Mualla Atlamaz was born in Samsun. She graduated from İktisadi ve Ticari İlimler Akademisi (Academy of Commerce and Economics) in İstanbul. In U.S.A., she became a teacher of Foreign Service Institute Language School of the State Department. She has applied the F.S.I. method together with linguists for 3 years as a Turkish language instructor. For the following 10 years, she has worked as a Turkish teacher in Consulate of U.S.A. in İstanbul. She has also taught Turkish in summer courses of the Turkish-Ame