The Final Trip... the return home. Part 1.

The Final Trip - the return home.

Departure

With the contract finishing in the UAE Joy and I, along with our colleagues, began to pack up and ship our furniture and possessions home. Joy got really enthusiastic so that every time I came home there would be more and more of our stuff bubble wrapped and stacked ready for the packers to box up and ship off back to NZ.

While Joy & I were preparing to return home several of our friends got enthusiastic over a contract as advisors in Khasakstan. The initial contract was to be four months with possibilities of extension for two to three years which was very attractive to those who applied and were accepted. Now, once they're back home, the contracts appear to have been held up, altered and somewhat vague and the initial four month time cut back to three months. For us the process of settling back home has begun as we wait for the tenants to move out and we can redecorate the place before moving our furniture back in.

Anyway, before coming home Joy and I decided that we should take the opportunity to do a tour of Eire, England and northern Italy as a sort of swan song to our Middle East experiences. There were good reasons for the tour, apart from the tourist thing, as I wanted to add more information to the Bates side of our genealogy as well as building up a file of family photographs that would illustrate the Irish side of the history.

With all our worldly goods dispatched to New Zealand we were basically camping in our apartment until the last day of the contract so quitting Abu Dhabi was easy. We simply closed the door, left the key for Cognition to access the flat and headed off to Dubai for the evening to be ready for a 3.00am start and the flight to Dublin.

We had booked a room in an hotel close to shops, restaurants and the airportso we wouldn't have too many hassles for our early morning start. Unfortunately, we had booked into The Royal Falcon Hotel which looked OK from the website and had had reasonable reviews on the booking site but now had started the decline towards an inevitable restructuring and possible disappearance. ( The link gives reviews from Trip Advisor which weren't on the booking site for obvious reasons.) On arrival we discovered that our room wasn't ready but a temporary room was available as a transit until "our room" woud be ready. Fat chance!!

Despite several requests and promises of a better room than Room 210 with its solid hard wood mattress nothing happened. Joy and I decided to make the best of it - after all we were leaving at 3.00am the next day - so we went looking for a meal at the restaurant advertised on the hotel website and reception board only to be told that it had been transformed into a Bollywood nightclub and no longer served meals. We weren't told that it was directly below room 210 and would begin its throbbing at 9.00pm and would not stop its beating until 3.00am.

A later review of the hotel we read on Trip Advisor said:
"The Royal Falcon Hotel is a two star Dubai Hotel which has obviously seen better days in the Dubai sun. The Restaurant no longer trades, except as room service, and appears to have been converted to a Bollywood nightclub.
Why anyone would choose to stay here would be a decision based on a masochistic desire to be deprived of sleep on a bed as solid as a bed of marble while being subject to torture by cacophony of what passes for music from the nightclub on the mezzanine floor.
The nightclub throb and crash began at 9.00 pm and ended in a crash of cymbals at 3.00am with crescendos of desperate drumming every hour between which, if one has an early morning flight and wants a modicum of sleep before heading to the airport, doesn't make for a restful night.
The plumbing in the bathroom was a prime example of botching to ensure the pipes remained in place and smelt as well and the room lacked any accessible electrical plugs to recharge phones and computers.
The only advantage to a traveller is that it is on the metro green- red lines to the airport and across the road from the Reef Shopping Mall otherwise avoid this hotel. There are better and more comfortable two star hotels in the area." 

 Needless to say we won't ever be booking into the Royal Falcon again!!!

 Still shaking from our experience Joy and I quit the hotel, found a taxi and headed for the airport where we could find breakfast and some quiet before our flight to Dublin.

EIRE & ENGLAND:

 When Joy and I first went to Ireland, 15 years ago, the days were overcast and distinctly damp, at least that's what our photographs of the trip show. This trip was at the height of the Northern Hemisphere summer so we expected to experience some sunshine. However, the adage that while the Bible called 40 days and nights of rain a disaster the Northern Hemisphere merely shrugs and declares it to be a summer shower proved to be true. Although we did discover that there could be sunny spells breaking out in occasional protests.

We had booked into a B&B in central Dublin for three nights which allowed us to explore the city and discover a bit more of Ireland's history. 

James Joyce statue

The B&B was well run and very comfortable and in walking distance to the central city and good local pubs. I was able to visit the places mentioned in my favourite high school reading - "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and "The Dubliners" as the James Joyce museum was just around the corner.

 
We discovered the National Museum of Ireland and spent a morning exploring Ireland's past - from the neolithic bog people, the Druids and Celts through to the invasions of the Vikings and, later, the English. 

The displays allowed us to see many of the objects I had only seen in old black & white textbook photographs. 

Preserved bog man -

Gold Torcs

Gold Votive boat

The Dublina museum also had recreations of life under the Vikings and English. This re-enactor Silversmith gave us a very personal account of how coins and silver were worked in Viking Dublin.

From the museums we headed for Trinity College to see The Book of Kells and the Long Room of the Library. Here we joined a queue to enter the Library and the display explaining the illustrations and relevance of the texts. The queue stood and chatted quietly as it drifted towards the doors apart from a trio of American women who involved the courtyard in their conversation. 

They informed the queue that they were all school teachers and that the main talker was a history specialist. Her specialist subject being English history. She expounded loudly on her qualifications and knowledge about England and Ireland to her companions and how this trip was giving her he chance to see all the places and events she taught back in "Kansas." 

