Gamze Güven-Yalçın, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University
Stephanie Lea Howard, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University
Hatice Karaaslan, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University
Güven-Yalçın, G., Howard, S. L., & Karaaslan, H. (2019). Journey to the advisor within: Exploring challenge, transformation and evolution in advisor stories. Relay Journal, 2(2), 319-322. https://doi.org/10.37237/relay/020207
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In the Reflective Practice column of the third issue of the Relay Journal, Yamamoto (2019) remarked on the importance of creating a platform for advisors to voice their views, feelings, and experiences, and suggested a need for more reflective narratives to be posted from different social, historical, and cultural contexts in order to provide an intimate view inside advising sessions, thereby offering a better understanding of said advising practices. The aim was to create a forum where advisors could learn from each other, and ultimately, everyone could mutually benefit from the experiences shared. To further this innovative research into Advising in Language Learning (ALL), the initial experiment by language advsiors at Kanda has been replicated in a different setting with four learning advisors from Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Turkey. The design used by the advisors at Kanda, a narrative style adopted while telling the stories, has been expanded to include a visual message board to which 20 learning advisors have contributed with their short reflective captions on their advisor selves. Additionally, the theme used by the advisors at Kanda, “the most memorable advising experience of this academic year” has been altered in our case to avoid repetition and to allow reflection on different aspects of the advising experiences. Thus, our narratives and the visual message board will examine two different themes: (1) How has advising affected you? (2) How do you define yourself as an advisor? Four narratives have elaborated on the first theme of the influence of advising knowledge and practice on the individual advisors, and the visual message board includes 20 images with reflective captions on the second theme of defining advisor identities.
Similar to Yamamoto’s (2019) observation that despite each advisor following different methods while working with advisees, the primary principle of transformational advising—focusing on the learner through reflective dialogue—was skillfully applied, and personal perceptions of their advisor-selves were shared. In the current experiment, the narratives written in response to the first theme and the visual message board entries in response to the second theme above also evolve around advisee and advisor issues that give clues as to the multi-faceted nature of advising sessions, and diversity in advisors’ identity construction process.
Just like the rhetorical question often attributed to T. S. Eliot —“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?”—challenges are not to paralyze you, but to help you discover who you are. Similarly, challenges in an advising context are accepted as stimulants to deepen critical reflections, which foster the ability to creatively discover new values in the process of experiencing transformation. Learning advisors are well aware of the importance of sharing how they handle challenges when growing as advisors and transforming into expert advisors in order to mentor others.
Overcoming and learning from one’s advising challenges provides invaluable experience. As learning advisors gain experience and begin to mentor other advisor-trainees, they are perhapseven more aware of the profound importance evident in their own transformations. These transformations and personal evolutions are the hard-won results of a tremendous amount of growth, deep inner awareness, increased confidence, and trust in one’s self. Initially, learners and advisor-trainees (advisors as learners) may equate a transformation as the pinnacle of one’s learning. However, as Kato and Mynard (2016) state “When the learner experiences transformation, her mindset towards learning itself changes and language learning is no longer a single event but a meaningful and connected series of activities” (p.11). It is no surprise then that transformations often result in the realization that learning, for both the learner and the advisor, is a life-long process. The narratives written in response to the first theme by Gamze Güven-Yalçın, Hatice Karaaslan, Neslihan Atcan Altan, and Metin Esen provide deeply personal insights into the evolution undertaken when individuals are deeply affected by advising.
