In this paper, a closer look at mentoring in education is presented. The research sample was a team of eleven international teachers who were engaged in mentoring local teachers in a high school for gifted students in Kazakhstan. The purpose of the study was to explore the experiences of international teachers, as they relate their experiences of mentoring local teachers. The author sought the stories of the international mentor teachers and the meaning they placed on these experiences. Answers were sought to questions of how mentors defined mentoring, what they perceived as benefits of mentoring, and how they dealt with mentoring difficulties. Face to face semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from eleven volunteering international teachers. Seven categories of mentoring were found to be: Leading, guiding, modelling advising, and exposition; Supporting, challenging and suggesting, exploration and experimentation; Sharing, collaboration, Improving, passing on information; Coaching, change and improving, passing on information; Challenging and suggesting, exploration and experimentation; Sharing, collaboration; and Trouble-shooting. Benefits of mentoring were discussed under six categories: Dialogue and new ideas; self-awareness and motivation; emotional benefits; and professional improvement; mutual benefit; emotional betterment, modelling and emulation; and sharing, experimentation, dynamism. All mentors experienced difficulties in mentoring at some part in their employment. Mentoring pairs did something to resolve mentoring difficulties when they arose. The mentee holds the key to the success of the mentoring relationship.

In Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, international teachers, who were in mentorship positions were interviewed for their experiences with mentee resistance to mentoring. In this paper, the authors investigate aspects of the perception of resistance to mentoring in the program for long-service teachers. It is the aim of this paper to explore the definitions that mentors attach to resistance, based on their experiences in one NIS School. The questions to be answered were how the mentors defined mentoring, and how the mentors experienced resistance from their mentees. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face. The mentor responses were captured on a dictaphone, and transcribed later. Eleven teachers participated in the interviews. The definitions of mentoring resistance were examined in seven categories as hesitation, stagnation, body language, fear, unavailability, and mistrust of the mentor. Stagnation was the largest category, displayed by unwillingness to try new things, unwillingness to see own limitations, close mindedness, unwillingness to see own weakness, and passivity in action.