I used to walk past this camel mural on my way to work each morning when I lived in Tripoli as a relatively inexperienced English teacher. My students were helicopter pilots (mostly without helicopters) and forensic scientists (wholly without a laboratory) and in my classroom, which had gaping holes in the floor, the students sat on white plastic lawn furniture. We were united in our daily challenge of living in a place where what might be considered the basics of personal or working life were sometimes in short supply. If I wanted pens to write on the whiteboard or a book of any kind, there was a shop in the city from which these could be procured but as far as the schools own resources went, these were thin on the ground. They found me a bucket once when the ceiling was leaking a suspicious-looking yellow liquid that was about the extent of things. If that all sounds rather bleak, it wasn’t really so bad. I had come equipped with my own laptop and speakers, my colleague had bought a printer and we had patchy internet access courtesy of one of those pay-as-you-go dongles. We pooled the various books and resources we had all brought from home but most significantly of all, our students’ desire to learn and feeling of good fortune at being invited to attend these free classes meant we were never short of things to do. 

Even so, when compared to my current teaching context, where we benefit from interactive whiteboards and projectors in every room, freely and consistently available access to the internet for everyone in the room and a whole library full of published resources, not to mention reliable photocopying facilities and a course book provided free of charge to every learner, the contrast is stark. Reading this article today, I was reminded that the differences can be equally significant when observed in the other direction. Speaking about a school set up for Syrian refugees at a camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, the interviewee explained the scale of the situation: “They don’t have a computer, they don’t have craft supplies, they don’t even have a room.” She goes on to say that many of the children, who are queuing up to participate in the lessons on offer, have lost their families. It goes without saying that they’ve lost their homes.

This highlights more than ever the need for contextual considerations to be paramount in the process of selecting, evaluating or creating materials for language teaching but perhaps it also asks a question about what is really necessary for a positive teaching and learning experience.