The Future of Education

Teaching English at elementary schools in Colombia has become a challenge for teachers and school administrators, since these teachers are content area professionals with scarce or any knowledge about English language, or English teaching methodology, Instead, the teaching practicum process of pre-service teachers from the English teaching program at Universidad de Cordoba is taken as the basis of classroom instruction and the way schools cope with this difficulty. During this process Pre-service teachers gain teaching knowledge from in-service teacher’s experience but, at the same time, pre-service teachers contribute to help In-service teachers to improve their English level and teaching practice, playing the role of indirect mentors (Reverse Mentoring).

The purpose of this presentation is to share the results of a Case Study that aimed at exploring in what ways Reverse Mentoring Influences In-service teachers’ practice about teaching speaking to children and how their teaching of Speaking improves as a result of the process of Reverse Mentoring.  Besides, identifying the self-reported reasons of the influences of Reverse Mentoring on their beliefs and classroom practices.

This study was conducted in 2 elementary public schools in Monteria, Colombia with 2 In-service teachers and 2 Pre-service teachers from the English Language Teaching program from the University of Cordoba doing their first teaching practicum at these public institutions. The data collection procedures and instruments were questionnaires (BALLI inventory, Horwitz, 1998) interviews, class observations and stimulated recalls.

Results showed that reverse mentoring played an important role on transforming in-service teachers ´beliefs about difficulties on language learning, communicative strategies, motivation and expectations, foreign language aptitude and nature of language learning.  Moreover, improvements on some specifics of teaching such as approach to teaching, planning lessons, use of L1 and students ‘participation were also observed in current teachers ‘classroom practices.

Key words:  Pre-service/in-service teacher, reverse mentoring, beliefs