Teacher Induction Mentor Support for Beginning English Teachers: A Narrative Inquiry

Beginning high school English teachers encounter multiple challenges, due to the complexity of the English classroom. Like other new teachers, they are often overwhelmed with preparing day-to-day lessons for multiple preparations, large classes of diverse students, using new technologies, communicating with parents, and other school-related duties. New English teachers can have more pressure added to their jobs due to the reading and writing skills involved that flow into other subject matters (Hahs-Vaughn & Scherff, 2008). To ease the way, new teachers participate in California's Teacher Induction Program, which replaced the former Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) mentorship in 2016. The new program aims to guide and support beginning teachers while individualizing and streamlining the induction process (Sacramento County Office of Education [SCOE], 2016). Teacher Induction is a two-year district based program guided by state standards for new teachers to meet in order to obtain their clear teaching credential. This narrative study provides insight into the effectiveness of the new program. It explored how mentors in the new Teacher Induction model supported and established trusting relationships with beginning English teachers, in a low SES public high school in Los Angeles County. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with two new English teachers, their mentors, and one veteran teacher to elicit their individual journeys and create a unique narrative (Merriam, 2009). Results convey the mentors provided essential support to the new teachers. Themes that emerged included the importance of the mentor's role as a guide for induction and effective English instruction, honesty, stemming from trusting mentor-mentee relationships, classroom observations with constructive feedback, and on-going opportunities for questions, reflection, and discussion. Conclusions and implications for the district regarding the BTSA/Induction program, site administration, and directions for further research are discussed.