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.