ITP - 144: One Suitcase, Six Languages, and Teaching Spanish in Dubai

Greg:
Welcome everybody to another episode of the International Teacher Podcast. I am Greg, the single app guy, and with me tonight, of course, is JP Mint. How are you doing, JP?
JP:
Hello, hello. Good morning from Mexico.
Greg:
Right. And we’re not sure where Kent is today. I think he’s student teaching or something. He’s back in Washington, so he’s probably student teaching. And I don’t know where the family guy is. Darian was just on a trip this weekend and drove his family across the country and back, so he’s not going to be with us.
But this is the exciting part: we do have another guest with us. This is Lydia, coming to us from Dubai. Welcome to the show, Lydia.
Lydia:
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Greg:
Good afternoon, good evening, wherever we are in the world. We have 130 different countries represented and it doesn’t matter; they’re all different time zones. So good morning, welcome, good evening, good night, whatever. Welcome to the show, Lydia.
I have to say, shout out to my niece. I have a niece named Lydia.
Lydia:
Fantastic.
Greg:
She spells it with a Y.
Lydia:
Oh, with a Y. Okay.
Greg:
Yeah. L-Y.
Lydia:
She spells it the Spanish way.
Greg:
Got it. Okay, so we’re going to get into this. Lydia from Spain, and presumably working and teaching in Dubai. Can you tell us a little bit about your international journey? Is Dubai your first country?
Lydia:
Well, I have a very weird story.
Greg:
We love stories.
Lydia:
I actually started teaching in France. I worked for the national education system there, and after three years, I was like, “No, I cannot do this anymore.” It was very underpaid, very overworked, and it didn’t feel like the safest job.
I was fortunate enough to have one of my best friends, who now lives in New Zealand. Her now-husband was an international teacher at the time in Beijing. He said, “You love to teach. You’ve been living abroad for a while now. You’re not afraid of new adventures. Why don’t you try international teaching?”
And it just made sense to me. I was like, “Sure, let’s do this.”
So I moved to China in 2019. I’ve taught in China, Vietnam, I did a two-month contract in the Bahamas, and now I’m currently in Dubai. So yes, a few countries involved in this story.
JP:
And are you teaching Spanish or are you teaching French?
Lydia:
I’m currently teaching Spanish and French, and I’m also a coordinator in my school, so loads of work.
JP:
So in other words, Greg, we often have native English speakers, or English as a first language speakers, from the US and Canada. But I think this might be our first Spanish teacher from Spain.
Greg:
Absolutely. We’ve had guests who speak Portuguese as a mother tongue. We’ve had German mother tongue. We’ve had different languages, but yes, welcome, Lydia. You are the first of many Spanish-speaking mother tongue Spaniards.
JP:
Yes, yes, yes. Do you speak Spanish with a “th”?
Lydia:
Of course. It’s the correct way.
Greg:
That’s how you’re supposed to say it.
JP:
All right, well, I stand corrected.
Greg:
You’re talking to two South American accent people here: Mexico, Honduras, and Venezuela. So we’re not getting converted anytime soon.
Greg:
Pero yo hablar como un gringo con gringo español.
Lydia:
I mean, if I had been born just a couple hundred kilometers away, I would probably use the S instead of the Z because I’m from southern Spain. However, I was born in Murcia, which is a very beautiful place where apparently, to other people, we speak really bad Spanish. Which is not true. Our grammar is perfect, but we do tend to eat letters at the end of words.
Greg:
That’s always challenging when I run into Cubans, and I think the other one was Guatemala. They kind of chop up the letters and I’m like, “Wait, what are you saying?” I find that Mexicans have a pronunciation that is exactly the way it’s spelled. Phonetic, is that the right word? They put the S at the end, so I know it’s plural and that kind of thing.
But this is not the Spanish show. I want to be in the Bahamas. Did you teach in the Bahamas for just a little bit?
Lydia:
Yes. Unfortunately, I got very sick in 2023, and after I finished my contract, my body was telling me, “You need to take some time off. Go home.”
So I went back home to Spain with my family. I was really fortunate that when I was feeling much, much better and ready to get back on the horse, I was contacted by a recruiter because they needed someone to do a two-month contract in the Bahamas.
They asked, “Would you be interested in doing a two-month contract in the Caribbean?”
Yes. The conditions? Yes.
“But we need you here next week.”
Okay.
So I ended up working in the Bahamas for a couple of months, and it was amazing. I feel so grateful because after being sick and being out of what I call “the circuit” for a few months, and not being able to work, doing all the healing, feeling better, and spending time with my family, it felt like the right opportunity.
I hadn’t had time to spend with my family because I was in China during the worst years of COVID, so I hadn’t seen my brother in two years and things like that. But when I finally felt better and got this opportunity, I took it and went there. It was a really amazing experience.
I got to work with some really amazing people in my department. It was just amazing.
Greg:
And you were teaching Spanish in the Bahamas. You wouldn’t think the Bahamas is a Spanish-heavy place. I think it was a former English territory.
