Transformative Self-discovery: Reflections on the Affect of Becoming an Advisor

Stephanie Lea Howard, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey
Gamze Güven-Yalçın, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey
Hattice Karaaslan, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey
Neslihan Atcan Altan, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey
Metin Esen, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey

Howard, S. L., Güven-Yalçın, G., Karaaslan, H., Atcan Altan, N. & Esen, M. (2019). Transformative self-discovery: Reflections on the transformative journey of becoming an advisor. Relay Journal, 2(2) 323-332. https://doi.org/10.37237/relay/020208

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Introduction by Stephanie Lea Howard

Learning to become an advisor requires a lot of commitment and personal strength because as you learn to help others find their own problems, so do you, the advisor-trainee, discover your own problems and challenges. As your advisees experience moments of self-doubt and insecurity, so do you, often mirrored in the question, “Will I ever become a good advisor?” Good advisors persevere through their struggles and, like their own advisees, they soon learn to find the joy in the self-discovery process. Finally, they emerge from the learning process having been transformed. We call them ‘advisors’ but the significance runs far deeper. Whether by accident or by design, the process of becoming an advisor is almost a mirror-image of the process the advisee undergoes as they too learn to transform themselves(Kato & Mynard, 2016).  The new advisor has not only gained a deep understanding of themselves and how they overcame their struggles, they have also gained a deeper understanding of their advisees’ struggles. No longer abstract, the deep connections formed between advisor and advisee are now dynamic and almost tangible. The advisees may go on to graduate and leave school, but the new advisors remain, ever ready to advise and guide the incoming students in the next academic year.

In this paper, we will hear the personal stories of four advisors. The first two attended training courses led by Jo Mynard and Satoko Kato at KUIS while the remaining two were trained by Gamze and Stephanie at AYBU. All of the stories portray similar strong themes of evolution, transformation, growth, deep inner awareness, increased confidence and trust in one’s self as an advisor, and acknowleging that learning as an advisor is a life-long process. The stories offer a deeply touching insight into the power and beauty of the enriched transformations that every advisor-trainee hopes to experience and every advisor-trainer hopes to inspire. It is our hope that the sincerity in these stories will be equally inspiring to those who are just beginning their journey to become an advisor. Finally, we offer these stories so they can serve as a guiding light for those already on the path to advising. We want you to know that your own struggles are just temporary and that there is so much beauty waiting for you to discover. The strength is already within you; may you use the light of these four advisors to find your way to your own transformation. We hope you are as transformed by advising as these four authors are.  Thank you.

Kato, S. & Mynard, J. (2016). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

 

The Self-Perception of an Explorer

Gamze Güven-Yalçın

Learning is the essence of life and experiencing is an essential tool for learning. I have always been motivated by learning, especially if this helps me to explore a way to express my own-self. In this respect, guiding myself in the process of learning is important to me, as is researching any unique way to engage or interact with my inner-learner-self leading to what might be called, “Self-advising”. Seeing learning within this perspective helped me to connect with the idea of “advising” so swiftly and strongly that Icould not help but feel immersed within the field of advising from the start.

At first, I was fascinated by the idea of a learning advisor intentionally promoting deep reflective processes and mediating learning through the use of dialogue and other tools (Kato & Mynard, 2016). And it is the belief that reflection through dialogue can offer more opportunities for transformative learning, (which the process of self-reflection (alone) cannot easily reach) (Kato & Mynard, 2016) that inspired me more than any other way of personalised learning I had ever experienced and implemented before. Therefore, this became the unique medium where I found my-learner/teacher/explorer-self most moved and even completed.

With respect to my own transformative learning in the Advisor Education Training at Kanda University in 2017, engaging with not only our inspiring trainers, but also some experienced advisors in person helped me to learn from each of them and gain new perspectives. One new perspective was about the fundamental action of advising: asking questions. During the training whenever I raised a question, I was asked another question that helped me realise either an answer or a way to reach an answer. This made me realise that this advising training is not a training with a single source of information, nor is it a one-sided one. In addition,  initially it was surprising to find the answers somewhere nearby: either in an online lesson from the course, in the articles we were assigned to read, in my bedside book “Reflective Dialogue” (Kato & Mynard, 2016), or within any reflections of mine or my colleagues’.

