The first years of teaching are well known as being the most challenging of new graduates' careers, corresponding to the highest attrition rates. Numbers of novice teachers leaving the profession during the first three years are universally high. The challenges faced by novice teachers vary from struggling with classroom management issues to coping with lesson planning, to name just two. In Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, novice Emirati teachers face additional dimensions to these challenges, in that they are joining public schools which are undergoing substantial educational reform. They are also in the minority as Emirati English medium teachers, working among mainly Western teaching staff. We interviewed a group of Emirati primary school teachers during their first year of teaching. It was found that they had faced multiple challenges, some of which are universal among novice teachers, such as managing student behavior and learning to cope with their new workload. However, they also faced additional unique challenges, such as navigating inter-cultural relationships with colleagues, and balancing their new working lives with their demanding home lives.

The United Arab Emirates’ economic and population growth within the past 30 years has led to a vibrant country where linguistic, cultural and religious diversity is the norm. Nevertheless, as Arabic-speaking Emiratis comprise approximately 10–15% of the country’s residents, academics and Emiratis themselves have questioned the level to which Arabic is threatened in the country. Given the use of English in many domains outside of the home, coupled with its global prestige, such uncertainty regarding the future of Arabic are warranted, yet there is currently no baseline data on how Emiratis are using language in their daily lives. This article examines language threat within this context and uses survey data completed by 248 Emirati participants regarding their reported use of Arabic and other languages. Findings suggest that although Arabic plays a major role in the daily lives of majority of Emiratis, English often co-exists in a variety of different domains and adds to the context’s multilingualism. The authors argue that Emiratis live in a multilingual country where Arabic and English co-exist together in relative harmony. Nevertheless, given the rapidly changing demographics and educational policies in the country, further research is essential.

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This article explores the emergence of Emirati novice teachers' professional identity from a socio-cultural viewpoint where influences on identity are sourced internally through beliefs, attitudes, values and dispositions and externally through factors such as roles and responsibilities. Empirical data collected through individual and group interviews and analysed using content analysis, highlights both challenges and emergence of professional identity from point of graduation through to the end of the first year of teaching. The results show that influences on professional identity relate to challenges of raising learner outcomes in relation to delivery of the curriculum, managing the self in multiple contexts, and participating in schoolbased communities of practice. Teaching science and mathematics in English raises queries of 'self' as a teacher. Novice teachers' emerging professional identity emphasises the ethics of teaching in the UAE.

Abstract:The teacher-training college where this research took place prepares Emirati primary school teachers to teach the subjects of English, Mathematics and Science through the medium of English. The college courses taught have been aligned to the 'New School Model' developed by the Abu Dhabi Educational Council (ADEC) as part of the overall education reform. The current group of graduates is unique in that most English Medium Teachers in the past have been recruited from overse as to teach these subjects. They were also the first graduates to have been specifically trained to teach these subjects in English throughout their entire course of study. Therefore, it is critically important to review the effe ctiveness of their college preparation. This study explores their journey in their first year as novice teachers, looking at the ways in which they found their teacher preparation useful and relevant, and the ways in which they felt it was lacking. Findings from survey and interview data identify the areas where the novice teachers suggest how preparation can be improved, and give suggestions for ways in which the gap between theory in college and practice in school can be narrowed to become more effective.