ESL teachers’ perceptions of good mentoring practice in Senegal: An indigenous, postcolonial, and sociocultural analysis

Gueye, Mor

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Description

Title

ESL teachers’ perceptions of good mentoring practice in Senegal: An indigenous, postcolonial, and sociocultural analysis

Author(s)

Gueye, Mor

Issue Date

2020-12-02

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Parsons, Marilyn

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Parsons, Marilyn

Committee Member(s)

• Davila, Liv T
• Higgins , Christopher
• Barro, Maimouna

Department of Study

Curriculum and Instruction

Discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• teacher mentoring
• language teacher education
• teaching English
• Senegal
• ESL/EFL
• indigenous framework
• sociocultural perspectives to teacher education

Abstract

The focus of this dissertation is an analysis of how two pre-service mentor teachers described and practiced good mentoring. The mentor teachers were associated with the English language teacher education program at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal. The findings suggest that good mentoring practice required a complex set of skills and knowledge. The mentors’ emotional intelligence was significant to how they provided valuable support to mentees. They adopted a holistic approach to good mentoring drawn from indigenous knowledge and professional experiences related to the complexity of practice and the developmental process of becoming a good practitioner. The data were collected from two mentor teachers–Talla and Anne Marie. There are five sections to describe this research. The first one is a discussion of Talla’s perceptions of good mentoring practice using a metaphor he initiated. In the second section, I describe Anne Marie’s view of mentoring as a form of collaboration based on justice, compassion, leadership, and a process of negotiation. The third section presents the importance of interconnectedness and Talla’s developmental approach to mentoring. The fourth theme draws from Anne Marie’s case and addresses her view of mentoring as an example of professional ethics. The fifth theme draws from both cases and discusses their assessment of the lack of collaboration with the FASTEF teacher education program. To interpret my findings, I used three perspectives—indigenous, postcolonial, and sociocultural theories. From these perspectives, I argue that the teachers’ holistic approach to mentoring reflected principles of indigeneity; postcolonial writings provided a critical perspective related to teaching English in a postcolonial educational setting; and sociocultural theories provided a way to interpret the cultural, linguistic, and spiritual influences on the mentor teachers’ perspectives of good mentoring.

Graduation Semester

2020-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

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Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2020 Mor Gueye

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