The dark side of mentoring on pre-service language teachers' identity formation

This research explores the identity construction of two pre-service language teachers through their interactions with school mentors and university supervisors during their teaching practicum. Informed by self-discrepancy theory and possible-selves theory, the findings demonstrate how negative mentoring dismantled the student teachers' ideal identities (e.g., a communicative teacher and an active learner) and created different ought (e.g., a follower) and feared (e.g., a controlling teacher) identities, which impinged on their professional learning and growth. This study concludes with practical implications on how to promote the effectiveness of mentoring to facilitate pre-service teachers' learning to teach. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.