Lydia:
Yes. I went to a British international school, so I was actually quite surprised because they had a strong language acquisition department. For MFL, modern foreign languages, they had one teacher for elementary Spanish, one teacher for elementary French, one for French secondary, and one for Spanish secondary.
Greg:
What was the school size?
Lydia:
Very small, around 300 students.
Greg:
Oh, wow.
Lydia:
But they had a really big focus on foreign languages, which as a foreign language teacher is something I really appreciate. I do think nowadays only knowing one language shows maybe you don’t have much interest in the world.
Even if we all speak English, learning another language means learning new cultures, new ways of living, music, films, everything. It’s such a great opportunity.
I was really impressed. My colleagues from that department were strong teachers in their practice, and even more amazing people. They were kind, welcoming, and when you land in the country on a Friday evening and need to be teaching on Monday morning, having people say, “Okay, listen, we’ve got you. This is what we’re going to do. We’re here to support you,” makes such a difference.
It was a really cool experience.
Greg:
I don’t know about you, but when I work in a school with top-quality teachers, it raises the bar for my own teaching. Right now, and for almost the last 10 years, I go to school every day and I have to bring my A game because I’m surrounded by fantastic teachers.
It makes me want to be a better teacher. I feel like I’m always struggling to keep up. Now, that may not be the reality of it, but I feel that way, so it makes me want to better myself all the time. Sounds like you had a great experience in the Bahamas.
Lydia:
Yes, and you cannot call yourself a teacher if you’re not willing to always learn. Schools love to hear, “Oh yes, I’m a lifelong learner,” but if you’re not willing to be a lifelong learner, you’re not going to be a good teacher.
Someone who has been teaching less time than you probably has a really amazing idea for something. Someone who comes from a completely different background is going to teach you something you would have never thought of.
For example, I feel like I struggle a lot with creativity because in my head, I’m very square. For some things, that’s good, but sometimes I struggle. Working with people who are really creative and always coming up with ideas and ways to improve pushes you. You want to be at their level because you want to be respectful and you want to be there with them.
You can learn so much.
Greg:
I like how you brought up that you can even learn from somebody younger than you.
Lydia:
Absolutely. Every day. They may not have the years behind them, but they have that creativity, and especially nowadays, they probably have a lot more tech skills.
Greg:
I learn something every day from a five-year-old, six-year-old, eight-year-old. It’s amazing, and we’re not even talking about colleagues.
But I have a question for you, and either of you can answer this. Are educators still putting “lifelong learner” on their resume?
JP:
Not if they’re my client.
Greg:
It’s a little bit cliché.
JP:
It’s a little bit of a cliché. The word “passionate” as well. It’s better to show evidence. Talk about it rather than say it. If you have evidence and stories, that’s stronger.
But Lydia, let’s go back a little bit. You grew up in Spain. Did you always have this international bug, or did you discover that in university?
Lydia:
I feel like I’ve always been someone who wasn’t really where she was supposed to be. I felt very different from the people around me, so I always had this spark to do something different, go somewhere different, learn more.
I always pushed myself hard in English classes, and I always wanted to learn languages.
When I was in grade 10, I did an exchange program in France. I was there for a week, and then my exchange mate came to Spain for a week. I massively improved my French and became overconfident. I thought I could go study in France because, after two weeks, I spoke French now.
After two weeks, I was like, “Oh yes, I’m fluent in French. I can do this.”
Life sometimes has ways of telling you where you’re supposed to go. I was doing an IB kind of program in sciences because I wanted to be a doctor. But then I thought, “How is it possible that every time I have a language subject and an assessment, everyone is freaking out because they cannot pass, and I don’t study anything and always get top grades? Shouldn’t I focus on the thing I’m actually good at instead of putting myself through torture?”
By one of those chances in life, I was scrolling through the Sorbonne University webpage and saw a degree in Nordic languages. I thought, “This is interesting, and I can start from zero level of Swedish.”
So I told my parents, “Love you, Mom and Dad, but I’m moving to France.”
They said no.
I said, “You’ll see.”
So I ended up moving to France. I did my bachelor’s degree in France, studied northern languages, did one year in Sweden, and finished my degree. Then I thought, “Okay, what do I do now with my life?”
JP:
Move to Sweden, maybe?
Lydia:
I did study one year in Sweden. I did an Erasmus program, which was really cool. But I didn’t know what to do with my life.
I had one teaching and learning subject in Sweden that I loved. It was my favorite subject, and I had always liked working with kids. It came naturally to me.
One of my friends in France had just done her civil servant exam to become an educator in the French system. She said, “Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you do your master’s degree in teaching, and then you teach?”
I thought, “Why not?” And I have been teaching ever since.
Once you move abroad and live in your first country, then your second country, you think, “Why not a third? Why not a fourth?” You keep rolling that ball and going places.
I would never regret that, even though the beginnings were hard. It has made me very resilient. And I know it sounds cheesy and cliché, but the more I live abroad and the more I visit different places, I realize there are more things that bring us together than things that set us apart.
Once you get into this, you become a bit of a junkie for learning new things and going to new countries.
Greg:
You want more and more and more.
