Ok, well newts do not "mate" like mammals and reptiles or frogs or fish. First you need to know if you have a guy and a girl. Newts, also at only certain times of the year. If you just got your animals it's very unlikely that are already breeding or ready to breed having just gone through the horrors of the pet trade. Different newts breed in different ways so it would help if you told what type they were.
I assuming you have chinese firebellies? Well if you do, then unlike other types of newts they don't develop much fancy breeding adornments, other then the cloaca of the male (the cloaca is the slit between their back legs and is a hole for defecating, urinating and reproducing) swells and looks kind of "hairy". The cloaca is always larger than the female's but during breeding time this difference is much more obvious. The male will sniff the female alot and then violently fan his tail in her face. This is the only part of newt breeding which is obvious from a distance. Newt breeding does not involve copulation or spawning, rather the male deposits a packette of sperm after preparing the female to recieve it through tail fanning. The female recieves it and takes it in through her cloaca where the sperm is released to fertilise her eggs. She lays the eggs several days later. The female will get considerably larger before laying.
If you don't have chinese firebellies then it's not the same as what explained, though most newt breeding involves a spermatophore.