In the Library shop, waiting for the tickets for the exhibition, there was a video clip being played showing Queen Elizabeth shaking hands with Martin McGuiness in an act of reconciliation between England and Eire. Immediately on seeing this the loud English history specialist turned her companions declared to all who could hear her: "Look, look, there's Queen Victoria on her diamond jubilee celebrating with her visits to parts of the United Kingdom!" 

Her companions nodded sagely and opined that that Victoria's jubilee was a great event for them to witness.  I was a trifle slow on the uptake - as I said to Joy later - I should've turned to the voice and asked, ever so politely, if that lovely President, Mr Abraham Lincoln was still taking an active role in the promoting equality in the Union and helping the Confederacy come to terms with the world? But then I doubt if any of the women would have understood irony.

We realised this when we told the story to friends we were told of an exchange that took place when they were visiting Stonehenge in which an American tourist proclaimed that  "Stonehenge was impressive but it definitely couldn't match Disneyland." Later the impression was given greater support when , while at the Bushmill's distillery, we were accosted by an irate elderly American who had just visited the Giant's Causeway and couldn't see any reason why the tour company had taken them all to see a bunch of rocks.

While in Dublin we met up with relations, Roy and Inez Cooper, and began to add more detail to the Bates Family tree.

 

Final Days in Abu Dhabi

The End of the Middle East Adventure.

What was originally going to be a seven month adventure in Qatar at the end of 2008 has ended up with us completing our work in Abu Dhabi on the 12th July 2012.

During this time I worked in two schools in Qatar, in a Teachers Training Centre in Oman and in a Boys Preparatory school in Abu Dhabi while Joy immersed herself with her painting, producing musical shows for the Qatar end of year dinners and “mall trawling” with, initially, The Doha Darlings and, in Abu Dhabi, with her friend from Doha, Priscilla Ellis.

Now Joy has been busy packing, bubble wrapping everything, including me, as we prepare to exit the UAE and return to New Zealand carrying with us souvenirs, photographs, friendships and many memories of an adventure we have no regrets embarking on.

Mind you , returning to New Zealand and rain, wind, earthquakes and temperatures in single digits is not something to contemplate with pleasure!

Immediate Plans:

Joy and I leave Abu Dhabi on the 13th July to head off on a tour of Eire, England and Northern Italy that will bring us back to Abu Dhabi around the 13th August and then the long haul home.

Our Eire and UK trip will take us to visit the Irish relatives and give me a chance to add more information on the Bates family tree, perhaps answer questions about personal names, gather photographs of ancestors and present relations and the places, villages and towns Mum’s family came from so, when we are back in New Zealand, and the Bates family meets for a reunion in January next year we can share memories, information and add to our shared histories. I’m praying that I’ll get fewer rain greyed photographs of places than I did 15 years ago when Joy and I last visited Ireland.

The Tuscany trip should, with luck, give Joy the chance to collect a file of photographs that will provide inspiration for her painting once we’re resettled at home. I can already see that I’ll be kept busy at every stop on our tour as we pass from one photogenic village to the next.

Reviewing the past 18 months in Abu Dhabi

The Team 2011-12.

Colin, Saeed, Self, Shane, Lynne, Dave, Gavin

I have spent the lat 18 months working with the teachers of English in a Boys Preparatory school in central Abu Dhabi guiding them through the demands of the Australian English curriculum as adapted to the UAE.

The entrance to the school

The first six months were with nine teachers who had already gone through one trial with an American provider, using an American scheme and syllabus, only to be told that the American trial was over and they were to revert to the old MoE curriculum then, a trimester or so into the year, to change to the new adapted Australian curriculum. Needless to say there was some opposition to the arrival of a new team of advisors coming into the school to demonstrate and advise on yet another curriculum change.

Once we got over the teething troubles we got down to work attempting to develop an understanding of the pedagogy behind the curriculum, design unit and lesson plans around the very limited resources available in the school, create assessment tasks that were both understandable to the teachers and able to be completed by the students and also resource the Inquiry Based Learning modules that make up over 80% of the course. This would not be a major task in a NZ or Australian English Department as one could easily draw on readily accessible resource banks and a ready supply of reading texts that would support the thematic units of work supported by colleagues who have a good idea about Unit and Lesson planning that addresses both the needs of the students and directs the learning according to the demands of the curriculum. However, here it was not so easy  as the resource base at the school was non-existent, the data on student readiness to cope with the curriculum was sketchy, coloured by teacher beliefs and often artificially inflated to meet parental expectations of continuous success. Add in the limited experience with inquiry based learning - summed up in the often heard statement from teachers “ I know what a research is.” - and a paucity of familiarity with rubric based assessment processes and one can see that our advisory role was to be an on going challenge.

We spent much of the first six months coming to terms with the curriculum and attempting to build up a basic resource base on which to build the unit and lesson plans only to lose six of the teachers at the end of the year as the Education Council moved its supply of English speaking Arab teachers from the secondary schools into the preparatory schools as they replaced the Arab teachers with native English speakers imported from the USA, UK, Australasia, South Africa and Canada.

So this academic year started with four new teachers appearing in the English Department, all from the secondary schools and with different levels of understanding of the curriculum. It was not quite start again but it did mean that much of the first trimester was one of reviewing where teachers were in terms of understanding and, because I had, over the last half of the last trimester, reworked the curriculum to provide a clear school syllabus reworking the the few resources we had access to into reasonable units of work.