Lydia:
Exactly. You’ve been to 20 countries? I need more.
Greg:
Question for you. I hate it when people ask, “How many languages are you fluent in?” I like to ask, how many languages are you comfortable speaking?
Lydia:
I interchange English, French, and Spanish. I use them at the same level because English is the language I work with. I did all my university studies in French and lived in France for six years. Spanish is my mother tongue.
I used to feel more confident in Swedish. It has been a long time, but I ended up being quite fluent in Swedish. I have studied Icelandic, Finnish, and Norwegian is very similar to Swedish. I’ve been to Norway and I understand everything because they’re very similar languages.
Greg:
That’s fantastic.
Lydia:
I’m just a freak of languages. I’m so nerdy. I lived in China and learned a little bit of Chinese. You know, the good Chinese, the one you use to bargain when you go shopping.
Greg:
I’m not paying that.
Lydia:
Exactly. “No, that’s too expensive. I’m paying five.”
The more languages you learn, the easier it becomes to learn new languages. I have good bases to keep learning languages, but I have studied many languages in my life.
Greg:
In my travels, my theory has always been that when I travel to a country, I like to learn how to say please and thank you. If I can at least say please, thank you, or hello, if there are different words, it opens up so many bridges.
Of course, the danger is that the minute you say one word in the host language, they just start going, and I’m like, “Nope.” So that’s why the second word is “slow down.”
Lydia:
That’s a good one. Like you say, languages are building blocks. The more languages you speak, the more building blocks you have. You can step from one block to another.
In my head, I see patterns. It’s easy for me to recognize patterns. Swedish and English come from the same branch of the language tree, so it’s easy to find those patterns. If I wanted to learn German, it would probably be easy because I already understand many things from knowing how this works in one language and how that works in another.
So you keep using those blocks, and eventually it becomes easier.
JP:
My dad is on Duolingo right now, and Duolingo is absolutely worldwide. It’s an amazing app. My dad learns about 15 languages, so he’s illiterate in 15 languages.
Lydia:
I want to add your dad.
JP:
One day I’m going to do this exact—
Lydia:
I have a love-hate relationship with Duolingo, I have to say.
Greg:
Do you? Have you done the 300 straight days or something like that? Because that’s one of the catches.
JP:
Sixteen hundred over here.
Greg:
Sixteen hundred days? JP, you said sixteen hundred?
JP:
Sixteen hundred. Lydia, she’s been on there sixteen hundred days straight, and I’ve never been on it once.
Lydia:
I tried to use it to refresh my Swedish, and then at some point I was like, “Should I move to Norway?”
Greg:
Sixty-two. No way. Wow. That’s a big age.
JP:
I do it twice a day, morning and night, because I want to keep all my languages fresh.
Greg:
She’s retired. She doesn’t have anything else to do.
JP:
Sometimes Spanish is always the postre. It’s always the dessert. I do the hard ones: Korean, Chinese, Turkish. Then if I still have time, German is easy. At night, when I don’t want to think, I do Spanish, and it’s super easy.
Greg:
Lydia, do you know the word for dessert in German?
Lydia:
After table.
Greg:
Yes, that’s what it is. Nach Tisch.
I love it. Anyway, JP and I both have learned German in our lives, and I love languages like you do. I want to celebrate that. But I want to go back to what Lydia said. She said love-hate. As a language teacher, what is the love-hate?
Lydia:
I love that it has brought languages closer to people. They think, “Oh, I can just talk to Duolingo and learn some Spanish, French, German, whatever.”
However, as a language teacher, I get in and think, “This has no structure. This follows no rhythm whatsoever. Why am I learning the word monkey on the first day instead of learning basic communication?” It drives me crazy.
But again, in my head, I’m someone who is very square, and it doesn’t make sense to me. But it is fun, and it keeps people engaged. Whatever keeps you engaged in the language and immersed in that language, even if it’s 10 minutes a day, is probably what I tell my students.
It is always better to spend 10 minutes every day reviewing your Spanish or French course. I don’t care if you do it on Duolingo or by watching a YouTube video. It’s going to be way more useful than trying to study all the vocabulary, grammar, and everything the day before the exam.
Let me tell you something: you’re going to fail.
And it’s not getting into their heads.
JP:
I find it’s hard to start a language on Duolingo. It helps if you already have a little bit of background knowledge.
Lydia:
Yes.
JP:
It has improved drastically. Ten years ago, when I was teaching, I heard of it, went on it, and thought, “Nah, this isn’t for me.” I didn’t know that I would even recommend it for my students because, as you say, they introduced things you’ll never use in the first six months of a language.
Why would you learn animal vocabulary right off the bat? But it has drastically improved, and I do find it helpful if you already know a little bit of the language.
Greg:
This is a perfect segue because, since you’re living in Dubai, I want to share one little snippet of life there.
I go through the Dubai airport, and I can stop at this airport bar called the Hard Rock Cafe. I know a lot of the bartenders because I spend a lot of time there. But my point is this: there are so many languages going on in Dubai. It’s a travel hub with so many different cultures. It’s very metropolitan.