Regarding asking questions, while reading about the impact of powerful questions, I had my strongest a-ha moment. Up to that point I thought that as a good advisor, in addition to listening to the learners actively, my sole target was to find the best and well-timed questions to ask to help them to realise their issue, but I was wrong. Reading my trainer’s reflection on asking powerful questions in Reflective Dialogue (Kato & Mynard, 2016, p.113), I realised that I needed to take risks and challenge the learners with my questions as an advisor. This would help them to become familiar with the process of my not “fixing” their problems, but instead guiding them to learn how to “ask questions” to themselves. Similarly, in a social constructivist approach, learners playing an active role in the learning process get to their own understanding of the content with the help of the facilitator (advisor in this context). By asking oneself questions, one is lead to “discuss, analyze, appreciate and verbalize the new knowledge” (Bhattacharjee, 2015, p.67), which ultimately is a form of self-discovery. This self-discovery – both asking questions and finding their solutions by one’s own self – is a/the key aspect of advising, and what I mean by self-advising. As an advisor, therefore, inspiring self-discovery and witnessing the paradigm shift in people’s ideas and eyes is one of the most valuable experiences in life as an Explorer.

Bhattacharjee, J. (2015). Constructivist Approach to Learning– An Effective Approach of Teaching Learning. International Research Journal of Interdisciplinary & Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJIMS). I (VI). 65-74. http://www.irjims.com

Kato, S. & Mynard, J. (2016). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

 

 The Importance of ‘Being Me’ + Enjoying Diversity

Hatice Karaaslan

“What if” questions are what I think one of the best tools to invite learners to the creative thinking process. Telling learners what you think is the issue and giving them solutions based on your own experiences might seem to be the most effective way to help learners develop. It could serve as a quick fix; however, it doesn’t necessarily promote transformation in learning. To experience the transformation, learners need to examine their current assumptions and challenge them.”

(from Satoko’s Self-Reflection on What If..? Questions, Kato & Mynard, 2016, p.121)

“A senior advisor told me about different ways in which learning advisors advised and it helped me see that all advisors approach it in different ways. I have since learned the importance of being me.”

(Lammons, in comments to Yamamoto, 2018)

As a novice learning advisor experimenting with different ideas and constantly monitoring my strategy and tool use, I get the chance to reflect on my before and after selves quite frequently, with a focus on how knowledge and practice of advising have influenced me. And certainly as a result of adopting such a perspective, I have become more aware of the importance of examining and challenging myself through well-placed and -timed questions and far more aware of the importance of being me. As I observe myself and my learning advisor colleagues, I see each one of us is becoming advisors in our own ways. This is where the substance in uniqueness resides. We are all unique individuals with our perspectives, beliefs, values, emotions, and skills, all embodied in our personal and professional contexts. Thus, I would also like to acknowledge the significance of such diversity, which is as enriching as the exploration into being me as an advisor. I see this is why training on Advising in Language Learning (ALL) requires occasional reflection-with-colleagues.

In a reflection session with one of my advisor colleagues, we mainly focused on the highlights from a session I had with a Syrian student who had issues with talking or taking part in class discussions due to concerns over making mistakes and becoming a victim of jokes or bullying. When my advisor colleague asked me about my preparations prior to the session, I explained how I had certain assumptions as to her life story being a Syrian refugee and possible challenges she might be encountering in a different country, probably in a relatively different education system. Although I partially knew her and knew that she wanted to talk to me about her future study plans, I still had some reservations regarding the root cause(s) of her issues. That’s why, I wanted to be quite flexible and had a set of tools that could be of use based on the flow of our dialogue. Similarly, I wanted to keep a small gift, a necklace, with me for her just in case we were able to achieve such a mood or tone and she could have something to refer to in the future, something to remind her of the strong feelings during the session and help her maintain her motivation.

My advisor colleague liked this idea of establishing a mental and emotional association between a gift/object and the accompanying inspirational talk. It is one thing to see that some idea you are testing with a student works in that specific context, and it is another thing to get confirmation as to your use of that idea in that specific context. It is relieving and empowering in that you have your beliefs and values regarding how to build and maintain rapport and manage emotions and your colleagues have another set against which you can test the strategies you are trying. This is where the substance in diversity resides.

Kato, S. & Mynard, J. (2016). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Yamamoto, K. (2018). The journey of ‘becoming’ a learning advisor: A reflection on my first-year experience. Relay Journal, 1(1), 108-112.

 

 From Detachment to Achieving Connection

Neslihan Atcan Altan

With 20 years of experience in teaching English as a second language from K-12 to university level, one’s success and failure rate sometimes go head to head, which was my situation. In the early years of my teaching, I was inexperienced, yet passionate, so I had a strong connection with my students, which made me feel content about my performance as a teacher. However, I lacked the insight and experience to detect their learning difficulties and failed to diagnose them properly when needed. Still, I believed that would change and I would become more efficient in helping my students. I did to some extent, yet not as much as I desired to. After 20 years, I was exhausted, mentally drained, and professionally frustrated.The frustration lay in the very reality of not being able to help almost half of the students with their learning problems. Repeating some very known and stale recipes seemed so fake and effortless. Having to do that with nothing else to offer irritated and disturbed my conscience. I felt like a failure, who saw some students also as failures and some not trying hard enough. Basically, I was making assumptions here and there, not only about the learners, but also about myself. Detached, cynical, and exhausted was how I felt about myself and lazy, disorganized, and lacking ambition was what I thought of my students.