This exercise was going well until I realised that one of the teachers, whose name translated to Mr. Right, had not understood the work we’d been doing or that there actually was a curriculum that he had to engage with and prepare units and lessons to address. Every time I tried working with him, tried to explain the terminology and the pedagogy that the curriculum demanded of him he began to cry and then revert to screaming that he knew how to teach but he couldn’t teach unless he was given a proper curriculum textbook .  His final attempt to dodge any PD, to dodge out of coping with the curriculum changes and planning, which resulted in him being given a severe dressing down by the Principal, was to refuse to teach his classes if I was observing and advising in his classroom. 

The other teachers (the English translations of their names being ) , Mr’s: Winner, Selected, Builder, Double Maturity, Algebra, Opening, in the department shrugged and got on with the jobs of preparation and making do with limited resources as they worked their way to coming to solid grips with the curriculum. An attitude for which I was eternally grateful for they would be the ones who would ensure that all our work was going to be sustained and developed once we headed for different jobs in different parts of the world at the end of the contract.

After my experiences in Qatar where we succeeded in developing and cementing in inter school debating and using class newspapers / magazines as part of the English language development programme in the school I was working in I embarked on a programme, aided by Mr Jabr, that would demonstrate to the teachers that the boys were capable of doing a lot more than they were often given credit for so we set up an English Club which was able to produce a school newspaper each trimester, engage in an inter-school debate and finally write, produce and edit a 10 minute film on how to succeed at school.

The film makers in action

When I look over the  records of the newspapers, the debates and the film and compare the work with that I’d seen at home from Years 9 & 10 the boys exceeded themselves as their work was of high quality in presentation and language use. Our plan, using Mr Mustaffa's contacts in a neighbouring school to run another debate got stymed when the dates of the external exams got moved forward by a little over a week thus cutting down the time for preparation, organisation and delivery during the trimester to an impossible time frame. 

The hope is that the boys will take their experiences on to the next grade level at the school or will take their skills to the secondary school and, in both cases, persuade their teachers that they can use them in the classroom and, perhaps, the teacher will plan for and include the skills in their lessons and thus develop their language acquisition.

At the Grade 6 level we introduced a guided reading programme based on the New Zealand produced Rainbow Readers which proved to be just as interesting as the Newspapers, debating and film making programmes as the boys responded with the sort of enthusiasm I see and hear regularly from our grandchildren whose exposure to books and reading for pleasure is well developed. My argument for the introduction of the programme was based on a conversation I had had with a young Omani who had proudly informed me that she was “reading English” but who, on being asked what book, story, novel, was she reading looked blankly at me and then simply replied that she was “reading the grammar textbook.” She was surprised to discover that there was more to reading than simply “reading” the textbook and that she could improve her knowledge of English and get some pleasure from it.

There is, I think, nothing more pleasurable than going into a classroom to be greeted with a chorus of “Are we reading today
 Mr Alan? “ and then having a queue of boys, with varying degrees of reading confidence, all waiting to have their turn to read a page or two of their book to the class.

For their teacher, Mr. Ammar, the reaction to the reading programme was evidence that the boys would read and could read. That what was needed was a greater supply of reading material in the classrooms and, ultimately, the exposure to reading benefitted the boys in their acquisition of English as a means of communication and not just a language whose rules needed to be learnt as an exercise.

As well one feels rewarded when a teacher from Qatar emails and says:

 How are you Mr.Alan? i hope you are fine . Thank very much for the treasure you sent me from Radio New Zeland . I downloaded some stories especially the Mountain who wanted to live in a house.It is fantastic. I will make use of all of them in the next school year. I'm travelling to Egypt on 18th July and I will be back on 2nd Sept as the school year for teachers starts on 5 th Sept and on 9th for students. I'm looking forward to drinking more of your knowledge and experience river.
It’s then that you know that you have made and are making a difference.

Now, with the end of the contract in sight, many of my colleagues are looking for work elsewhere in the world. For some the steppes of Khazakstan look promising while for others the lights of Singapore, Australia and the UK have more appeal as they find employment and chance to continue the work we’ve been doing in the ME.

For Joy and I it is a return home to regroup and catch up with family again while I look to finding a job somewhere around Auckland or, perhaps, some short term contracts somewhere around the world.

Rebecca's visit to Abu Dhabi

My bonding session in Abu Dhabi

By Rebecca Papprill

I visited my parents in Abu Dhabi over Christmas. They’re both in their 60s, well actually I lie, because Mum’s in her early 70s, but you’d never know because she looks and acts younger.

I think it’s because they’re living in another country. Gives them a sense of adventure, fills them with new experiences or maybe it’s because they’re secretly enjoying being away from their kids. (might have to have a word with them about that…)

This is their fourth year in the Gulf, so I thought I better scrape together all my savings and head off to see them before they headed home for good.

“Bonding session” was what I called the trip. A good old bonding session with the parents and I tell ya what, for their age, they tired me out! With Mum enjoying trekking me around the numerous shopping malls and Dad proudly showing us the cities major attractions, my feet were starting to look like a true ballerina, blistered, achy and in serious need of rest.

Now there are two things you need to know about Abu Dhabi before you leave, pack lightly, because believe me you’ll want to shop – actually, just take an empty suitcase.
And secondly, invest in a good pair of walking shoes.

