About me

I am a Moroccan American living in Santa Barbara for the last 10 years. Recent graduate of UCSB with my bachelors in Linguistics and French . I grew up speaking Arabic in my family home.

I attribute my love for language to my early exposure to Arabic from my mother’s side of the family. We lived in a Moroccan microcosm where we spoke Arabic, listened to Arabic music and ate moroccan food. It opened my mind and heart to people of all kinds and piqued my passion for connecting with people from other countries and cultures in the most authentic way. I travelled every summer to Morocco and developed a strong sense for the French language as well.

I have experience teaching infants, children, and adults French and Spanish. My father grew up in Mexico and spent time in Guatemala. He wanted to show me his roots and brought me to Guatemala for two months to partake in full emersion Spanish classes.

Each day, I sat in a tropical garden with my teacher who didn’t speak English. I was captivated and hungry for more. After class, I would go to the markets and bargain for bracelets and textiles with the locals for hours. My curiosity about their lives inspired me to devour as much Spanish as I could so I could ask more questions and understand their responses fully. To me, this is what language learning is about; learning a language offers a key into a new world, into a new mentality, and a new perspective. I want to offer this to others.

Communicating with others through these complex language systems is what distinguishes us as humans. It is a beautiful art. Though learning the rules and the patterns can feel difficult or unnatural, when we tap into the desire to connect and learn with others, it becomes quite intuitive.