He obtained his B.A. in English Literature from the University of Cadi Ayyad in Marrakech, Morocco and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While completing his graduate work, Dr. Chakrani also obtained a Certificate of Advanced Studies in the program of Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE) at UIUC. Prior to joining MSU, he taught at UIUC and Parkland College in Champaign and served as supervising Teaching Assistant in the African Language program at UIUC.