I thought about writing on one particular outing in Abu Dhabi, but there is so much more of the city than that. For instance, it’s hard to believe that 40 years ago, Abu Dhabi was just a desert, home to a few nomadic tribes and villages where the economy was based around pearl diving, fishing and date palm cultivation.

With Helen Clark at the Emirates Palace Hotel

Now when you step into the warmth of Abu Dhabi you’ll find a buzzing modern cosmopolitan city encompassing an eclectic population of 1.6 million where Emirate citizens make up nearly 20 percent of the total population; the other 80 percent are expatriates from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and North America.

With the leadership of the late UAE President and ruler, His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, oil and gas was wisely invested transforming the place.

It has been this transformation that has made Abu Dhabi, the richest country and one of the most fascinating places to visit.

Abu Dhabi’s culture is firmly rooted in Arabia’s Islamic traditions, but there’s a twist of modern influence dictated in the Emirati’s clothes.
You’ll notice peeking out the bottom of the women’s black abayas sparkling three-inch heels, on their arms high fashion handbags, such as Gucci and in their hand an IPhone, when it comes to the men, in their white thobes, sandals and chic sunglasses, you’ll probably find they drive a large, very large, jeep with extremely dark tinted windows.(Even though the law says that over 30% tint is too dark).
Dad told me his friend had hired a car to drive to Dubai and had only driven a few metres before he had to turn back and replace it with a car he could actually see out of.

Along with wearing an abaya and tinted windows I’m not surprised that the local newspaper ran an article about many Emirati woman lacking Vitamin D due to little exposure to the sun. Considering that in summer temperatures can exceed 45 degrees, (Dad calls it being ‘fan baked’) it could be hard to believe, but it’s true. Winter is friendlier to the locals with temperatures falling between 20 – 30 degrees.

Abu Dhabi has numerous malls scattered around the city. Mum and I unashameably visited most of them. It’s so easy to grab a taxi and the cost is more than reasonable.

Oh, expect to think you’re about to have an accident, it’s just they way they drive there, it’s called honk the horn and get out the way.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Mandinat Zayed Mall. It’s one of the less commercialised places where you’ll see most of the locals and bargaining for your purchases, such as Arabic perfume oil, lamps, rug and jewellery, meets with great fun.

You’ll find that Arabic is the official language, although English is widely spoken.

Abu Dhabi has invested lot into tourism, such as:

Talking to the Camel Owners at Al Ain

· Desert Safari. The package includes dune bashing, camel riding, Falcons, henna design, an Arabic meal finished with an Arabic tea around a bon fire – Mum refused to go because she didn’t like the sound of the word “Bashing”, but I told her during on of our crazy taxi drives that she didn’t miss out on much.

Falcons on the Desert Safari

· The opportunity to indulge in the decadence of the Emirates Palace Hotel. It’s free to visit and there is an exhibition on Abu Dhabi to explore – yeah, I’m not rich enough to stay there.
· The Corniche is a great place to soak up the sun and go for a swim.

Sheik Zayed Mosque

· Admiring the wonder and architecture of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque was amazing – be prepared to wear an abaya, Women have to wear them before entering the mosque, it’s ok they supply them there and you actually look quite good in them!!

· Camel racing and yes camel beauty competitions.
· And if you want to venture to other cities, Dubai and Al Ain are two hours drive away.

But, do you know what? Going to the local supermarket, called Lulu’s will kept you filled with great sights to see. The selection of olives, fete cheeses, dates and the melting pot of people that shop there.

See, can you see why the end of my three-week trip tired me out? But the exhaustion was worth it because I got to bond more with my mum and dad in the wonders of Abu Dhabi.

CATCHING UP ON THE BLOG

CATCH UP BLOGGING

It has been a while since we updated our blog of our adventures in the Middle East.

Our last blog recorded our leaving Nizwa and moving across the border to the UAE where I picked up work with Cognition as an English Adviser in a local Prep School.

I’m still waiting on CfBT to refund me monies they held back for cleaning the apartment and paying for the few utilities we used while there. But, then, I did come to expect that after the hassles we had in getting paid on time and of getting a meaningful pay slip delivered on the day that the pay was meant to go into our account. I don’t know how my replacement in Nizwa fared - I only hope that it was better.

On the housing front in Abu Dhabi, Joy and I moved from our apartment in the Platinum Apartments to an apartment in the Al Nayhan Area near the Al Whada Mall where we’ll be based until the end of our contract in July-August next year. The apartment is pleasant, well lit and airy with access to a swimming pool and, if we need it, a gymnasium that is filled with machinery that would not have gone astray in the catacombs of the inquisition.

Joy is really happy with this arrangement as she is a five minute walk from her Doha friend, Priscilla, so they can head off to go “mall trawling” when ever they wish to escape from the 45C of the UAE summer into the cool of the malls.

We are now back in New Zealand and winter. This trip home has been one of getting paperwork sorted out - new passports required, renewing my drivers license and teacher registration and other bits and pieces before returning to the ME.

When we return in August we will rent a car which will allow us to explore more of the Emirates and visit friends in other parts of the UAE. Getting into the bustle and clash of Abu Dhabi traffic will be fun after six months of using the bus and taxi system.

