TYPING PRACTICE PARAGRAPH 03
One aspect of teachers working lives rarely given consideration within educational research is that of social interaction with colleagues. While research focuses strongly on linking teaching practices to students learning outcomes, the social benefits of teacher collegiality for teachers themselves is often neglected. In this study, I examine teachers perceptions among professionals working at the TEFL department at the Lutheran University of Brazil ULBRA and the importance of social interaction for their professional lives. I argue for incorporating a social dimension into existing concepts of teacher collegiality and speculate that social interaction among colleagues may be beneficial in two ways. Firstly, social interaction may promote better working relationships, which, in the longer term, may improve the quality of teaching and learning. Secondly, positive social interaction may improve the emotional health of the staff community, thus reducing stress and burnout. This study discusses how the use of peer collaborative mentoring strategies can help to enhance the professional development of teachers in Universities. It describes a project where members of the peer mentoring group play the multi-faceted roles of problem definers, information gatherers, information sharers and knowledge creators. The overall goals and activities of the peer mentoring scheme are also discussed. Keywords peer mentoring professional interaction collegiality Introduction This study was rooted in my own professional experience acquired through contact with my peers who are University lecturers in Brazil, and also with my colleagues on the Masters of Education in English Language Teacher Development at the University College Plymouth St Mark and St John, in the UK. Through involvement with them, and through the significant influence that mentors have had on my career, I have become aware that teachers in different countries around the world are usually eager to learn about mentoring in teacher development and also likely to be willing to take more responsibility for their own professional growth, even though they sometimes lack information on how to do it. The purpose of this paper is to propose a peer collaborative mentoring programme which seeks to bring experienced English language teachers together periodically to discuss, share ideas and develop a mentoring programme to promote their own development as professionals. As a result, it is expected that, in turn, this group of tutors would develop their own mentoring skills to be able to train other mentors and support preservice teachers in their final year of preparation and subsequent careers as professionals in local schools. This programme is first intended to be implemented in Palmas, in the state of Tocantins, Brazil. In this article I discuss my working context and its relationships with the broader social, political and educational context in Tocantins. This paper aims to bring together a range of approaches to and ideas about peer collaborative mentoring in teacher development in a practical way. Social and educational context I work in the TEFL Department at the Lutheran University of Brazil ULBRA in Palmas, Tocantins. For many different reasons, the teaching reality is quite different from the ideal teaching and learning environment proposed by the PCNs Brazilian National Curriculum Parameters Ministerio da Educaçao, online. First of all, there are only five English tutors in the department for a group of 60 students doing internship in local public schools in their final year of course work and practicum. These five tutors also have to teach other subjects to 340 undergraduate students and typically would have a working load of 40 classroom hours per week. This number of teaching hours usually prevents tutors from devoting special attention to their trainees. As these are evening courses, a typical working day starts at 19:00. The tutors have to prepare material and activities to teach a group of 40 students for three and a half hours with a 20 minute break. Each group meets only once a week. The second reason for the gap between the ideal and the real teaching conditions is also a consequence of the amount of work. Tutors have a compulsory two hour weekly meeting to discuss their teaching problems and share ideas, but in fact what really happens in these meetings is that it is reduced the discussion of a long list of administrative topics provided by the coordinator. Virtually the only time available for tutors to share ideas is the 20 minute coffee break during their lessons. As expected, these sharing moments are very informal, unsystematic and insufficient because tutors hardly ever have the chance to meet all their colleagues at the same time. It is thus necessary to have conferences
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