Learn to Teach &Teach to Learn:

Recruitment, Retention, & Professional development

Frank Lixing TangNew York University

Duarte M. SilvaStanford University

Wanli WuUniversity of Massachusetts

Mentoring in Schools:A Survey Study of

Twenty-one Chinese Language Teachers

Frank Lixing TangNew York University

The importance of induction and

mentoring

• Induction is a stage in a continuum of teacher development.

• Induction involves school district, school, and external networks.

• Mentoring is a useful component of induction, but only one element of a comprehensive induction system.

National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) 2005

Various Types of Induction Experiences

• Basic induction: Mentor from teacher’s own or another field + support communication from an administrator

• Basic induction + collaboration: Mentor from teacher’s own field + support from administrator + common planning time or regularly scheduled collaboration time with other teachers

• Basic induction + collaboration + participation in an external teacher network + reduced number of preps (course load) and being assigned of a teacher’s aide

Source: Induction into Learning Communities—A report prepared by National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 2005.

A study on mentoring of Chinese language

teachers

• Participants- 21 first & second year teachers teaching Chinese- 14 in public and 7 in private school- All are graduates or current

graduate students of NYU

• Data collection– Online questionnaire– Follow-up interview

• Preliminary findings

* The study is partially supported by a funding from Freeman Foundation

Descriptive Data

• Out of the 21 respondents, 14 teach in public school and 7 teach in private school.

• Out of the 14 in public schools, 9 have a mentor and 5 do not.

• Out of the 7 in private schools, 5 have a mentor and only 2 do not.

• The average of teaching load for those in public schools is 5 classes in their first year of teaching.

• The average of teaching load for those in private schools is 4 classes.

Conclusion

• 62% of Ch language teachers in public schools get a mentor vs. 71% in private schools.

• Teachers in public schools teach more classes than their counterparts in private schools.

• Teachers who have mentors find mentors helpful in many ways even though they are not that helpful in teaching Chinese.

Conclusion

• Not all mentors receive compensation or release time.

• Schools and school districts do not offer much PD related to the teaching of Chinese.

• Universities and professional associations play an important role in PD, but they do not offer day-to-day mentoring.

More data to be reported.

Thank you

frank.tang@nyu.edu