The School and Work:
At work the semester and a bit at the school proved to be a challenge as the teachers were convinced that the changes the school had experienced over the past few years, from a school using an American system, complete with ready made teaching units, lesson plans and US text books with Arabic names like Faisal & Ali replacing solid US names like Randy and Rudy, to a local Ministry of Education programme that returned to a curriculum that appeared to insist that, like the US programme, all students progressed from page to page with total understanding every day as long as the teachers delivered a lesson, word for word from the teacher’s book, to a standards based curriculum using material from NSW and Queensland that presumed that teachers could create their own unit and lesson plans that provided for the different learning speeds and abilities of the students was nothing to get really inspired by.

Their reluctance to come to grips with the curriculum documents and associated Learning Plans meant that I had to put a great deal of time into building up trust and reasonable working relationships before pushing hard for meaningful change. It also meant doing a good deal of modelling to demonstrate what could be achieved if one was prepared to do a bit of preparation and creative thinking.

The Advisory Team succeeded in creating an English Club that encouraged the boys to play scrabble, engage in an inter-school debate and write and publish a school newspaper. The latter two activities were greeted with some amazement by the teachers who had never seen or taken part in a debate before and were convinced that the boys would not be able to do either activity as they thought the boys did not have enough English to try. I look forward to generating the enthusiasm next academic year when we will have a full three semesters to establish the activities and keep them running.

The drives to get an understanding of the curriculum meant that I spent a great deal of time creating scaffolded work books to guide both staff and students through the inquiry learning focus of the course as well as writing meaningful and curriculum consistent assessment tasks that met the descriptors of the learning plan as well as guiding the teachers towards the content they were meant to teach. Mind you, these efforts, while sound and curriculum directed, were to be limited in delivery because the English Department had none of the resources that were presumed to be available by the Curriculum writers.

We came through the inspection and compliance review with flying colours even though we'd only been in the scheme for six months and the resourses were limited.

We spent several thousand dirhams on buying in a selection of books and references that the teachers could use and adapt to deliver the courses as well as providing some limited reading materials for the boys. While this was greeted with interest by the staff their use of the books was best described as reluctant as, to them, the best resources were ready made ones they could download from the inter-net... especially if they came complete with work sheets and answers.

Anyway, we did manage to make some progress with the teachers attempting to focus their teaching and the students’ learning on the skills the curriculum required. This, I thought, would be a reasonable base to build from in the next academic year only to discover that we were to lose six of the nine teachers in the English Department as the Education Council carried through a restaffing programme designed to replace English speaking Arab teachers with native English speakers in the secondary schools and male teachers with female teachers in the Primary schools, with no indication of the quality of the replacements being moved into the Prep Schools from the secondary schools from the rest of the Emirate. So it’s back to square one next school year in developing working relationships, getting staff up to speed on understanding and meeting the demands of the curriculum and planning for the new school year. At least my task won’t be as bad as that facing some other colleagues who discovered that they had lost all or 99% of the English Department.

My other area of responsibility, the Library, was one of minute steps forward with no trained staff, no budget and no facilities to even begin stock taking or restructuring the existing limited resources. With luck and some hard talking about the budgetting necessary we may make more progress next year. I can only live in hope!!

Anyway, the year has proven interesting and challenging which makes the prospect of a new contract exciting as well.

Abu Dhabi update

After our recent blogs that have focussed on the reports from our friends in Oman describing the events in Sohar and Salalah rather than our doings in Abu Dhabi I felt it about time we updated everyone on our situation here.

Mind you, the reports coming out of Oman certainly gave our decision to leave the contract a degree of retrospective wisdom. We noticed a side bar story in the local paper describing the burning of the Wali’s office and other Government offices in Ibri last week which would indicate that the discontent there is not just confined to the coastal centres. This week there were reports of strikes in Muscat and the industrial areas around Muscat that had closed down the airport and many of the businesses there as the workers demanded better employment conditions and pay from the Omani government than they presently get despite the Sultan ceding some responsibilities to a small partly elected part of the central government rather than retaining the concentration of power in the Appointed Council of Ministers around the Sultan.

Abu Dhabi is certainly less tense than Nizwa and certainly a lot quieter than the events, reported on Aljazerra, CNN and BBC world news, in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt,Syria,Saudi and other states in the area would suggest.

Which makes our decision that the Nizwa contract was not working out for us and giving notice to CfBT a wise one.

We were casting around looking for work in the UK, in the ME and, as a last resort, back in NZ so I was relieved to be offered a position with Cognition in Abu Dhabi as an English Advisor in a Preparatory school in central Abu Dhabi.

The position is similar to that which I was doing in Doha although I’m now working with Grades 6-9 rather than Grades 10-12.

The English curriculum here is a Theme driven one based on a marriage between the NSW and Queensland curricula over-written with UAE relevance references unlike the Qatari curriculum that was based on a set of descriptions of language acquisition written by a UK consultancy without the prescribed themes, although the examples demonstrating ways in which the curriculum could be taught often drove the ways the teachers taught their way through the forest of descriptors (standards).

