School Mentors and Iranian EFL Student Teacher's Expectations during Practicum Experiences

Teacher education is a very challenging and an interesting process, which has different stages and components. Mentorship is a crucial element in all teacher education stages, because student teachers’ professional identity and their future performance in real classrooms to a large degree, depend on the mentors’ feedbacks and supportive behavior during practicum phase. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the quality of support and feedback provided on part of Iranian mentors during the practicum experience. The focus of the study was on the needs and expectations of Iranian EFL student teachers from their school mentors’ feedback and supportive decisions in the chaotic practicum period. The participants of the study were 18 Iranian EFL student teachers from a teacher-training center in Esfahan, Iran. To collect data, both qualitative and quantitative tools were used. Considering the quality of mentor feedback and supportive behavior, a high degree of satisfaction was reported among the cases, meeting their wants and expectations in a very substantial manner. As a result, the main strong points of mentors’ feedback behaviors refer to supportive, affective and confident domains in mentees while the weak points emphasized the need for more details regarding feedback as well as more supportive behaviors. The findings of the study revealed some hidden gaps between the quality of mentors’ feedback and the mentees needs, wants and expectations during the practicum stage.