After spending ten years away on the East Coast, I am excited to be home in Texas getting my PhD in Middle Eastern Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. I am previously a graduate of American University in Washington DC, with a BA in International Relations. After graduating, I spent two years in Istanbul, Turkey teaching academic Reading and Writing at a preparatory program at a private university. Upon returning to the United States, I worked for a hip new language school in Brooklyn teaching Spanish, French, and Arabic. I love sharing my passion for foreign language and literature, and I seized every opportunity to take my lessons outside of the classroom with Spanish scavenger hunts, French cheese tastings, and Arabic window shopping.
Besides the new cultures and experiences that learning a foreign language brings, it helps improve reading and writing skills in your native language as well. Along with Spanish, French, and Arabic, I also tutor academic Reading and Writing. I believe that English and foreign language learning reinforce one another. Whether ordering baklava in Arabic, or answering vocabulary questions on the SAT, language is all about taking a step back and understanding the communicative tools you have to work with.
When not studying medieval poetry, I love to bike around Austin and work on the mini-farm in our backyard, complete with chickens!