The school is regarded as high achieving with good results in the external examinations and a very supportive administration. It has, however, been through several advisory programmes since the education reforms were implemented in the Emirates. From what I have gathered it was part of an American advisory programme for several years that created a dependency complex among the teachers in which they relied on the US advisors to create the Unit & lesson plans along with the individual lessons for the teachers each week (I haven’t discovered if the advisors did the marking as well even though the teachers assure me that this was a common expectation.) based on a formula that went something like: Sunday-phonetics, Monday - Grammar, Tuesday - paragraph reading, Wednesday - sentence writing and Thursday - testing. After the American’s left the school came back into the MoE system until mid way through the second trimester of this year which meant that the teachers simply taught through the textbook tasks then had to change their approach to meet the demands of the Thematic curriculum taken from the NSW-Queensland programmes.

This means that my job is to convince the teachers that they need to become more proactive in their unit & lesson planning in order to address the demands of the curriculum as well as setting up systems that will be sustainable after we complete the contract.

In many ways it is similar to the situation in Qatar but whereas I came into the school at the beginning of the academic year here I arrived six weeks before the second trimester was to end which has meant the teachers had already attempted to implement the curriculum based on minimal advice from the Company and worksheet raids on other schools and the inter-net. This has meant that doing any advance planning has to be for the third trimester and has to be combined with a search for suitable, accessible resources to address the themes nominated by the Education Council.

My efforts so far have resulted in my locating a few resources (teacher reference only) that may and could be mined to create lessons to fit the themes of “My Imaginary World (Grade 6), Heritage (Grade 7), Our Community (Grade 8) and From School to Work (Grade 9). While the few texts I have found are a beginning the final unit & lesson planning will be extract based as the English Department has no established resource library or store of reading levelled texts to draw on. (Just another challenge.)

So I’m looking forward to the challenges involved as I try to build up positive relationships with the teachers while resisting their demands for me to write and provide all the unit & lesson plans for all four grades before the end of this trimester!!

Personally, Joy & I have been busy getting ourselves established and settled into Abu Dhabi as we work our way through the system to get residency, bank accounts, drivers licences and ID cards. The process has been reasonably smooth. We have a bank account and my residency close enough for me to start the application to sponsor Joy and for her to get residency.

Joy has joined up with Priscilla Ellis, her friend for Doha, and begun exploring the Malls and sights of the city which has given Joy the inspiration to begin painting again and to explore some different approaches to the themes which she has explored since we came to the Gulf so that our apartment is beginning to get a more colourful look.

I’ll post some photos of her new works on our next blog.

FROM NIZWA TO ABU DHABI

From Nizwa to Abu Dhabi- January - February 2011.

We left Nizwa at the end of January to begin work in Abu Dhabi. A decision we consider was well made after the isolation the contract in Oman created for us.

Here we are in Abu Dhabi, back working for Cognition as an Advisor in an Abu Dhabi school. After the isolation we experienced in Oman, both professionally and managerially, it was a relief to be back among friends as well as being assured that the office would respond to requests promptly and efficiently without having to go through several silos and umpteen request forms to get a response.

The school I’m working in is in central Abu Dhabi, close to where we’re living..... walkable now but perhaps not so easily come summer. The Principal and administration are on the ball and very keen to see the school improve although being transferred from a MoE school to the PPP system two weeks before the end of the first trimester and only getting the advisory team five weeks ago was a considerable jolt for the staff as they had to change their curriculum and delivery models overnight with little time for preparation.

I spent the first three weeks simply reading through the curriculum documents and the assessment models that are required to assess what the teachers were expected to cope with. So how they coped without seeing or reading the material I’m not too sure.

Fortunately I found the curriculum statements familiar as they are modelled on the Queensland & NSW curricula that were developed about the same time as the NZ one was that underpinned the NCEA from 1990-2010. The assessment methodology is very similar to that we’ve been using in NZ and developing in Qatar so, for me, getting on top of the material has been relatively quick. For the teachers, however, it is a different matter.

For some there is a vague understanding coming from their conversations with colleagues in other schools already on the scheme while for others, the majority, there is a sense of confusion and frustration as they have few immediate resources to use to develop units of work from or, for that matter, any idea about assessment methodology apart from short answer tests that give a numerical mark.

The teachers with a vague understanding of the curriculum and assessment processes are confident that they have it together and are absolutely right so I am going to have to start right from the basics and step them through the theory, with some practical exercises to get them aware of the demands, before we can really get into the process of proper unit and lesson planning complete with annual and trimester plans that link into a school syllabus and then back into the curriculum.

Difficult when the expectation is that they should be able to sprint before they pass the toddling stage!!!!

I’m pleased with progress on other fronts at work as we have begun planning to redevelop the school library and to set up an English Club to get the boys involved in improving their skills in English. The response to each of these has been great with buy in from the Administration which will mean we will have support when we need it.

The turmoil in the Arab states, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain,Yemen, and now, Oman has not affected us directly in the UAE but has certainly made our decision to quit the contract in Nizwa a wise one as I think the tensions and worries that the isolation of the contract gave would have been exacerbated as time went on.

The news out of Oman has been confined to brief reports on the TV news and paragraphs in the papers. The following, from our friend, Donald, in Sohar, gives an idea of the events across the border.

FROM SOHAR:
All seems quiet now. It is like a Friday, with little traffic, the schools shut, the shops shut, the training center empty of all trainees and the cleaner has disappeared. I sit here in front of my computer wondering what to do. Should I prepare for a possible Intermediate English Language session tomorrow, where I will probably find myself sitting in an empty classroom, or should I take this opportunity to finish cataloguing the books in our library? Or should I for the moment just record my observations and feelings about the events of the last few days?

