Reciprocal peer mentoring in pre-service elt practicum in terms of teaching concerns and teacher efficacy beliefs

Practicum is a salient but largely neglected component of pre-service teacher education. It is critical to investigate possible challenges pre-service teachers encounter during practicum and to understand how these challenges affect their perceptions of self as a teacher. It is equally essential to examine possible contributions the other stakeholders of practicum including the cooperating teachers and supervisors can make to help pre-service teachers overcome negative impact(s) of these challenges and promote their confidence in their own professional knowledge and skills. Therefore, the aim of this study was to probe into pre-service ELT teachers' perceived teaching concerns and teacher efficacy beliefs and how implementation of reciprocal peer mentoring practice compared to traditional mentoring influenced their development of an effective teacher identity throughout practicum. To this end, the present study adopted the concurrent mixed methods design. The study collected data through an open-ended questionnaire, group/individual interviews, reflective journals and audio-records of peer conferences along with self-report scales. The study employed SPSS Version 23 and content analysis in order to analyze the data elicited through various data collection tools. The results of the study indicated significant differences within and between the study and comparison groups in terms of their teaching concerns and teacher efficacy beliefs prior to and following practicum. The present study concluded that compared to traditional mentoring, engagement in reciprocal mentoring practice reinforced pre-service ELT teachers' struggle for alleviating different types of teaching concerns while it prompted higher efficacy in various dimensions of teacher efficacy beliefs. The study also suggested that reciprocal peer mentoring might be a viable enhancement to the traditional mentoring model in order to foster benefits pre-service teachers can make from practicum. Finally, the study yielded several implications calling for a reconsideration of the traditional mentoring model currently used in pre-service ELT teacher education programs.