Content Motivation - Mentorship Learning Community 2021-22

Constant Motivation Teddy Ng

Mentees' Behaviour My Observation As a mentor, supporting mentees is my responsibility. Before I started my work, I have to understand what problems my mentees were facing in order to devise suitable mentoring plans for each and every one of them. From my observation, there were three types of persistent behaviour that most mentees exhibit. I had to suggest different types of support for each type of behaviour for each student.

1. Lack of Confidence Some mentees are truly afraid of doing something they are unfamiliar with. They usually do not participate in extra-curricular activities or respond to me in class. Lacking confidence may lead to a huge obstacle for their selfimprovement. For instance, one of my mentees L can interact with people like a normal student. But when she is asked to answer any questions in class, she refused to utter any answers. Clearly without a lot of effort and hard work, she will not be able to improve.

2. Lack of Targets Whenever I asked mentees to tell me about their goals or future careers, most of their initial answers would be "I don't know". It is true that without any life goals, they have no idea on what they should improve and how they could make such improvement. When they learn at school, of course, they feel bored and unmotivated. One of my mentees W always says that she does not have any hobbies and only likes to hang out with friends in her free time. They definitely need to find something they are enthusiastic about so that their life is more purposeful and meaningful.

3. Poor Attitude Towards Learning During lessons, some of my mentees always chat with others or do things which are not related to the class. When I do mentoring with them, they actually misunderstand the nature of studying at school. They think the knowledge they learn at school is not useful for their future life and career.

That's the reason why most of them refuse to learn. That may be why some students lose their interests in learning and choose to mess around during some "boring" lessons.

LACK OF CONFIDENCE To bolster their confidence, I start by asking them only yes/no question or encouraging them to guess difficult words from context.

This way, they only need to respond in short answers. From my observation, most of the mentees were more willing to speak and guess answers. Once the formidable barrier is removed, students make more attempts to engage in class and they will have more confidence in accepting more challenging learning tasks.

LACK OF TARGET I have been trying to introduce various activities to them. At the beginning, I held interest classes such as guitar class and game making workshop.

I have tried to enrich my mentees’ learning experience by engaging them to participate in different types of activities online. After my game making workshop, I have encouraged one of my more motivated mentees to take part in a scratch coding competition. It was not easy for my mentee but with constance guidance, support and encouragement, he managed to create his own game.

From this experience, I understand that the key to success for my mentoring would be to find something the mentees are keen on doing and walk with them through their journey.

POOR ATTITUDE For me, the hardest part when doing mentoring is when I encounter students of poor learning attitude. From my experience, some of them just do not care what you say so it is hard to even start a conversion with them, let alone, mentoring. My first step is to build rapport with them. To do this, I prefer to play games or sports with them. After establishing a relationship with them, they are more likely to listen to me when I talk about study.

CONSTANT MOTIVATION Mentoring may not cause an immediate effect.

Change happens over time.

"Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push into the right direction."

- John C. Crosby