A Glen Burnie High School teacher will spend six weeks in Morocco this fall, learning how students who speak French and Arabic soak up the nuances of yet another language -- English.
Erin Sullivan, 32, was awarded an all-expenses-paid trip last month as part of the Fulbright Teacher and Administrator Exchange program operated by the U.S. State Department.
She said she applied because she wanted to learn where her students in the school's rapidly expanding English for Speakers of Other Languages program get their drive and discipline. Sullivan uses pictures, facial expressions and sometimes other ESOL students to help teach English to foreign-born students.
"You don't want to get complacent," Sullivan said about her teaching methods. "I think it's good for me to be put in their shoes."
In October, she will travel to eastern Morocco and shadow Sakina El Khayari, an ESOL teacher at the Lycee Mixte de Missour. El Khayari will host Sullivan in her home, and Sullivan will return the favor when El Khayari comes for her six-week visit in March.
"We've been e-mailing a little bit," said Sullivan, who lives in Baltimore. "I feel I will be learning a lot from her."
It is rare for an Anne Arundel educator to be selected for the program. Diana Strohecker, principal at Millersville Elementary, went to England during the 2005-2006 school year, and in 2004 Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell, while employed by the Montgomery County school system, participated in a principal exchange as a Fulbright Scholar in several cities in Brazil.
Sullivan is one of about 170 who will travel abroad during the 2007-2008 school year through the teacher exchange program. Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas created the program in 1946 to build understanding between the U.S. and other countries.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. has tried to expand exchanges to North Africa, the Middle East and other key world regions, according to a statement from Thomas A. Farrell, deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programs.
"Through her participation in the exchange, Ms. Sullivan will also help to increase knowledge and understanding about the United States among Moroccan students, teachers and the local community," Farrell said.
State Department officials advised Sullivan to learn some basic Arabic, the native tongue in Morocco. She can speak French, the primary language used in schools in the country.
Sullivan will attend a two-day orientation at the State Department before flying to Morocco on Oct. 2. She is scheduled to return Nov. 14, but she might stay longer so that she can travel in the Middle East.
Sullivan has studied and volunteered overseas. She is a 1998 graduate of the University of Maryland with a bachelor's degree in government and politics. She spent a semester in Nice, France. In 2000, she spent more than three months in Brazil doing volunteer work on a farm, then in urban areas. She has also vacationed in Costa Rica, Peru and Turkey, and traveled through most of Western Europe.
Sullivan received her master's degree in Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages (TESOL) from the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore in 2004. Since then, she has been teaching in the ESOL program at Glen Burnie High School. When she arrived, the ESOL program had 18 students. The program now has 70 and is expected to grow during the next school year, Sullivan said.
The students are from 25 countries and speak 20 languages, she said. The majority of them, however, are from Latin America, namely El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. One of her former students is from Morocco and has offered to tutor her in the heavily French-influenced Arabic of his native country.
"He is really excited about me doing this exchange," Sullivan said.
Immigrants have found Glen Burnie to be a good place to settle because of its lower housing prices, Sullivan said. She is studying the changing climate in her work on a doctorate for instructional leadership for a changing population at the College of Notre Dame.