CIEE, Amman

This course is for students at the Intermediate II level or above with prior knowledge of vocabulary, terms, and compositions of press and media related subjects such as politics, economy, diplomacy and international relations, wars and conflicts, political parties, and regimes. It discusses the most recent and important events both regionally and internationally by referring to various media sources either written or visual. In addition, news materials are discussed by referring to multiple news outlets and resources for the purposes of comparison. The course also heavily focuses on media-related vocabulary.

Students complete a total of 100-120 hours of research and meet regularly with an advisor to complete an academically rigorous, ethically sound, and culturally appropriate research project and final research paper. The course provides an opportunity to conduct ethical research; analyze primary and secondary source materials; extrapolate relevant content; make contributions to current research; exchange ideas with professionals in prospective fields; develop a scholarly research paper with a defensible argument, supported by evidence and accurate citations; and suggest additional research to be conducted in prospective fields. The research project must be approved by the CIEE Center Director and the student's home school IRB committee. Assessment is based on a research paper that evidences the proposed project, including a literature review, an explanation of the methodology, and suggestions for future research. In addition, students present their findings in a presentation to a panel of academics for feedback and keep a well-documented journal of field notes and findings. 

This course continues students' education in Arabic and builds on previous coursework, with a prerequisite of two semesters of Arabic language study. The course develops skills to summarize listening passages and solve objective and subjective questions both stated and implied; discuss a topic and answer questions; differentiate synonyms and antonyms and outline the main ideas and meaning of some new vocabulary from the context; apply learned grammar such as prepositions, object, negation, and conjunctions and produce nominal and verbal sentences; and produce a daily journal and a small essay using the vocabulary learned. The course emphasizes a communication-based method of instruction. Students are expected to be active learners, coming to class prepared to activate vocabulary and grammar through group activities. Instead of lecturing, instructors primarily facilitate these communication-based activities and guide student learning.

This course complements the competency of Modern Standard Arabic achieved in previous studies. Local material components are included in the curriculum. Attention is paid to the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, in addition to an analysis of the novel. During the course, students become familiar with major aspects of the Jordan culture and many traditions related to Jordan in general.

Using popular media such as television and radio, students build their vocabulary and conversation skills by discussing current events relevant to contemporary Jordanian society in colloquial Jordanian Arabic. The course also involves field visits and focus-group style sessions with Jordanians to expand students' ability to converse in the local dialect.

This course complements the competency of Modern Standard Arabic achieved in previous studies of Arabic and focuses on the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It practices translating selected passages that discuss media, day of celebration, university, literature, and story as well as predicting the meaning of new word; reading aloud and discussing texts; distinguishing the root, pattern system, and complex sentence structure as well as differentiating and producing the Awzzan; creating an article (200- 400 words) in Arabic about social and political issues in Jordan and/or the Middle East; and concluding the main ideas from an audio text (3-5 minutes) about social problems in Jordan and political issues in the Middle East.