What is it like to live there? We can infuse that with languages because if you speak four or five languages, you are going to meet a lot of people in Dubai who speak all these languages outside of school. Of course, we can talk about the student population at your school, but what’s it like to live in Dubai?
Lydia:
I know it’s going to sound weird, but to me it feels a lot like living in China.
Bear with me.
When I moved to China, I had this feeling that I was home. After living in France, where I felt it was not the most welcoming country, and Sweden, which was nice but where I also didn’t feel part of the mix of cultures, China felt like home. They were very welcoming and happy to see foreigners moving to the country, especially at that time.
They were always excited to see you hopping in a cab. “Where are you from?” I would say, “Spain.” And they would say, “Oh, Spain! Real Madrid! Barcelona!” They would get super excited.
I think Dubai feels a little bit the same way. I think 80 or 90% of the people who live here are expats. You feel like you are home because everyone is home away from home. You’re all going through the same hardships. You all visit your families. You all had to leave your home country for reasons X, Y, Z.
In that sense, you feel home because you know you are all in the same boat.
Also, one of the things I love about Dubai, which was the same in China, is that everything is super convenient. Almost too convenient. I don’t go to a supermarket. Why would I? I can order everything on an app.
I need gas for my car. Why would I go to the gas station? I can order gas on an app and they will come and put gas in my car.
Greg:
I’ve never seen that before.
Lydia:
You see these little trucks going around. “Oh, I’m out of gas. Okay.”
Greg:
No kidding. I haven’t heard that either.
Lydia:
There’s an app for everything. Literally anything and everything has an app.
In that sense, living in Dubai is super convenient. Why would you cook when you can order food and it’s actually cheaper than going to the supermarket and cooking yourself?
Greg:
Do you ever leave your apartment?
Lydia:
I do because I have a dog. I have a foster dog right now, and we go out for walks. In my neighborhood, I have a dog park five minutes away from home. You go there and talk to people. Everyone is happy to listen to your story and share theirs.
Again, we’re all in the same thing. We’re all out of our own countries. We’re all looking for that human connection.
It feels easy. It’s not easy when you get here, and this is again the same as China. Getting the job, getting all your documents approved, getting your residence permit, all of those things take a while. While you don’t have it, there are many things you cannot do.
You cannot rent an apartment until you have your Emirates ID. You cannot open your electricity bill account until you have your Emirates ID. You cannot open a bank account until you have your Emirates ID.
So for the first month, month and a half, you’re kind of in limbo trying to figure things out as someone who is not yet a resident. But once you go through that, you’re in your apartment, you start having your own routine, finding the things you like to do, and making friends. It’s a very convenient place to live.
JP:
When you first landed, did your school help you find an apartment, or did they provide one?
Lydia:
First of all, my school was amazing. They hired a service called Marhaba Service, and a person came literally to pick me up from my airplane door, take me through security and immigration, and there were some SLT people waiting for us to welcome us and take us to our accommodations.
In my case, as a first-year teacher here in Dubai, they offered school accommodation. However, since I have a dog who hasn’t been able to make it to Dubai yet, I didn’t want to live in the accommodation because they don’t allow pets. I think that will eventually change because more and more people have dogs and cats, which is also part of how our society is changing.
They gave me no problem changing school housing for an allowance. So I have a housing allowance and rented the apartment where I wanted, how I wanted. That was easy.
Greg:
Did you have real estate agents showing you places, or did you just hit the pavement? How do you find the apartment?
Lydia:
When I got here, I had an Airbnb for a couple of months because I knew I couldn’t rent until I had my Emirates ID. I was warned about that. They told me, “You need to know this.”
I said, “Okay, that’s fine. I’ll find my own way.” I’m someone who tends to find her own way anyway.
I asked if they had recommendations for agents. They did not, but they pointed me toward a very safe webpage and explained things to look for so I could avoid fraud.
One thing my school has done really well is that they have a webpage for all new staff with all the information you need to know. Beware of fraud. This is how you validate your diplomas. This is about life in Dubai. This is about school. This is about how we work.
Before arriving in Dubai, I already had loads of information that helped me make good choices, either before I came or once I was already here.
JP:
That’s so important. We’re always talking about the orientation and onboarding process. When a school does that right, you start the year off so well. It also helps with longevity. People stay and renew contracts because that initial arrival feels safe and welcoming. It pays dividends in the long run.
Lydia:
Yes. This is not my first rodeo. This is what I always say. This is not my first country, but I still felt very well taken care of.
Imagine this is your first time going into international teaching and you have this beautiful webpage tailor-made for you as a new teacher coming to this new school. It has everything: the weather in Dubai during the year, things you should pack, things you might not find here, everything you could think of.
The teachers were the ones feeding information to the webpage, besides HR and SLT. When you come here and you already have all this help set up for you, it lifts the weight off your shoulders.
Even the fact that they came to pick us up at the airport the first time we arrived. You arrive after a long flight. In my case, it wasn’t that long because Madrid to Dubai is a six- or seven-hour flight, which is short.
Greg:
For some of us, that feels very short.
