Job Discussion Forums

[inkazak]

I made a post a few years ago requesting some information regarding the medical exam performed in Mid-eastern countries. I was verbally attacked and my post was labelled psuedo-intellectual and I was called a troll. It has bothered me ever since. I just want you to know that I am not a troll. I am a person, sitting on my couch with my dog.

I have one more semester left to get my Master's Degree in English and I am once again considering a move to teach English.

I think my main concern is over safety. Also, how easy is it to find a job? Are you allowed to post any more resources for job seekers on these forums?

Thank you very much.

[007]

Well, the magic Kingdom is safer than where you live!

BTW, why did you put the name Cleopatra between bracket?

Is it because of this?

[inkazak]

Yeah pretty much.

Could you elaborate on why it is safer there than in the US?

Thank you!

[007]

[MyTrunkshow]

There is an organization called TESOL-Arabia that has a conference coming up mid-March in Dubai.
If you can't make it to Dubai, you can apply directly to the institutions listed on their website. As yet, the job listings aren't updated for this year.

Endeavor to become a direct hire with a school rather than through a recruitment agency.

Where are you based? There is also a TESOL conference in Denver at the end of March, 2009. Check out their website. Some MEast schools' representatives attend to attract teachers.

Here's a link to what TESOL offers: http://careers.tesol.org/search/browse/

Perform a search on eslcafe.com. I recall some mention of saudijobs.com (or something like that).

Also, do a search of MEast unis. on google and apply directly. Not having an MA in hand may be an issue for most schools, but not all. I recall seeing a list of ME schools somewhere on the net.

mts.

[Mia Xanthi]

Personally, I do not feel safer here than I do in the US. That is largely because I am a woman, and I do not feel it is as safe here for a woman as it is for a man. A second reason is that I am an American in Al Khobar....Khobar Towers pretty much says it all. It does APPEAR to be safer here than it was a few years ago, but that could change quickly. I live on a compound with very little security, and it could easily become a target if things get tense.

There is a great deal of petty crime here, contrary to what you may hear. Most of it goes unreported and unchecked. There is also a lot of violence against women that also goes unreported. If you are a woman alone, you are "asking for it" whether you really asked for it or not.

Nothing any worse than being told to "cuffer your hair" has happened to me yet, butI find the atmosphere to sometimes be threatening.

[Cleopatra]

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

Sa, MX! To say that it is safer in Saudi is preposterous! I understand your post specifically because you are in Al Khobar. Two of those four compounds bombed (not including Khobar Towers or the SANG compound...which people seem to forget started off the campaign of terror in Saudi) used to be dwelled upon by ME. I took my wife and young son back to Saudi because we both agreed that it was absolutely child-friendly. Then came May 19, 2003...

People talk about statistics! Statistically speaking, in the US, a gang of thugs would not cap Saudi guards outside an Al-Hamra compound, drive their vehicles into the center, run away from them before detonating them, and then, go door-to-kicked-in door murdering innocent wormen and children!

Statistics do NOT quantify freedom! The reason that, statistically, the US and other western nations are, statistically, more dangerous is that it is there that freedoms exist. The freedom of thought. The freedom of movement. The freedom of religious belief. The freedom of speech. Saudi has none of that...and look where they are! All that Saudi offers is Wahabi dogma.

Saudi is not safe and anyone who says so is delusional.

I wouldn't step foot back in the Magic Kingdom or the Kingdom of Humanity or whatever anyone else one chooses to call it.

NCTBA

[007]

Well, statistically speaking about crime statistics in the USA is statistically correct and accurate!

Statistically speaking, for example, Baltimore, Maryland, has more crimes than all the Magic Kingdom cities combined to the power 10!

Statistically speaking, freedom does not obey statistics laws!

[Sheikh N Bake]

Physical safety in the U.S. is competitive with other countries and it is far safer than, for example, many South American countries. A recent analysis by a respected British firm (sorry, I can't recall the name now), an annual ranking of the safety of world cities, shows San Fran., Houston and Chicago well ahead of London in safety. Some British colleagues on this board agreed with that.

