Things you should know about mentoring

Good evening to my beloved toastmaster club members and guest. There are many mentors
in my life. Although most of them doesn’t declare themselves as one but they are actually one.
When I was young, our parents serve as a mentor, guide us in doing every little things in life.
When I entered school, our teacher serve as a mentor, guide us and inspire us in order to
excel in our studies. In toastmasters club, our senior members serve as a mentor to guide the
junior members in tailoring and delivering their speech. Everyone can be our mentor. If he or
she teach us or guide us doing something which is unfamiliar for us, then he or she will be
considered as a mentor.

Mentoring is a very good thing as it helps us to improve in doing something which we are
literally not good at it. I have come across with many mentors in my life, but there was one
which I dreaded the most. She was my lecturer during my time in college. Before I graduated
from college, I had undergone several teaching practice at school. I can still remember that
was my first teaching practice at a school in Kuching and she had been appointed as my
mentor. She is one of my lecturer, a Chinese woman in her 50’s, white haired, wearing a pair
of spectacles, with a stern look. When you are doing teaching practice, one of the thing that
you dread the most is when there is someone sitting behind, observing and evaluating your
whole teaching process. That was the first day of my teaching practice, I entered class without
making much preparation as I think I can handle it very well. Moreover, I deem that it is
impossible to have my mentor observe my teaching on the first day of teaching practice.
Anyways, I am just teaching year 3 kids, It will be a piece of cake for me. When I just about to
start my teaching, Suddenly, the door swung open, a “black figures” shown up, this time, not
a ghost, not a demon, not “other thing” as well, she is my mentor. Without utter any word, She
just gave me some gestures, instructing me to continue my lesson and ignore her presence.
Within the whole lesson, I didn’t have the courage to look at her in the face. I scared her face
expression will imply something that might affect my performance. After I finished my lesson,
she gave me a few gestures again, this time, she wanted me to see him after the lesson. I
quickly packed all the things, running while walking toward the library. I can’t wait for her
acclamation. From here, you can see that even though I didn’t prepare well, still, I have huge
confident in myself. I entered the library, sit in front of her and wait for her feedback. She broke
the silence by saying: “Julian, I want you to evaluate on your lesson today, tell me what you
think of your lesson. You can evaluate in terms of your strength and your weakness. I said: “I
think the lesson today is quite good and the learning objectives have achieved”. Without
waiting for me to complete my last sentence. Bappp!!! She interrupted me. She said: “To me,
this is the lousiest lesson I have ever seen, your mandarin is terrible, you are speaking
mandarin and giving order as if you are talking with a friend at “Pasar Malam”. Even I don’t
learn Chinese, I think I can still speak better than you. You should use formal language
because this is school. Control yourself. If you are caught again, I will definitely punch you in
the face. At that time, I was astonished. That was an awkward moment because that is a
language that I have spoken since I was young. I guess most of you know the feeling. The
main thing that I want to bring out from this real life story is that most of time we need someone
to tell us our weakness because sometime it is hard for us to identify our weakness by our
own. Other than guide us on aspect that we as a protégé want to improve, sometimes mentor
will also need to help us to target our weakness and let us to improve on our weakness.
Because sometimes, protégé don’t have any idea on which aspect they need to work on in
order to become a better speaker. For me, that is the importance of toastmaster mentoring.
Thanks