“I’m learning new things every day, not just from classes, not just from [James Madison University], but about American lifestyles, about people,” said Zouitni, who has visited the US only once before—nineteen years ago, on a one-week tourist trip to New York. The Moroccan transplant, hosted by English teacher Cathy Soenksen, said that the Americans she’s met through the program surpassed her expectations and have been “really helpful” and “really nice.”

Indeed, Zouitni admires Harrisonburg High School itself, calling it “wonderful” and “amazing.” She particularly marvels at the school’s amount of technology, which far eclipses the technology used in Moroccan schools, which share “huge differences” with American schools.

“The technology…the classes…even the relationship between teachers and students is different,” said Zouitni, who teaches tenth through twelfth grades in Morocco. “I think that students here have more freedom than Moroccan students” in terms of both academic freedom and classroom decorum, she said.

Zouitni was surprised by the lateness of foreign-language education in the United States, which starts in high school for most students. In Morocco, Zouitni is quick to point out, students begin learning Arabic and French in elementary school (with French as the country’s “first foreign language”) and English in high school. The exchange teacher emphasized foreign-language education as one of Moroccan schools’ greatest strengths that the US could learn from, especially in an increasingly interconnected world.

But the veteran English teacher sees an important similarity between American and Moroccan schools: “The objectives are the same—that the students achieve…and get an education.”

Zouitni is excited to incorporate the lessons learned through ILEP, which she joined simply because she “loves teaching,” into her classes in Morocco. She just considers herself lucky to have the opportunity to do so in the first place.