Finding a successful teacher identity: the role of the mentor-mentee relationship

This paper reports on part of an ongoing research study into the experience of pre-service trainee teachers of English as a foreign language in a large university in Hungary. In particular, it focuses on their relationships with their mentors during their short and long teaching practicums in public schools at the end of their six-year training. In the summer of 2023, 33 graduating trainees agreed to be interviewed online. An interview guide was used for the in-depth interviews and the transcriptions were analysed thematically to build descriptive categories. The key categories describe the trainees’ relationships with their mentors and how these relationships affected their view of themselves as teachers. The trainees’ ideas of what would make an ideal mentor are also discussed.