The qualitative study in chapter 3 reveals the pre-service teacher participants’ expectations of a successful practicum and their awareness of both positive support and problems they experienced during their practicum. | INFORMATION MODELS OF MENTORING IN LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa New York: Springer, 2017 Do Thi Xuan Hoa* Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, VNU University of Languages and International Studies, Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam Mentoring in foreign language teacher education, be it official and organized programs or informal sharing and discussion with colleagues, has been widely recognized as a powerful means to assist pre-service and novice teachers in improving their teaching practice. Much as each teacher’s personal and anecdotal appreciation of this activity’s effectiveness, little about mentoring has been empirically researched and comprehensively presented. In fact, mentoring for foreign language teacher students and early-career teachers is still underexplored. Among available references, Models of Mentoring in Language Teacher Education (Nguyen, 2017) is the latest and most informative book that gives teacher educators, mentors and policy makers comprehensive literature about mentoring and research-based recommendations and guidelines to successful implementation of mentoring and peer mentoring within the Asian teaching context. 1 Tel.: 84-964863288 Email: * With ten chapters in total, the book appears as a complete work in the field of mentoring for EFL teachers in one Asian context. Chapters 1 and 2 discuss the overall situation of English language teacher training in Vietnam and theoretical background that underpins the use of mentoring in English language teacher training and retraining. A substantial part of chapter two is devoted to discussing theoretical frameworks for mentoring and peer mentoring with a clear focus on two major functions of a peer-based professional relationship including career-related functions (information sharing, career strategizing and job related feedback) and psychosocial functions (confirmation, emotional support, personal feedback and friendship). .
