Dear EFL Blogging School Participants,
During the following weeks, you will have to meet your online mentors and accomplish together the tasks presented below:
To successfully initiate and maintain the collaboration with your mentor, please follow the hints and recommendations below:
1. Make the first meeting/connection with your Mentor through a short polite “hello-letter” e-mail;
2. Having exchanged the information about each other (professional issues, work experience, interests, hobbies) give a short note about your students(target group you are going to present to your Mentor);
3. Inquire about your Mentor’s schedule and yours to see how you can settle the on-line video classes;
4. Make a list of topics you can discuss with students and Mentor and decide together what is more relevant;
5. Draw out a plan of discussion (45 or 90 min class), make a list of subtopics, approximate questions for discussion;
6. Discuss with your Mentor the issues connected with your students: context of the event, language level, their experience (most probably they might have never had Skype or Google Hang-outs class and are awkward to talk in front of camera );
7. Prepare your students for the entire procedure and the upcoming event, make a try-video-class (some minutes to try how it works);
8. Inspire your students with the fact that they are going to communicate with a native speaker, with natural accent and life experience;
9. Get ready and prepare all the necessary equipment, be sure it is all working, try it before; have some other plan or additional activities in case something goes wrong;
10. Help your students to get through the topic they will discuss with your Mentor, prepare vocabulary, encourage them to ask questions, explain the benefits of such English class and possibility;
11. Be ready to help students understand or repeat some phrases that they will hear from your Mentor; sometimes the understanding and comprehension might be difficult in terms of audio and video connection;
12. Mind to make a debrief class after the on-line connection with your Mentor to see the students feedback, as well as to draw the important issues for the next session for both personal experience and your professional growth.
Examples of EFL Blogging Mentorship within the EFL Blogging School project, Edition 1,
2014-2015:
EFL Blogging School, Edition 1, Participants' Feedback:
Veronica Cazacu. S.Chetris, Falesti
"It was a pleasure for me to work with Tamara Sine as she was sociable, always ready to help. My students were beginners and we have tried to ask their opinion about our first class. I wrote a list of topics they were interested in and have sent it to Tamara. ………
What I liked most is the fact that Tamara decided to come and meet my students personally. So she had to take the bus at 4.00 a.m. from the South of Moldova and come to Falesti. I admire her for making this effort...you know, quite a long way!
When she arrived in Chetris, Falesti all my students were curious to see someone from the USA. The majority of them have never seen someone from another country. Try to imagine their happy faces!!! All curious and anxious to see what will happen
It was worth having a mentor!"
Natalia Rata, Drochia
"Here is a little from my experience of working with a mentor.
My experience as a Blogging School participant was an amazing one: I met new teachers all over our small Republic, I met excellent trainers and I had the possibility to work online with a mentor. My mentor was Amy Samuelson, an extraordinary woman, nice person, very kind and willing to help. Frankly speaking, I am a very sociable person when it comes to collaborate with my students, but it was a little bit challenging to connect a strange person and to find out something that we had in common. We found common points and interests very quickly and soon I could plan an online meeting with Amy and my class. Amy was very receptive and accepted any topic proposed by us. She was eager to speak online with us. Later on we had Voicethread projects and Amy commented all the projects posted by my students, being very objective. Unfortunately we did not have the possibility to have a real meeting with her, but my pupils and I really enjoyed collaborating with Amy."
More examples of EFL Blogging SchoolProject, Editon 1, 2014-2015 Mentorship Activites:
