Manal Ahmed earned her MA in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization from the University of Washington, Seattle with a focus on Arabic Pedagogy and second language acquisition. She received her BA in English Language and Literature with a minor in French from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. She has taught Arabic as a foreign language in many institutions in Cairo before coming to the US.

Her area of specialization is Arabic applied linguistics with a focus on second language acquisition and foreign language teaching methodology. Her research interests center on task-based language teaching, peer interaction in foreign language classrooms, and the use of the first language in second language learning. She has studied peer interaction within the context of the Arabic heritage and second language learners’ language classroom as well as their motivation, expectations, and engagement in learning Arabic. Additionally, her research focuses on language and identity in the Middle East.

Manal’s MA thesis is about achieving communicative competence in Arabic through the integration of Modern Standard Arabic and dialects in teaching Arabic as a foreign language curriculum in the US. Before coming to Swarthmore, Manal was teaching Arabic language and culture at the University of Washington, Seattle and at Towson University in Maryland.

Manal was a nominee for the University of Washington’s Excellence in Teaching Award for 2019.