Continuing Professional Development (Cpd): How in-Service Efl Teachers See Mentoring as a Relevant Technique

Mentoring has been widely applied to professional development practices in many areas, including education. In Indonesia, mentoring has not been implemented as a way of collaborative CPD for EFL teachers. In the United Kingdom, for instance, mentoring has become one of the required ways for teachers to learn from each other and support other teachers. By using a qualitative exploratory study, teachers’ views toward mentoring as a relevant technique to in-service EFL teachers will be explored. The data was collected by using a semi-structured interview to investigate in-service EFL teachers. The findings showed different participants’ views on mentoring as a relevant technique to in-service EFL teachers’ CPD. Most of the teachers found that mentoring would benefit experienced teachers to refresh and update their practices, as well as support novice teachers. It is also found that mentoring could give mutual benefits for EFL teachers who teach in different institutions and places. However, this study found that mentoring at the same time has some limitations related to the need for professional teachers to become mentors. Moreover, teachers are already busy with teaching and administrative stuff. Thus, some recommendations related to further study for the implementation of mentoring as a relevant technique to in-service EFL teachers’ CPD are presented.