Mai‟s career stories showed that there was a lack of guidance and support from mentors. Mai was not able to learn about important information regarding the school. For example, in the middle of the first semester, she herself found out that there would be an inspection on teachers‟ port-folio, which caused her great concern:
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I am concerned about the inspection of a teacher‟s file, which consists of tons of books, the names of which I can‟t remember, let alone completing them. (E7)
However, what made her frustrated was that she got the information only by chance, through one of her colleagues:
But what makes me more upset is that nobody warns me about the inspection, which I know accidentally by a colleague of mine who asks me about it. (E7)
Mai reported she knew nothing about who her mentor was, let alone guidance and support from him/her, although she had little and vague information about that fact that there was financial support from the school for those who worked as mentors.
As she confessed:
Actually each probationary teacher has a mentor, whom I myself don‟t know (I guess my mentor is the head of the English subject). All other probationers in my school have the same problem. We don‟t know anything about this, we don‟t know who to ask and what to ask about! If there is a sudden inspection, we will certainly “die”. I don‟t know why we are left unattended while some teachers are asked to mentor us. (It seems that they have extra financial support in return for the mentor work they take up).
(E7)
Receiving no guidance, Mai knew nothing about important school rules and regulations. She became especially passive in getting to know how school operated:
This week I have found that I have been very ignorant because I don‟t know that I am supposed to conduct 15-minute tests three times and oral tests one time. Actually nobody has told me about this and I personally thought that there were only three marks with the same weighting of 1. I don‟t know why I don‟t ask other people. (E12)
More importantly, what she expected most from her mentor was feedback about her observed lessons. However, the mentor‟s feedback was something she had never received. As she complained:
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I have been waiting for feedback about my class observed by the teachers but nobody mentioned it. Hic. This happened to the first class of mine observed by the head of the English division. I thought she had been too busy. […] As an apprentice teacher, I would really like to hear feedback from my experienced colleagues. But in return there is hard-to-understand silence. I have been waiting for too long. (E26)
She then discovered that this was a common practice only in the English division, not in other divisions:
I asked a colleague which was two years older than me, and she said that that was normal for this division and that in other divisions feedback was given in time. I don‟t know why.[…] I am jealous with my colleagues that belong to the division of biology where the head of the division takes very good care of her. (E26)
The lesson she finally drew from the practice of her induction into the school was self-reliable, which became the topic of Entry 26 at the end of the school year as she looked back at the whole year and remarked: “Until now, I haven‟t received any professional help from my mentor.” (E26)
There is a question to make that why Mai did not ask her mentor about this. The reason lies in the power relation that she had in mind. She was absolutely a newcomer who had no idea of the „culture‟ of the school and the division. She did not know exactly who her mentor was, and she did not dare to ask the head of the division because she realized that this was a common thing in the English division.
Also, she admitted that “I‟m afraid to make a bad impression on my boss, which is obviously not good for me at this very beginning time and later on”. (I.2)