A few years back I was in graduate school and finishing some research on schools in Dubai. As a poor grad student of 25, I was always looking to supplement my meager GA stipend and teaching English as a second language jobs were fairly easy to come by (as I had an advanced degree in Literature). Most of my students were fine. Nice people from all over the Middle East/North Africa – but my favorite student was Fatima from Oman.
She was youngish (17-18) and very shy at first – unwilling to speak in class, despite only have 3-4 people in the course. It wasn’t until I ran into her at one of Dubai’s many malls that she started to come out of her shell. I bought us gelato and we talked about her family (progressive, but with four older brothers), why she is in Dubai (learn English so she can go to university in Canada or the UK) and what she does for fun (hangs out with 2-3 other girls from school). Above all, I was impressed with her English and I told her so. When she came back to class – I made sure she was called on often and she was quickly becoming the top student in our tiny class.