Mentoring practices and relationships during the EAL practicum in Australia: contrasting narratives

While new regimes of accreditation have sought to standardise the length of pre-service teachers’ professional experience placements across jurisdictions, the nature and quality of those placements continue to vary greatly from setting to setting. Research into generic mentoring situations has identified mentor-mentee relationships and the quality of feedback provided by school-based mentors as key factors mediating the experiences of pre-service teachers during their practicum. However, research into mentoring in particular disciplines is uneven. This chapter uses narrative-based case studies to investigate contrasting experiences of two secondary pre-service EAL teachers and theirmentor teachers during their practicums in Victoria, Australia. The study identifies particular mentoring practices and relational work evident during the pre-service teachers’ practicums and shows how these practices contributed to or hindered their professional learning and identity development during that practicum.