This is where Advising in Language Learning (ALL) came in. I was desperate to have a change in my professional life to alter my routine, my “way” of doing things, which was apparently failing in so many aspects. Taking part in the ALL training gave me the perspective shift which I needed badly.

The first big realization I had (my a-ha moment) as the fact that I had stopped believing in myself and in my students. Having 70 students in a class wasn’t a good enough excuse to ignore how I stopped trying to help them when they specifically asked for it. Of course, the reason for this behavior was I didn’t know how to help any more. I knew giving advice wasn’t working, so I didn’t want to intervene with their process of learning or not learning other than with my formal teaching in class. However, when during our training program the revolutionary strategy of not ever giving advice was introduced to us, I was utterly speechless. Most of my assumptions about how to help a learner learn were gone out of the window and for all the right reasons.

The first time I stopped giving advice and asked a reflective question to one of my students who sought my help in a specific area of English during break time, I saw how the student’s face changed the way people’s do when they hear something unexpected. And my question initiated a self-reflection process in that student, which would soon allow him to become aware of who he was, not only as a language learner, but as a human. The old me would repeat my on-a-loop pieces of advice: “Watch movies, listen to podcasts, etc.” But I didn’t. I was aware that that person was seeking my help whether he really meant it or if he only wanted to have a conversation to leave a positive impact on me, or maybe he was feeling lonely. It didn’t matter. One way or another, he did ask for my help and thanks to my training I was able to offer it this time. And without this he might not have been able to find out the real reason(s) why he was having the same problem over and over again.

The power of reflective dialogue, powerful questions and many other strategies and tools allowed me to transform into a more constructive, positive, and intuitive person, both as a teacher and as a learning advisor. Sharing and bonding on one’s experiences of success, failure, and doubt with colleagues and trainers and giving feedback on the situations and/ or the sessions was another bonus of becoming an advisor/ teacher/ human as I started more and more to implement the three principles of advising: no judgements, no assumptions, and it’s not about me. Practicing empathy, a long-forgotten skill which makes us better humans, became more methodical and efficient as I learned what to do next with the learner other than just feel for them. Once I became an advisor, it also reflected well on my teaching and my students. A fresh and approachable attitude brought on by the principles of advising made me WANT to have a REAL connection with learners. Being an advisor reminded me of the fact that my students needed me and I should be there for them with a different methodology this time so that they become aware of who they are and embark upon their own journeys to becoming autonomous learners and individuals.

Having the privilege to accompany and observe a learner through their self-exploration and transformational journey is one of the best things that could happen to an advisor/ teacher as it goes both ways.  Transformation is mutual. Not each session or sessions with learners are happy stories, but they are all opportunities to better myself so that I can be there for the learners when and if they want to better themselves.

 

 Advising as a Trojan Horse: Breaching the Walls Made up of Language Learning Issues

Reflections on the Changes Experienced through Learning Advisory Program (LAP) Courses

Metin Esen

When we would like to talk about a journey in our life using an allegory, one of the best examples is The Odyssey by Homer, which is literally translated as “journey” into English. However, to narrate my own journey in advising, I would rather use another great epic by Homer, The Iliad. It does not necessarily narrate a journey, but mostly a siege, a trick, a breakthrough, and eventually a triumph. This is how the magic of advising worked for me, and turned The Iliad, translated as “a series of troubles”, into learning opportunities.

As language teachers, we welcome many students who seek our advice on various issues from vocabulary learning to which TV series to watch. With subtly good intentions, we reply to our students with the best answer we have, but the best answer we have might not always be the best answer that the student needs. In most cases, what students share as learning issues are their viewpoints towards English and learning, or clichéd judgements that a typical student in their positions would make. Sometimes, these viewpoints and judgements can be as tall and firm as the walls of Troy, and advising can be used as the Trojan horse to breach those walls during the siege of a one-on-one advising session. The trick is to genuinely listen, avoiding making personal judgements and giving direct advice; the students will let the Trojan horse in only if they find out the answer themselves, and switch their viewpoints towards the issue. What about the last symbol; the triumph? What better triumph can a language teacher yearn for other than a student with the utmost metacognitive awareness and a high level of autonomy? Yet the Greeks did not take Troy in one day; even legends do not work like that! My advising journey started with three LAP courses in the 2018-2019 academic year, and I will eagerly continue this journey in the coming semesters.