Lydia:
But imagine you come from the US or Australia. You’re in a new country you’ve never set foot in before. You need to find your luggage, find a way to get to your accommodation, which you don’t even know where it is. You don’t have money in the currency. You don’t have a SIM card.
They were already waiting for us to help us set up a SIM card if we hadn’t done it already, take us to our accommodation, help us with luggage. Everything was already set up.
Greg:
Nice. Even though you’ve been to other countries and traveled, it’s a big feather in the cap of the school and whoever organized that onboarding. You see a familiar face, a name from the school, a sign, whatever they’re doing, and they’re corralling you through. They’re holding your hand so you can settle in and not worry.
They want you to focus on school after you’ve settled yourself. How can anybody go to school and teach if they’re worried about not having water in their apartment?
I’ve seen lots of different approaches around the world, but the top schools are the ones thinking about onboarding. That’s my opinion, and I think JP shares it. Those delicate details that the school puts forward can keep you there if you have a good start.
JP:
You talked about landing with a few people, so let’s talk about your cohort. Did you have a wide range of people and nationalities, or was it a small cohort of two or three?
Lydia:
No, it’s a really big school. We’re talking over 3,400 students.
Greg:
Oh my God, that’s a city. I’ve lived in a city that big.
Lydia:
My village back in Spain is not that big, I can tell you that much. We’re like 1,000 people on our best day.
It is a huge school, and it’s a popular school, so numbers keep increasing. We had turnover, of course, and then they needed to hire more people because we have more students. So we were a pretty big cohort.
The good thing is that it was quite heterogeneous. We had people who were assisted international teachers, people who were done with life in the US and could not live there anymore, and they just wanted something different. We had a little bit of everything.
You could tell I was seasoned because I arrived with one piece of luggage and my stuff.
Greg:
My kind of traveler.
Lydia:
Then you see all these people arriving with five suitcases full of stuff, and they were like, “That’s it? That’s all you need?” I said, “Yeah. I’ll buy everything I need here. I’m not traveling with all this.”
Greg:
Test the waters and then, as you need more things, you can get them once you’re there. You can always bring things back from home later or buy what you need. You bring a whole bunch of stuff and never know if you’re going to need it.
Although if you have rugs, like somebody else I know, you bring rugs with you all the time.
JP:
I’m going to need that juicer that I really like. It’s handheld. I’m going to need everything.

Greg:
All right, let’s take a moment for a little commercial about how to get in touch with us.
You can find all four of us at itpexpats.com. That’s www.itpexpats.com.
You can also email us at internationalteacherpodcast@gmail.com.
We look forward to hearing from you.
If you’re into Facebook, we have a Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/ITPexpats, where you can find all kinds of inside information about ITP Expats.
You can also find us on Instagram at International Teacher Podcast.
Thank you, listeners. We have over 100 countries represented by our listeners. Though we are not monetized, we are here for you and we would like to thank all of you for listening.
Let’s get back to the show.

JP:
Lydia, tell us a little bit about your school. It’s 3,000 students, K–12. If you’re not comfortable sharing the name, that’s okay. But can you describe the staff, students, program, and curriculum?
Lydia:
My school is an American international school. We have both American curriculum and DP, the IB Diploma Programme. I’m actually teaching both curriculums.
I have one Spanish US curriculum class, one French US curriculum class, and then I have ab initio classes, which are my absolute favorite.
JP:
Ab initio, Greg, is IB for beginner. Absolute beginner, never taken the language before.
Lydia:
Which is loads of fun, but students fail to recognize that you need to have a really good level of the language in 18 months. At the beginning, they’re happy, but once you put yourself into overdrive, they are not that happy about that decision.
JP:
These are grade 11 students, right? Sixteen- and seventeen-year-old students who have never picked up the language.
I remember also really enjoying ab initio because you’re getting that academic star, the IB student who is very diligent about doing the work. But at the same time, as you say, they’re coasting at the beginning. They think, “This is such a breeze.” Then they forget that in 18 months, they’ll be doing serious work.
Greg:
I can’t even imagine what kind of pressure that is.
Lydia:
It’s a lot of pressure. For IB students, they’re already managing the other five subjects, plus the core subjects like Theory of Knowledge, their extended essay, research paper, and CAS. It’s a lot. But I do think it prepares them really well for university.
As I said, it’s a really big school. I think we have over 1,200 students just in high school. What I love about our school is that it’s very international. We have students from literally every corner of the world, many third culture kids. Mom is from here, dad is from there, and now we live in Dubai.
That brings such beautiful richness into the classroom. They always come with things you would never expect. When you ask questions like, “How do you do this in your culture?” they always have something interesting to tell you, things you would have never thought of.
It’s a very well-established school. It’s been in Dubai for over 25 years, and I’m loving it so far.
JP:
And the staff are equally international?
Lydia:
Yes, the staff are equally international.
Of course, in international teaching, unfortunately, they always love to have people who come from English-speaking countries, which I find very annoying. Let me elaborate.
