Profile

Marilena is originally from Romania.  She received her B.A. from the University of Bucharest in the Faculty of Philology.  After working for five years as a high school teacher of Romanian and English Literature in Bucharest, she decided to further her education and moved to the United States with her husband in 1996.

Marilena obtained an M.A. in Comparative Literature and an M.A. in TESOL from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  At UIUC, she worked as a graduate teaching assistant, teaching courses in World Literature and World Religions.  After graduation, she spent her Optional Practical Training year in Chicago as an English instructor in the Adult Education Program at Richard J. Daley College.

In 2002, Marilena decided to return to her home country and took up employment with the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, where she taught a variety of Business English courses.  She also worked as an English Instructor at Prosper Language Center in Bucharest, teaching Cambridge exam preparation courses and special business courses for corporate clients.

In 2006, Marilena returned to the United States and joined her husband, who was appointed to a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UMBC.  She currently works as an English instructor in the English Language Center, where she teaches Level 4 classes and serves as a writing tutor.

In the LLC Program, Marilena’s major interest is in the teaching of academic writing.  She plans to investigate the psychological effects of writing in a second language and intends to look at autobiographical and/or diary information from writers who wrote in a second language, either by choice or forced by exile.

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