Teaching Through Tension: How English Teachers in the Gulf Are Navigating the Iran War

As missile alerts and military tensions ripple across the Persian Gulf, expatriate teachers working in international and dedicated language schools and departments in universities and colleges are finding themselves teaching through a crisis. For many English-language educators across the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, the ongoing conflict involving Iran has transformed both classroom conversations and everyday routines...

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The Mental Health of Language Teachers during and post Covid-19

Between 26 September and 18 October, I carried out a piece of research on the Mental Health of Language Teachers, with a focus on their experience during the outbreak of Covid-19 and lockdowns in many parts of the world. It also looked at ‘post Covid-19’ working environments and what the future had in store for language teaching. It was completed by 170 different respondents, using...

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Return from Wuhan: One teacher's experience of China's coronavirus outbreak

It all started between the lines of a happy New Year message from our coordinator. Something similar to what a mother would say to her kids going out dressed too lightly: “Cover up and be careful because there is a new flu around”. Nobody really took the news too seriously and we all carried on with the New Year celebration. The same happened in one of my WeChat groups; a local girl informed us about this “new virus” and recommended not to go near a fish market that was destined to become very famous. Nevertheless, a few minutes later the conversation changed...

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