With respect to the second theme of learning advisors defining their advisor selves explored in the visual message board as part of this reflective column, twenty learning advisors have skillfully elaborated on their advisor identities with reference to their most prominent characteristics asreflected in their end-of-the-course thank you and appreciation cards designed by their trainers.This idea of giving cards each displaying an outstanding feature of individual trainees was first started by Satoko Kato and Jo Mynard during their training with the first group of learning advisor candidates from Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University in 2017. It was made into a tradition in the following year by the novice trainers Gamze Güven-Yalçın and Stephanie Lea Howard during their advisor education program in Turkey with a new group of learning advisor candidates from the same university. As such, the cards, presented alongside the course completion certificates, possess a sentimental value and motivate the advisors to engage in further reflection as to their advisor identities, providing input for the second theme of the column. To exploit sucha resource,the narrative style employed in the Reflective Practice Column has been expanded to include this visual message board where individual advisors could reflect on their advisor selves with reference to the features expressed in their cards, following a rather descriptive or explanatory style in their short captions accompanying their cards. This visual message board relates to and complements the preceding narratives written in response to the first theme in this series in that advisor identities, as described around the qualities emphasized in the symbolic cards, are formed through personal evolutions and transformations that are accomplished as a result of overcoming challenges. Thus, the contributors in this visual board—Hatice Karaaslan, Stephanie Lea Howard, Gamze Güven-Yalçın, Mümin Şen, Müge Akgedik, Ebru Sınar-Okutucu, Gökçe Arslan, Abdulkadir Güllü, Aslıhan Tuğçe Güler, Hülya Şen, Neslihan Atcan-Altan, Ayşe Çakır, Pelin Akıncı-Akkurt, Edin Omerovic, Fatima Rocchi-Whitehead, Metin Esen, Pınar Üstündağ-Algın, Gabor Kotik, Aslı Üstün, and Nurseven Kılıç—are grateful for being given the opportunity to voice their views, engage with learning advisors in other institutions and learn from them.
Notes on the Contributors
Gamze Güven-Yalçın is the Co-Coordinator of the Learning Advisory Program (LAP), an Advisor Educator and an EFL instructor at AYBU-SFL, Turkey. She holds her bachelor degree in English Language and Literature, a Live Online Trainor 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
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
Hatice Karaaslan, holding a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the Middle East Technical University, works as an EFL instructor and a Learning Advisor at AYBU-SFL, Turkey. Her interests include corpus linguistics, critical thinking, Advising in Language Learning and blended/flipped learning. hkaraaslan@ybu.edu.tr
References
Kato, S. & Mynard, J. (2016). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Yamamoto, K. (2019). Behind the scenes of an advising session: Weaving together learning advisors’ voices. Relay Journal, 2(1), 60-62.
Dear Gamze, Stephanie and Hatice,
Thank you very much for sharing your insights into how advisors can benefit from sharing their transformations and understandings of advising. I found your approach very intriguing and am happy to learn that so many of your advisors have taken an active role in sharing their experiences.
We at the University of Helsinki also find sharing counsellor experiences very important. We do not have visual message boards, but we have regular meetings where we “share and care”. Like you, we find sharing our transformations invaluable and agree that discussing these with an even wider audience will help both present and future advisors find their true potential in advising and counselling. Here at the University of Helsinki, Leena Karlsson has, both alone and with her colleagues, written extensively about counselling and the importance of sharing such experiences.
I also read about your idea of using appreciation cards with a lot of interest. To me, this sounds like a successful enterprise, and I would recommend continuing with the idea. Giving credit to ourselves and each other on what has been successful is something that should not be underestimated. Overcoming challenges and reflecting on advisor encounters is a crucial part of shared advisorship, and it is important to discuss ways how to overcome challenges in advising.
I wonder if you also take an interest in critical turning points in learners’ encounters with language, not only in advisor experiences? Fergal Bradley at the University of Helsinki has been researching such encounters, called mudes, a concept coined by researchers in Catalonia.
Another aspect of shared advisorship is collaborative writing. How did you experience the process of writing your text together? We at the University of Helsinki have a long tradition of collaborative writing, and at least I believe it is very rewarding to write together with colleagues. The joint writing effort inevitably evokes discussion, again leading to “sharing and caring”, one of the cornerstones of counselling at our university. I hope you continue researching advising in your context and am looking forward to reading more about it.
Best regards,
Satu von Boehm from the University of Helsinki