For example, I don’t have a PGCE. I don’t have an American, English, New Zealand, or Canadian teaching qualification. But I do hold a master’s degree in teaching and learning.
According to some countries, my degree is worth less than a PGCE or something equivalent because it was not done in an English-speaking country. Why does that make it less worthy? I have an MA in teaching.
JP:
You’re preaching to the choir. Absolutely.
Lydia:
Why are those teaching degrees from the big five — New Zealand, Australia, UK, Canada, and the US — sometimes just one-year programs, given more weight than a master’s degree that can be two or three years of studying to become a teacher?
It’s very frustrating. It’s literally an MA in teaching. Why is this not okay? Why is this seen as less?
JP:
But you got it accepted. The UAE government accepted it.
Lydia:
Thank you. I’m very grateful. Shukran jazilan.
JP:
They accepted you into the country and said, “This is equivalent,” or, “We are happy with this,” and you’re off and teaching. Fantastic.
Lydia:
So far it has worked in all the countries where I’ve lived. However, it does not work in my own country.
Greg:
Oh boy.
Lydia:
Because it’s French.
JP:
Exactly. European Union. What?
Lydia:
I’m a Spanish person with a Spanish passport who has been teaching for 10 years now and cannot teach in her own country. Yay.
Greg:
Maybe that’s a good thing. It keeps you out traveling the world, and then when you retire you come home.
JP:
Lydia, do you foresee yourself ever returning home and wanting to teach in Spain? Or do you think this is the career you’ve chosen and it’s going to be one country after another?
Lydia:
Right now, I’m at a weird moment. Last year I was in Spain, and I saw that it wasn’t really an option for me because of my background. I have been living abroad for so long that Spain doesn’t feel like home. It is home, but it’s not.
JP:
You’re a foreigner.
Lydia:
I think most probably I will be an international teacher for the rest of my active life. I don’t really see myself going back home because the international school scene in Spain, in my opinion, is not that great. Contracts are not that good. It would be really hard to find a place where I would feel comfortable.
And I don’t think I would like to live in Madrid or Barcelona because they are such big cities. If I go back home, I would want to go back to my hometown, where I feel comfortable. It’s a smaller city.
At some point, I would have loved to bring back all the things I’ve been learning through my life and put them to work, not just for me, but for people I know, other teachers, and students. But as of now, I don’t see that happening.
What I do see is probably staying in Dubai for a long time, knock on wood. As I explained before, I’ve lived in many countries in the last 12 years. I’m done with moving. I cannot put together one more cardboard box. I’m done.
Greg:
Even with just the one suitcase coming in, you don’t feel like you’ll be leaving anytime soon?
Lydia:
No. It has been four months, and I’m really happy at the school where I am right now. I have a full SLT composed of women with power.
JP:
For our listeners, SLT?
Lydia:
Senior leadership team.
Greg:
Or school leadership team.
Lydia:
Our CEO is a strong, powerful woman from Canada. My high school principal is another powerful woman from the US. One assistant principal is from Syria, the other is from France. The head of teaching and learning for the whole school is another woman.
You can tell — and I’m sorry if this is a hot take — but you can tell things are done differently, with more empathy and more care. That’s something I haven’t seen in years, and it’s refreshing. Honestly, it’s so refreshing.
One of the things I have always found hard, and something I’ve struggled with, is seeing men made heads of school just because they fit a certain mold: white males, cis men, mid-40s to 50s, and that’s the “profile” to be a head of school.
But are they really good heads of school? I’ve been in so many schools where other people, especially women, were incredibly qualified. This is a woman-centered profession. Most teachers are women, and many of those women are super qualified, overly qualified, and yet they are not in SLT positions.
Why?
I’ve been in schools where I met women with leadership experience, PhDs, and amazing credentials, but they were not running the place. Instead, it was someone who had a contact with another person and became head of school.
Greg:
And they looked good in a tie.
Lydia:
Exactly. You can tell when things are being done by someone who knows what they’re doing and has worked to be in that position, versus someone who is just there because someone put them there.
JP:
You’re preaching to the choir. I do try to keep my very opinionated opinions to myself about this, but it is one of the things that drove me out of the leadership track. Seeing that constant male, usually white and usually cisgender, getting promoted over very qualified women I was working with was frustrating.
I wasn’t the one to change it. It sounds great, especially in a male-dominated society like the UAE, to have women in charge of one of the top schools in Dubai. Hopefully that opens the door. Hopefully women like yourself, who are still in the international circuit, are being encouraged to take up the baton and lead schools.
Lydia:
Yes. This is something we have been discussing a lot in the last few years: why representation matters.
I feel represented by a woman who is leading the school with heart, passion, and empathy. But she’s also a leader, and she has to make decisions not everyone likes. She has to make decisions that are sometimes ugly.
She is still there to receive us if we need to talk to her, to be empathetic about situations that are not always nice. We are in a business that works with humans, and humans are sometimes messy. Humans are sometimes ugly — not physically, but in the way they behave. Especially teenagers. Sometimes they act up, and you need someone willing to make difficult decisions.