I didn't feel safe in Jeddah because I was always harassed, sometimes viciously, though never physically, by people in the street when I went jogging in the residential streets where I lived. Thank God I am back in a civilized place where people mind their own business and are courteous to strangers.

Physical safety is not only about crime--it is about the slaughter on the highways as well. Where would you rather drive, in "Nevada" or in the KSA?

007, go somewhere and play, please. Adults are talking.

[redeyes]

It's an open question here, not a pointed attempt at inflammatory rhetoric -- Is it possible that Americans find it more of a challenge surviving Saudi since, as one of the most powerful nations on earth, they are at the forefront of "the war on terror" and one of the primary nations in conflict with Islam?

That's an open question and purely speculative -- I don't know.

I am not trolling, or "picking on" the American role in the collision with Islamic countries -- after all, Britain didn't exactly make a good job of their early dealings with the Palestinians and the post war carving up of the area now called Israel did they, not to mention their earlier dealings in Iraq and Iran.

I'd like to know though, whether different nations of Westerners fare better or worse in the Saudi experience : Certainly in the Far East, depending on where you go, the locals interact VERY differently with "white faces" depending on where they hail from, and their cultural/historical associations with those people.

In some countries I have worked, many of the American EFL staff often found it very difficult to live with the sheer hate levelled at America's leaders/policies etc.

( A lot of the British staff found it difficult to accept their obviously diminshed role/profile in world affairs, and some of the Aussies/Canadians found it irritating that no one knew what their capital city was or who their PM was -- but that's another story!)

[redeyes]

Also, besides the obvious limitations in Saudi -- which frictions and annoyances make it difficult on a daily level?

Looks very much like Saudi is for the sedate , stoic,patient, perhaps slightly cynical middle aged teacher with firm, fixed goals and a real determination to achieve them, step by step!

I will soon find out for myself.....

[johnslat]

Dear redeyes,
It's not only and "open question and purely speculative", it's quite a generalization. May i ask how you got this impression:

"Is it possible that Americans find it more of a challenge surviving Saudi . . .
. .?"

I "survived" there for a total of nineteen years, and I have had American colleagues who "survived" (and are still "surviving") nearly as long or longer.

Regards,
John

[redeyes]

A lot of speculation is generalised, because it's based on hunch or comparisons, nothing stable, and all of which may be false -- I have no idea at all what the case may be in Saudi, and I was hoping people who do know, would tell me. My post is not a set of pointed assertions of what "I know to be the case" : I don't know.

I based that hunch on what I have regularly seen in other countries -- as I said above, many British teachers I have met have experienced real annoyance at the realisation that many countries they teach in have no real idea about their culture. That left many of the British teachers I knew irritated that no one knew they'd once been a major world power. Frequently, I also saw American teachers really struggling with the levels of anti American-ism they faced. I don't know many Americans who were individually "held responsible" for American foreign policy and thus reviled on a personal individual basis I have hardly ever seen that happen except in awkward social situations very occasionally-- I mean anti americanism in the sense of students frequently being anti american foreign policy.It rattled the American teachers' conception of their place in the world, in the same way British truly hated being relegated to top hat and London fog Sherlock Holmes steretypes, and not seen as the benign yet influential "lions of the empire" or whatever. Many students ( esp the younger ones ) in many countries don't even know Britain was a leading world power at one time.

I have no idea whatsoever if that is the case in Saudi. Clearly you state it's not.

Don't read my post as a pointed agitatory prejudiced rant -- it's not. I am actually trying to get as much info as I can as to what kinds of prejudice I may face at street level and in the workplace based on my nationality and my nation's political history. That's prudent to do so before arrival I'd say. If I was trying to play a "let's annoy the Yanks" game with some stereotyping, there are many better boards where I could do that.

[johnslat]

Dear redeyes,
I think you will find (at least it's the impression I got) that many in the Middle East are only too well aware of Great Britain's imperialistic past for the same reason they are so well aware of the USA's imperialistic present (which, I hope, is soon to come to an end.)

And that reason is the same in both cases: they (Middle Easterners) have been the victims of both.

Regards,
John