Manifestations of Directiveness and Collaboration in the Post-lesson Conversation between a Hungarian EFL Mentor and Trainee

A case study

Abstract

Teacher education has increasingly become interested in the relationship between mentors and trainees, especially in connection with the mentor’s directive or collaborative stance. Studies have focused on the more specific context of EFL mentoring in Hungary, but not using conversation analysis. This study uses some of the findings of conversation analysis and adopts these findings for the Hungarian EFL mentoring context in order to reveal the observable linguistic manifestations of collaboration and directiveness. The findings reveal a structure of the conversation the stages of which are initiated by the mentor, but the inherently directive stance of the mentor is mitigated with the help of linguistic tools. This paper closes by considering how the findings offer an example of the potential applications of conversation analysis to analyses of mentor-trainee talk.