Mentoring in professional training of international students

Abstract

Introduction. Mentoring is one of the major instruments of international students’ adaptation to getting education in Russian universities. Finding out the attitude of international students to various forms of mentoring will help their professional growth. The object of the research is to find out the opinion of Turkman students about mentors and mentees and to define the main ways to ensure individualized psychological pedagogical support of international students in Russian universities. Materials and Methods. The total number of Turkman respondents of Ryazan State University named after S. A. Yesenin who took part in the survey was 55. Empirical methods included online opinion poll of international students with the help of cloud technologies (Google Forms), participant observation method, interview. Results of the Study. The data obtained show positive attitude of Turkman students towards mentoring. To wit, 41 survey participants (75 %) gave an answer that a mentor is a university lecturer or teacher sharing their knowledge and experience with their students and supervising the whole process of learning. 8 people (15 %) consider their groupmates to be mentors, which shows potential readiness of some Turkman students for budding. Over 50 % of those who took part in the poll believe that mentors must communicate with their relatives or official representatives as it ensures their feeling of security. 45 international students (82 %) said that there should be one mentor who will supervise them during the whole period of university education, with only 10 people (18 %) considering that mentors should be different at each stage of their professional growth and development. Mentoring serves the purpose of individualized professional training of international students. Conclusion. The results of the research can profit educators to work out the strategy of further development of various forms of mentoring (group, individual, virtual) while giving professional training to international students. Besides, they will help international graduates find gainful employment. Another application of the results obtained is doing graduation research work in the form of Startup.