Last night, against the embassy advice notice, I drove past the Globe Roundabout, the epicentre of the protests in Sohar, to find roadblocks manned by unarmed youths who politely waved me on so I drove past the burnt out remains of Lulu, noticing that all the shops around the blackened hypermarket, seemed to be untouched, though now locked up. From conversations with Omani friends I have been given to understand that Lulu was targeted because it is owned by an unpopular minister. I drove on and passed Sohar palace, surprised to see it appeared to be unguarded at least from an outside view. Whether it has soldiers on guard on the inside I could not see through the partially opened main gate. The absence of guards here I think indicates that opposition is not towards the Sultan himself but rather to ministers and some of the policies.

It is not only around the palace that there are no signs of police or army. I haven't seen a policeman or police-car for two days. The main police station was torched, as was the home of the wali, the governor of the area, and the office of the ministry of manpower. At the present time Sohar appears to be a town without any obvious government control, it is almost as if they had lost interest in what is happening here. In the absence of the authorities it is surprising that there hasn't been more trouble, which shows, I believe, that the looters of Lulu were opportunistic rather than seasoned criminals. However, the boarded up shops,even the little laundry I use, may be an indication that their owners are afraid of more trouble. Some garages are closed and I wouldn't be surprised if we were soon facing a petrol shortage, so no unnecessary driving. I got a full tank the night before last, fearing that we might have problems here. Yesterday morning I also transferred the bulk of my money back to the UK; I hadn't made any transfers for six months because I believed that my money was almost safer here that in an almost bankrupt British bank.

Who knows what today will bring. The British ambassador is supposed to be coming to Sohar this evening and we have been invited to meet him at the Sohar Beach Hotel. I will go along out of interest, apart from anything else it may be an opportunity to meet other expats and here about their experiences. Last night I had a chat with Indian neighbours in my building and we were just saying how quiet it appeared to be then when there was a small burst of firing. Again this morning we had some very short bursts which appeared to come from the area of the Globe. My Omani colleague, who has just arrived in the office, tells me that local people have formed committees of public safety to prevent further looting. She said last night, the looters tried to burn down some schools, but were chased away my members of these local vigilantees, perhaps that was the cause of the firing I heard when chatting to the neighbours. Her opinion is that the looters come from outside Sohar. She believes they have been chased away, but is afraid they may be back. I have also received three Arabic texts which claim that the troubles have been caused by Emirates and according to my colleague they claim some have been captured and confessed. She thinks that this is just another example of people trying to cause more trouble.

The ambassador rode into town last night or rather he hitched a ride in a helicopter with the army general who was coming to command the troops, over 1,500 of them, who are now I believe encamped somewhere between here and Sohar port. The ambassador told us that the army was taking over the powers of the police, who many felt had been discredited over the last few days. A small section of the resident British community turned up to meet his excellency and his vice consul at the Sohar Beach Hotel and hear what the embassy can, can't, will and won't do for us. Much of what he told us we already knew, because of course we have been here at ground zero. One common thread that united all of us, embassy staff and Sohar residents, was surprise that this could happen in Oman and in Sohar in particular. Though there was some apprehension expressed by some residents, all reported that they had not been threatened in any way and that their Omani colleagues and friends had provided help and reassurance where needed. There was some disquiet at the number of rumours flying round and this was heightened by the lack of information from official sources, especially the local TV and radio. Some rumours that were quickly discounted were that the Sohar Crown Plaza was on fire and that the border had been closed. Our lack of Arabic language skills, including my own, was painfully exposed when no one reported being able to read the many Arabic text messages that have been floating round, but some reported that Arabic speaking friends had told them that some were from the authorities and some from people accusing Emiratis of fomenting the trouble. My colleague in the office told me of these and she discounted them saying that it was people trying to create more trouble.

Though people were naturally worried no one said that they had started packing their bags, but one person said that the French, on the advice of their embassy, had already left town, and that the Dutch had been advised to stay indoors. The British issued no such edicts but advised that we should keep a low profile and avoid public areas, though as some residents pointed out that this was hard to do when the Globe roundabout was occupied as this was the main communication highway between the coastal area and the country to the landward side of the highway. The embassy pointed out that in the worst possible scenario, which they were confident would not happen, they had plans to evacuate people and that any British person would be accepted together with spouses, and children of any nationality. Having only a cat to care for I wondered about her, but felt it was probably not wise to bring this up.

On reaching home I sent out a text message to all my Wednesday language course teachers telling them that it was business as usual. This morning 7 out of 18 turned up, all ladies; the three gents were no shows.

While we cope with the political turmoil in the Middle East we are also torn as we listen to the news coming from New Zealand, especially Christchurch, where Jocelyn and Caroline have been coping with the after effects of the two earthquakes that have devastated the city.

Thankfully, Jocelyn & Caroline and all our friends in Christchurch have survived the quakes with little more than broken crockery and windows and repairable damage to their homes which is a personal relief to us. On the other hand the fatalities and the ruin of the CBD with its historic buildings are events that will remain as horrors for a long, long time.

The pictures of the old Christchurch Teachers Colleges, once turned into up-market apartments, reduced to rubble and the destruction of the Cathedral and other iconic buildings are stark reminders of the power the earth can exert on our efforts to show that we have been here.