Since I was introduced to the basic tips and strategies of advising, the way I conduct conversations with other people has quite changed. I believe giving positive feedback and complimenting are definitely making me a better listener. When my students come to me to talk about a learning issue, it is always easy to sympathize and say, “Poor you, it must be really hard for you, I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes…” However, this is not empathy and not helpful at all. Instead, I now try to focus on the good side and remind students how powerful they are to struggle against those troubles or congratulate them on the distance they have made so far. Using powerful and especially reflective questions is another strategy that has totally changed my conversations with people. For example, when a student complains about difficulty of English at the preparatory school, I do not try to convince her to believe the opposite; instead, I tend to ask a thought-provoking question like: “If you were given the chance, would you rather restart at a university without English, which you might need to use in your career?” This kind of a question can help the student to decide if the problem stems from the difficulty of English or her/his own intrinsic motivation. My favourite strategy, however, is silence! I am not a very talkative person. This used to be a problem for me as I sometimes pushed myself too hard to fill the awkward silences in conversations, but advising has taught me that is totally natural.

Advising has also changed my written dialogue with my students. E-mails I wrote before meeting advising were highly directive. Some conversations were actually long exchanges of e-mails, but I realize that I never empathised and gave positive feedback, asked powerful and reflective questions, or built accountability. Me or the student, one of us came up with an action plan, but I didn’t ask the student how/when/where he/she was going to start, or never challenged the student in terms of the workload or the time frame. I think I simply assumed that once we are there with a super solid action plan, the student could magically sort out the rest, and this “super solid” action plan would magically yield productive results. However, now I realize that it is actually possible to control each phase of the written advice without being directive and judgemental.

Added to my academic and conversation skills, advising has also affected my personal traits in a positive way. I felt quite comfortable during my first solo advising session although anxiety is one of my personal traits and usually, during the first time of something as delicate as an advising session, I feel nervous, and anxiety causes me to lose control at some points.     However, I did not feel like I was in my first official advising session, and I had full control of the process listening and attending carefully. I was definitely surprised by how open the advisee was, and how she could easily speak out what was in her mind. Thinking back on the session, I would not change anything if I could repeat the process as I believe if I changed something, it would be a different idiosyncratic advising session. The possibilities of direction for the flow of conversation is unlimited, and I am sure there is a higher reason why we prefer to do things and avoid others.

If I am to turn back to my original allegory, advising is a great strategy to go beyond the walls of Troy, which represent learner issues in this case. Any interference using direct advice will just bounce from those firm walls, so what we language teachers need is a Trojan horse to open the gates from inside. The title Iliad might have a negative connotation, but Homer could not have composed two great epics without the disasters at the gates of Troy; this would be the positive feedback I would give as an adviser if Trojans were my advisees.

 

Notes on the contributors

Stephanie Lea Howard is the Co-Coordinator of the Learning Advising Program (LAP), an Advisor Educator and an EFL instructor at AYBU-SFL, Turkey.  She holds a BFA, TEFL 1-2, and Learning Advising Certificates.  Her interests include mindsets, perfectionism, gamification, Advising in Language Learning, Advisor Education, peer advisor education, and developing advising tools.  steffeee89@gmail.com

Gamze Guven Yalcin is the co-coordinator of the Learning Advisory Program (LAP), and advisor educator and an EFL instructor at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, SFL, Turkey. She holds her bachelor degree in English Language and Literature, a Live Online Trainer Certificate (LANCELOT) and Learning Advising Certificates. Her interests include Advising in Language Learning, Advisor Education, developing advising tools, and gamification in Language Learning. ggyalcin@ybu.edu.tr

Hatice  Karaaslan, holding  a  Ph.D. in Cognitive Science  from the Middle East Technical University, Turkey, works as  an English language  instructor and  a  learning  advisor at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt  University  School of Foreign  Languages. Her interests include corpus linguistics, critical thinking, advising in language learning and blended learning. hkaraaslan@ybu.edu.tr

Neslihan Atcan Altan is the coordinator of the Testing Unit for Departmental Courses and an EFL instructor at the School of Foreign Languages at AYBU. She holds an MA in English Literature and Cultural Studies at Cankaya University and Delta Module 2. Her interests include testing, LAP, movies, and Literature. nesliatcan@gmail.com 

Metin Esen is an instructor of English and a member of the Professional Development Unit at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, School of Foreign languages. He holds an M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction at Bilkent University. His interests are continuous professional development, teacher training, teacher induction and orientatin, advising in language learning, and technology in education. metinesen@ybu.edu.tr