Morocco

This course provides students with credit for professional and academic experience through internships with local organizations. While working at the internship site, students gain new abilities and skills and develop self-confidence from pursuing challenging goals. The academic component helps students navigate the challenges that they are likely to face while interning and afford them a greater understanding of their strengths and limitations related to their work experience and to Morocco. Students thereby get the opportunity to explore or affirm possible career aspirations. The Internship course provides students with a significant on-site work experience, both in terms of time spent and the tasks completed under the guidance of their mentors. The seminar develops their personal, interpersonal, and intercultural competences in order to maximize the gains from their internship placements. Furthermore, it broadens students’ perspectives of their international professional experience through a series of guided discussions, a professional journal, a final project, and presentations. The seminar helps students to evaluate and enhance their development in the workplace during their on-site work experience. Students explore and understand major professionally-related topics and develop their intercultural skills through interactive workshops and reflection of their work experience in the host culture.

This course is offered during the first two weeks of the program. It is designed to begin to learn how to properly and effectively communicate in Moroccan dialect. The course introduces words, phrases, expressions, and structures used in everyday life. It also introduces Moroccan culture and the cultural context of communication in order to better communicate with Moroccans. The course adopts a communicative methodology to develop immediate survival conversational competence. Role plays and simulations, group work with native speakers, and field-based activities are used to increase exposure to the target language.

This course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of the Arabic language. The course employs student-centered methods to introduce basic grammatical structures and sound patterns of Arabic with attention to mastery of script, pronunciation, and listening comprehension. It focuses on reading and writing using Arabic script and verbal communication by forming phrases and simple sentences. The course develops language and skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) at the Novice-Mid level of the ACTFL Guidelines for proficiency and introduces culturally appropriate social interactions. Course highlights include the Arabic alphabet and sound system, correct pronunciation of Arabic sounds, writing accurately from dictation, initiating social interactions and asking for basic information, interpreting basic cultural aspects of social interaction in the Arab world, and composing simple sentences about one's self.