Fatma El-Turky

Mrs. El-Turky has been teaching Arabic language for the past 20 years in Michigan and Pennsylvania including the University of Detroit, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College and Lehigh University. She is an approved interpreter at the Lehigh Valley Court in Pennsylvania and for the USA Air Force. Fatma El-Turky lectures locally on the cultural, political, and religious aspects of Middle East and has served as a media commentator for local newspapers and television stations. She holds a Master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies from Wayne State University and a B.A in Social Science from the University of Alexandria, Egypt.

Marwa El-Turky

Ms. El-Turky received a Bachelor’s of Arts from Temple University and Masters of Science from the London School of Economics. She studied Arabic to the advanced level and has studied both Modern Standard Arabic and the Egyptian Colloquial Dialect extensively in Egypt in both Cairo and Alexandria. She has taught and tutored all levels of Arabic in both Pennsylvania and Egypt. Ms. El-Turky resides in Allentown, PA.

Joy Betz

Prior to living in the United States, Ms. Betz earned her B.A. in English Language and Literature from Tianjin Normal University in China. She taught Chinese as well as translated at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics in Tianjin, China. She was awarded an M.A. degree in TESOL form Oklahoma City University. She has taught various levels of Chinese classes for the Tulsa Public Schools and is a lab coordinator at Tulsa Community College Metro Campus Language Lab.

Yan Chen-McBride

Yan Chen-McBride earned her M.A. in Educational Studies from the University of York in England. She was awarded her B.A. in English & Education from Suzhou Railway Teachers’ College. In China, she was an English Lecturer at Ningbo University and an English teacher at Guangzhou #1 High School. In addition, Yan Chen-McBride is Vice-President of International Partnerships in Education.

Limei Shan

Ms. Shan earned her B.A. in Russian from Northeast Normal University in ChangChung, China, and her M.A. in Education Administration from East China Normal University in Shanghai. While in China, she taught Chinese at the Shenzhen New World Training Center and English at Donghua Middle School in Shenzhen. She was a Chinese teacher at Ross Global Academy Charter School in New York City. She currently is a Professor of Practice of Chinese at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Felicia Weng

Aside from holding a psychology degree from the University of Washington, a TCSOL teaching certificate, and TBC (Teaching Business Chinese) and TCYL (Teaching Chinese to Young Learners) certificates, Ms. Weng has trained at Beijing Language and Culture University on methods and skills of teaching Chinese. She is has lived in China, Taiwan, the US and Canada and has traveled to Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and Germany.

Ellen Bearn

Mrs. Bearn earned her B.A. in Art History from Williams College in Williamstown Massachusetts, and her M.A. in Japanese Pedagogy from Columbia University in New York. She taught Japanese as an adjunct at both Lafayette College and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. We welcome her back from teaching Japanese at Bogazici University in Instanbul, Turkey.

Lie Narukawa Gitzel

Mrs. Gitzel studied Japanese Language and Culture at both Sao Paulo University in Brazil and Waseda University in Japan. She earned her Educational degree at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania and took a course in Elementary Japanese Pedagogy at Columbia University in New York. She has taught Japanese in Downingtown and Lower Merion, Pennsylvania.

Mari Hayashi

Mari Hayashi has been teaching at Lehigh University since September 1997. She has over 15 years of Japanese language teaching experience at the college level and has been a lecturer in Japanese at Haverford College, Villanova University, and the University of Pennsylvania. She began her teaching career at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned an M.A. in Linguistics. Before coming to America, she earned a B.A. from Ritsumaikan University, Kyoto, Japan and worked for 6 years at the Gifu Prefecture Board of Education.

Maia Kay

Maia Kay is an adjunct professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. She earned her M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from Lehigh University and M.S. in Journalism from Tbilisi State University. For more than six years she has taught different levels of Russian Language and Culture to US students and scholars. Her passion is 19th century Russian poetry and literature.

Marina Kostina

A native Russian, Marina Kostina received her BA in Russian, MA in Linguistics from Lomonosov Moscow State University. She has taught ESL, Russian and Spanish in US high schools and colleges since 1995. She guided assessment and evaluation initiatives at the American College of Education in Chicago and curriculum design initiatives and training at an urban alternative Chicago school. Mrs. Kostina is currently researching Online Learning of Foreign Languages for her Doctoral thesis and has presented her research at various language conferences including the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, AATSEEL and USDLA. She is also a co-author of "Perspectives," a college-level textbook for advanced students of Russian. In her free time, Marina Kostina loves to cook, read, travel and dance Salsa.

Nicole Burtch

Nicole Burtch earned dual certification in Spanish and English education from the University of Pittsburgh and Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. She has also studied Spanish Language and Culture at La Fundación Ortega y Gasset in Toledo, Spain and in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. She has over 8 years of High School

Spanish teaching experience as well as teaching English abroad at La Universidad de los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela. Nicole lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and her two sons.