mentee’s behaviours or views but Connor and Pokora (2012) suggests that mentors should aim to suspend their judgement and evaluations. For a positive rapport to be built, there needs to be an openness and sense of ease in the relationship (Wallace and Gravell, 2008). Personal chemistry plays a large part in the success of the mentoring process but compatibility is not necessarily all about have similar personalities or attitudes (Wallace and Gravell, 2008). A mentor with a different outlook and background may initially be challenging but can also result in a greater effect of learning from the mentee (Wallave and Gravell, 2008). However, mentors will generally have more experience and expertise than the mentee but without being the all powering, successful mentors can make use of their expertise and redirect it upon their mentee to help them generate their own solutions. Connor and Pokora (2012) summarises the differences on how a successful mentor can help the mentee bring out the

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