The text messages from home telling of quakes in Wellington that we’ve received from Rebecca at all hours of the night keep us alert to the ever present knowledge that New Zealand sits along the fault lines of the Pacific rim and that the events of Christchurch could be repeated elsewhere in the country.
It is, however, disappointing to read that the present government is preparing to use the earthquake as an excuse to sell state assets and to slash the social support mechanisms that have been built up over the years. To consider such actions when the country needs the assurance that the support will be there is, to me, unthinkable and unacceptable but, then, when the PM declares that the best other way to raise money to rebuild the economy is to ask Oprah Winfrey & Letterman to run appeals on US TV one is driven to wonder at the quality of leadership New Zealand has elected????

Back in the Doha Haze

Our Apartment in Bin Mahmoud

It is hard to believe that we've been back in Doha for two weeks now as the days seem to have merged into the heat haze that is Qatar in summer. With temperatures regularly in the mid 40s during the day and lows of 30C the idea of doing anything really active during the day disappears as one contemplates the comfort of air conditioning in the cocoon that is our apartment.

On top of the heat induced lassitude it is also Ramadan here which means that the day starts with the dawn call to prayer at 4.00 followed by the sunrise call at 5.15. For the locals it means that there can be no eating or drinking after 5.00am until the sunset call at 5.45pm.

It also means that the working day becomes compressed into a 4-5 hour slot between 8.00 or 9.00am and 1.00pm. (For the workers on the building site behind our apartment the day starts with the shriek of an un-oiled pulley at 5.30 and finishes at around 10.30 or 11.00am when the heat is too much for any outside labour.)

There are several advantages to this situation: getting on with some reading both for recreation and professionally, polishing up PD presentations for delivery once schools start, writing up exemplar lesson plans to take into the schools for teachers to follow and for us, as ATs, to demonstrate as effective teaching to the staff, watching the news on TV, having organisation meetings with the ATs with both companies involved with the contract and socialising with our colleagues.

It does mean that we are getting ourselves well organised for the coming school year.

I've been on site at the school the team I'm on is working in for the past three days meeting the staff, sorting out our work space and getting ourselves ready to swing into action this Sunday when we meet the full staff for the first time.
This year the school is an ex-Ministry one that has become an Independent school. The plan is to operate out of the old site for 2009-10 then move to a new site in 2010-11. In the meantime the old rooms are being given a make over with new plant installed ready for the students by the 27th. Consequently the parking area looks like a building site with stacks of student desks, old filing cabinets, broken blackboards, chairs, papers, bottles and hunks of timber and broken masonry on one side and an army of labourers busy painting, reassembling and moving new materials into the classrooms while teachers hunt their way through the movement to find a space to work or talk about the new year in their departments.

It also means that the English Coordinator and I have to sit down and sort out the resources needed to ensure that the Department can deliver both in quantity and quality as there appear to be no text or consumerable resources left from the old MoE school for the staff to use to develop lessons from.

We are, however, impressed by the energy and organisation of the Management team who have been coordinating the changeover for some weeks now. Every discussion we've had with them has shown that they have a solid and well thought-out knowledge of the challenges and requirements of the change from a MoE to an Independent SEC school will mean for the staff and the students. It should also mean that come the 27th the school will be ready to spring into operation.

On the home front Joy and I have settled into our apartment and, following a long exchange of misdirection and misunderstandings, unpacked our final boxes of gear to make the place more homely. Joy has hung her canvases of NZ scenes on the walls in the lounge and lined the walls of the spare bedroom with blank canvases and her paints as a studio and I've set up an alcove in the lounge as a workspace and library. I also picked up a cheap DVD player so we can now enjoy films whenever we want rather than surf our way through the 1050 channels available on the satellite TV to find a programme worth sustained watching.

Joy and Priscilla, as the current surviving "Doha Darlings", are busy plotting and planning their next foray into musical theatre which means they are off most mornings to explore the air conditioned halls of the souqs on the look out for material and items they can put to use. They are waiting on the return of Jan to complete their trio and the "Darlings" will spring into action.

Joy with one of her paintings at the Souq Waqif

Joy and I drove down to the Souq Waqif one evening to check out the "Summer in the City" exhibition Joy had had two paintings exhibited in over the July-September period and were impressed at the range of work and styles the local artists are working in. I think it would be great if Joy could, with other Kiwi artists here in Doha, do a totally NZ art exhibition at sometime. The contrast between the intense colours of the Pacific and the haziness of the Gulf would be interesting to say the least.

On Wednesday we were the guests of the Bloomsbury-Qatar Foundation Publishing House for Iftar, the post fast meal, and a poetry reading by four local poets. The poets read their work in both Arabic and English to a very receptive audience after the meal. The poems revealed the differences in attitude, thought and imagery between male and female in the Middle East as well as the linguistic accomplishment of the poets.

The male poet's work resounded with discords and clashes of images while the women's work focused on the issue or the meaningful moment with intensity and controlled passion which left the audience in earnest discussion after the reading.

This coming week will be interesting especially as I,with my colleagues, will be beginning our work proper and as Ramadan nears its end. Joy and I are also trying to work out what we will do over the Eid break that follows Ramadan - there is a public holiday from the 17th through till the 27th - so we are looking at a trip to Turkey, which would allow us to visit places we didn't get to see when we first went there in 1997, or to Abu Dhabi where we could catch up some of our colleagues from last year as well as drive to Oman and as explore another Gulf State.

Choices!!