Professor Rajaa Aquil has been teaching foreign languages for over twenty years. She has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University. Her research is in the processing of connected spoken language and second language acquisition. She is also interested in understanding cultures through the study of metaphors. Rajaa worked as a visiting assistant professor and a coordinator of Arabic instruction at the University of Utah, the head of the Arabic component of the Linguistic Correlates of Proficiency project at the Center of Advanced Study of Languages at the University of Maryland, and a research assistant in Arabic language testing at the Center of Applied Linguistics.