IES Abroad Rabat Hosts Customized Arabic Institute for Texas A&M Students

Every year, IES Abroad Rabat and Customized & Faculty-Led Programs hosts the Arabic Institute for Texas A&M students, but this year they decided to get creative and bring the international experience to College Station, Texas virtually. This past month, these virtual tours and lectures focused on expanding students' cultural worlds and illuminating the experience of studying abroad. We’re happy to share a sneak peek of the IES Abroad Rabat tour with you here!

The program, curated by IES Abroad Rabat faculty, included a series of presentations with a tour of the IES Abroad Center in Rabat. Among these were a presentation about IES Abroad facilities and programs, homestay host families, student life in Morocco and IES Abroad Rabat academics. Rabat faculty Houda Fakhouri helped bring Moroccan cuisine to households halfway across the world with a fascinating cooking class featuring Moroccan salads, chicken tagine, and tea.

Oussama El Addouli, IES Abroad Rabat Center Director, was happy to moderate and facilitate these sessions and Texas A&M Program Leader Salah Ayari, Instructional Professor of Arabic, was equally happy to participate. He shared, “Thank you for the wonderful virtual sessions that IES Abroad Rabat offered to my students from Texas A&M. The tour of the IES Abroad Center, the cooking class, the home visit, the presentation about Moroccan traditional souks, and the caligraphy class all went very well, and I have received very positive evaluations from the students, who wrote reflection journals about what they have learned linguistically and culturally. Overall, it was a great experience.”