Teaching English in SyriaBack to Tefl World

When I think of my worst first day of teaching at a new school my only consolation is that it is unlikely that I’ll have a worse experience in the same situation.  A cohort of native English-speaking language teachers and myself had just arrived in a Gulf state at the beginning of the second semester to enhance the English teaching at high schools for boys throughout the country.  On the plane over I’d opened my Lonely Planet guide for the first time and read that my destination city was described as the most boring place on Earth – not a good start.  Then, on the inset day before the students returned, my British colleague had an anaphylactic shock after eating something we’d been promised didn’t contain nuts – he almost died. 

Have you considered working in the Middle East, particularly in the Arabian Gulf?  Adverts encouraging tourists to visit the area show images of amazing shopping centres, beautiful beaches lined with palm trees, four-wheel-drive vehicles hurtling up and down huge sand dunes, and usually someone with a falcon on his arm gazing over a spectacular desert sunset.  But what’s it really like?  Here we interview a British teacher, Dave, and ask him for his reflections on working in countries around the Gulf.