If you see someone who looks like you leading this huge school, you can say, “If she can do it, I can also do it if I want to.” And think about all those girls in the school. All the girl students are seeing successful leaders, and that is inspirational for them too.
Representation matters for students as well.
Greg:
Fantastic. I think it’s fortunate that you have a strong leadership team represented by women. Some of my favorite leaders in the past have been strong women I still keep in touch with because you learn so much.
My one caveat is that I like strong leaders, men or women, who were in the teaching field before. They didn’t just jump into admin, and they’re not just business people. They need business sense, and they need leadership, but I appreciate leaders who have spent time in a classroom.
That’s where I draw the line. I always feel fortunate and refreshed when I work where the elementary principal is female or the head of school is female. I thrive on that. But I hope they have teaching experience. Otherwise, they’ll be like the men in leadership positions who are more businesslike and can’t relate to us.
JP:
That’s the biggest thing. If they are teachers first, they’re going to have empathy toward their teachers on staff.
Greg:
And they’ll be in the classroom.
JP:
Yes, and personable. Presumably, when you become a teacher, you like kids. If you’re a leader who was a former teacher, you still like kids. That carries into leadership.
I’ve worked with leaders where you can tell they don’t like kids. Why? How did you become a leader of a school if you don’t like kids and don’t want to see the hand-drawn picture of you and hang it up in your office? It boggles the mind.
Greg:
The best leaders go into classrooms, in my opinion. You see their face. They’re not hiding in an office.
Right now, our leadership, the assistant principals and principal, are in classrooms helping out. Then they meet after school hours to do their administrative things. But you see them all over the school. I love that more than anything.
Lydia:
Yes, and it keeps you on your toes because you know they can come at any point. You know you need to deliver good quality.
Greg:
Doors open. Come anytime you want. You don’t have to make an appointment.
Lydia:
Exactly. My door is always open. You want to come in? Perfect. I hope you enjoy whatever we’re doing today. It can look like anything and everything.
I used to just keep teaching when my high school principal or head of school would walk in. I got so used to it that I would keep teaching. Then I realized, “Wait, what if they actually have a message for me?” So I would stop and ask, “Are you okay?” They would say, “No, just observing.” Or, “Actually, I want to hand you this.”
It became the norm, and it’s so gratifying as a teacher to know they take interest in our classes and want to see what the kids are doing.
It also takes a lot of pressure off because you don’t have to play all your cards for that one formal observation where you are super stressed. You have the pre-meeting, the class, the post-meeting, everything.
If you’re used to them dropping in regularly, you’re used to them being in your classroom. They know what you’re doing. Maybe that very formal observation is not needed anymore because they already know if you have a good relationship with your students, if you have good routines in place, and what your teaching looks like.
And you don’t feel like you’re having a heart attack every time someone from admin decides to drop into your classroom.
Greg:
What a strange bunch. I could never be an admin. I’ve come close. I’ve been in the inner circle at a smaller school and in charge of a lot of things, but I would never be a principal. My grandfather was, but no way.
I don’t know if you guys — I know JP has experience as an admin — but I respect admin, especially elementary school admin. Whoa. Something I would never do.
JP:
It’s a very difficult job. I am aware that this hour has passed so quickly. At this point, we’d like to ask you: in that one suitcase you brought to Dubai, were there three things from home that make Dubai feel like home? Are there three things you need to take with you?
Lydia:
Not really. I know that might not make sense. I’m not your typical Spaniard who always travels with a bunch of jamón in her suitcase. It has been so long. When I get home, I enjoy my jamón, and that’s it.
What I always try to get is really comfy pajamas. That makes me feel at home. Probably some snacks from home too.
If I could, I would have put my dog in my suitcase, but unfortunately that was not an option. That’s probably the thing that most makes me feel at home: my pup, my Chinese dog.
JP:
From China?
Lydia:
Yes, and he is still in Spain. He is currently living his prince life with my parents in the Spanish countryside, enjoying lots of pets and garden time.
JP:
Our other question is: in all your travels, can you share one run-in with the law? Maybe a police story, a customs story, something that won’t get you in trouble but something that happened?
Lydia:
When I got to Dubai, I had something in my suitcase that was actually a medical device, but they do not consider it a medical device here.
The first thing that happened to me when I got to Dubai was that I was held up by customs police for about 30 minutes, and I had to explain what this device was. They took it away from me.
So I thought, “Okay, I just got to this country and I’ve already been detained by the police. I don’t know how this is going to work.”
Usually I’m very chill. I don’t drink alcohol. I do not party. I’m more of a couch potato kind of person. I love reading and watching TV.
Greg:
Well, you do bring medical devices into countries where they’re not allowed.
Lydia:
I know, I know. But some of us are born weirdly and need our medical devices.
I was mortified. When I came out through customs and the school team came to pick me up, they asked, “How are you?” I said, “Perfect. We’re all good.” Because they didn’t need to know.
Greg:
Smooth.
Lydia:
That’s something I will never forget.
Greg:
All those customs stories at the airport there are a little scary. There are so many people going through that airport, and to be pulled aside like, “You need to come with me over here, lady,” is something.
