The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2022 - 15

In this relationship,
the mentee has the
opportunity to ask
questions, share
concerns, and observe
a more experienced
professional within a safe,
protected environment.
Through reflection and
collaboration between
the mentor-mentee pair
or group, the mentee
can become more selfconfident
and competent
in their integration
and application of the
knowledge and skills
gained in the mentorship
demonstrating best
practice. " 2
From this definition, we
can extract a number of
relevant features/aspects. A
mentoring relationship:
y Is Supportive: The
relationship is a positive
force/safe space in the life
of the mentee.
y Involves Sharing
Knowledge, Skills, and
Experience: This sharing
runs both ways (not just
from mentor to mentee!).
Effective communication
is fundamental to this
process.
y Involves Someone Seeking
Guidance: The mentee
has chosen to be in this
relationship because they
are seeking something.
y Involves a Person with
Expertise: The mentor is
someone who has relevant
experience/expertise that
the mentee can draw upon.
This implies the possibility
that a person might seek
out multiple mentors over
time for distinct purposes.
y Is Unique: Each mentoring
relationship is different
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and develops in a situated
(contextualized) fashion.
y Is an Opportunity for
Inquiry and Observation:
The mentee is enabled to
interact with the mentor
through observation
and conversation. The
relationship provides a
balance of challenge and
support within a context
that is both safe and allows
for learning and growth.
y Involves Development:
The mentee's competence
and confidence improve as
a result of the relationship.
As the description
above implies, mentoring
relationships can have
many functions, including
providing psychological
and emotional support, role
modeling, career guidance,
skill development, and
sponsoring/promoting the
mentee in professional
contexts.3
One of the
hallmarks of mentoring is
that it tends to be focused on
development. Another is that
it tends to be mentee-driven.
Why Mentor?
Mentoring someone isn't
just about sharing wisdom,
passing along expertise, or
supporting the development
of (future) colleagues.
Mentoring is also expected
to benefit the mentor.
Whether you're working
with a student, a new
professional, or a colleague,
the interactions you have
as a mentor will lead you to
reflect more critically and
deeply on your professional
practice. You'll also have
the opportunity to develop
your repertoire of skills
and knowledge relevant to
effective mentoring practice,
such as active listening,
interpersonal relations,
building trust, setting and
maintaining boundaries,
engaging in productive
feedback conversations, and
offering structured learning.
You may have heard of the
framework for understanding
skill development often
attributed to Martin
Broadwell4
, a management
trainer who theorized in
1969 that learners move
through four stages in
mastering a skill:
y Unconscious
Incompetence: The
individual is unaware of
how to do something and
of the value of the skill.
y Conscious Incompetence:
Although the individual
doesn't understand
or know how to do
something, they recognize
the deficit and the value of
the new skill in addressing
the deficit.
y Conscious Competence:
The individual
understands or knows
how to do something, but
demonstrating the skill or
knowledge still requires
concentration.
y Unconscious Competence:
The individual has
practiced a skill so much
that it becomes " second
nature " and can be
performed easily.
Some have also suggested
that a fifth stage exists,
in which one develops
what David Baume, an
independent international
higher education
researcher, evaluator, and
consultant, calls " reflective
competence. " This means
you're able to practice at the
unconscious competence
level while still remaining
critical and reflective of
what you do and how you
do it. This awareness will
allow you to recognize skill
deficiencies in others and
help them by passing on
what you've learned so that
they can eventually develop
unconscious competence.5
As a mentor, you'll have
an opportunity to progress
to this stage by intentionally
reflecting on how you work,
even if you don't actually
need to think about it to
carry it out successfully. By
doing so, mentoring may
help you move to a new level
in your own understanding
and practice of interpreting
and translation.
As an example from
Doug Bowen-Bailey's
experience, a mentee
recently asked him for
support on building English
vocabulary. Doug reflected
on his own journey in both
the ways he had incidental
exposure to English in a
variety of settings and
registers, as well as the
specific strategies he uses to
continue that learning. For
him, listening to podcasts is
an important tool to access
language use from English
speakers of different cultural
backgrounds and in different
genres. So, he suggested
various podcasts for this
newer interpreter to listen to
that include vocabulary items
situated within discourse.
This intentional reflection
both assists the newer
interpreter and supports
Doug in his continued growth
as a practitioner.
Preparing to Mentor
Although it may seem
simplistic to say, the first
step to becoming a mentor
is to make the conscious
American Translators Association 15
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The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2022

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