JP:
As long as you’re not seeing the white gloves.
Lydia:
I had a similar thing happen in China. During COVID, I didn’t go home to Spain for two years. At some point, my parents said, “We’re just going to send you a little care package with some jamón, pork meats, and a couple of tokens from home so you think of us.”
I said, “Yes, of course.”
My package got to China and arrived at customs. They called me. I thought, “What’s wrong? I don’t think there’s anything weird there.” There was no medication because I have chronic illnesses, but I usually bring my own medication and everything is fine.
This time there was no medication. They called and said, “You know meat is not allowed to enter the country?”
And I said, “Oh, I didn’t know.” It’s not like my parents had already sent me three or four packages full of jamón, pork, sirloin, and cured meats.
I was like, “Oh, I didn’t know this. Can I sign and take this with me?” They said, “No, no, no. We’re going to destroy it.”
So I saw so many euros’ worth of meat being put into a bag that they would later destroy. I was like, “No.”
Greg:
They took it home and ate it.
Lydia:
I hope at least someone ate it and got something out of it because I was like, “No, not my jamón. Why would you do this?”
The lady was looking at me while putting things into the bag. It was awful.
JP:
Lydia, is there a place people can reach out to you? Do you have a shareable Instagram or LinkedIn link? Let’s say a Spanish teacher or French teacher out there is listening and thinking, “How do I do what Lydia is doing?” Can they reach out to you, or would you prefer they reach out through our Gmail?
Lydia:
If they want to reach out through your Gmail, that’s fine. They can find me on LinkedIn. For obvious reasons as a teacher, I keep my Instagram private because we need to be very aware of safeguarding. But if they want to reach out to me through LinkedIn, I’m more than happy to answer any questions.
JP:
With your permission, we’ll put that in the show notes.
Lydia:
Fantastic.
JP:
Any last thoughts for listeners who haven’t quite jumped on the international teaching bandwagon? What would you say to them?
Lydia:
Do it. Jump. There’s always water in the swimming pool once you jump. Maybe not as much as you thought, but there’s always water.
This is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It has been eye-opening on so many levels: professional and personal. I’ve been able to meet amazing people, amazing professionals, but also amazing people themselves.
It creates a sense of community, your family away from your blood-related family. It has given me the opportunity to explore the world and also bring my family to explore the world with me.
I have very adventurous parents who have followed me around the world and continue to follow me around the world. I could not have done this without them. My parents are amazing, and being able to share my life and experiences around the world with them has been one of the most rewarding things.
My dad would have never thought he would know China, and Suzhou, the city where I used to live, like the back of his hand. My mom would have never thought she would be eating sushi in Japan, but there she is.
Shout out to my mom, who wrote a blog about her experience in China and then her experience in Vietnam.
JP:
Can we share that in the show notes?
Lydia:
Absolutely.
JP:
Is it in Spanish?
Lydia:
Of course. En español.
It was really fun to see the world through her lens. Do it. Don’t think about it.
JP:
Greg the app guy, are you going to plug your app in this episode?
Greg:
We haven’t talked about it. Maybe on the—
Actually, Lydia, you teach a lot of students, right? And you have lots of staff at your school.
Lydia:
I have about 650 students.
Greg:
So I made an app for learning names. It’s called What’s That Student’s Name? It’s like three dollars on the Apple Store. I can’t sell it in France for some reason, but I can sell it everywhere else. Very French, right?
It was an exercise with AI and working on things. I needed it for myself and I use it every day. I think JP is using it with the dog names around her area.
It’s a great app. I don’t usually plug things on the show unless somebody else brings it up, but I love it and can’t go without it as a teacher.
You can load your own kids, load a big list of kids, take pictures with it, etc. The data just stays on the phone. There’s no internet connection or security worry. It’s a one-time purchase for about three dollars, or whatever currency you’re using.
JP:
We should be clear about the name. What Student?
Greg:
Yes. What Student? The whole name is What’s That Student’s Name, but you’ll find it on the App Store as What Student?
Lydia:
Very useful. I’m going to look it up right away.
Greg:
I can’t keep track. I’ve changed the name so many times.
I do want to say a few last words. Thank you to the women in leadership positions overseas. It is applaudable. You brought it up, and it’s welcome for us as listeners to hear that you have great leadership, especially women who are there for you.
We talked about onboarding, and I think that’s great. It sounds like Dubai is one of those great places to go and teach. If you ever go travel and teach in China, don’t bring your Spanish jamón. That’s what I learned from this whole thing.
I loved talking with you. It has been great to hear about your language background. It’s fascinating, and you live a life that a lot of us love to hear about. Thank you for coming on. I hope you come back onto our show.
Lydia:
Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Greg:
You’re welcome. Thank you for letting our listeners hear your stories.
JP:
This has been another episode of the International Teacher Podcast. My name is Jacqueline from JP Mint Consulting, and I want to thank our guest Lydia today. I also want to thank Greg the app guy.
And remember: one suitcase could cut it. You heard it here today. One suitcase could make the trip.
Thank you so much, everybody, and we’ll see you next time.