Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Partnership
for Learning Program has provided us all with a golden opportunity
to go on learning about ourselves, our hosts and about this
great country. The benefits reaped will allow us all to lay
solid foundations
of mutual understanding, respect, trust and cooperation.
The Partnership for Learning will surely be the cornerstone
around
which other more beneficial building blocks will be edified.
We, The Moroccan teacher trainers and supervisors have gathered
a considerable amount of knowledge about the American Educational
system and have to a great extent benefited from the Educational
and professional training designed by the English Language
Institute of The University of Delaware.
Our home stay with
American families
has provided us with greater knowledge of the American family
life and culture. We do hope that our hosts have equally
benefited from us while we were living with them under the
same roof.
Some of us had an opportunity to watch a base ball game and
others
had an opportunity to attend Sunday school and talk to people
from another heavenly revealed religion. Our hard work and
some times stressful moments were punctuated with great moments
of
enjoyment and relief.
The trip to New York was a great discovery
to many of us and the Broadway show ‘The Beauty and the Beast’ was
a marvel of Art to all of us. More hard work after the New York
trip but then came the trip to Amish country and there was another
facet of America to discover, wonderful and enchanting it was.
It gave us some food for thought and made me personally think
of Socrates when he used to walk in the streets of Athens and
watch the shop displays and state that this world is full of
unnecessary ‘gadgets’. More academic work followed and we got
back to the necessary ‘unnecessary things of Socrates’.
There
were other great events that took place within the Partnership
for Learning, namely the visit to Philadelphia, which reminded
us of the commonly shared historic events that our Country
shares with the United States of America. We also had a glimpse
into
the making of this nation by touring historical monuments
in the city and ending up with a colorful evening in South
Street,
Philadelphia.
I may not have enough time to talk about all
the aspect of American culture that we have witnessed or
had directly
taken part in, but the most important thing for us (Moroccans)
to do now is to ask ourselves the following questions:
- To what extent have we managed to dissipate prejudices
and stereotypes
about our respective cultures?
- To what extent have we
been instrumental in building more bridges of understanding
between
more American and Moroccan people
- To what extent
have we managed to successfully represent our country culturally
and academically?
I hope that the answer will be positive and encouraging.
More concrete actions are to follow now that our training
has
come
to an end. Action plans to cascade that information are
already here and everyone is looking forward to bringing in
some
expertise to contribute to our way of teaching English especially
at middle
school level.
There is no doubt that the 2005 Partnership
for Learning was a great success due to the combined efforts
of the
ELI professors, coordinators and staff along with the host
families. On behalf of my Moroccan colleagues I would like
to express our
gratitude, sincere thanks and deep appreciation to the
President of the University of Delaware, the Deans, professors,
coordinators
and staff. Our sincere thanks and appreciation also go
to the ELI Professors, coordinators and staff. Our host families
generously
opened their homes to accommodate us for two weeks, we
will
always remember their kindness and generosity and would like
to switch
roles with them and invite them to be our guests in Morocco.
I would equally like to express our thankfulness to ‘the People
to people’ members for caring to invite us and exchange views
and ideas with us and allow us to share some of their insights
and experiences in different parts of the world. The Newark senior
center people highly deserve our appreciation and we do thank
them also for letting us into their sphere and sharing with us
their experiences and thoughts. I may not cover all the people
who highly deserve our appreciation and sincere thanks but I
will mention The George Read Middle school students, teachers
and administrators, The Dover ESL institute teachers and workshop
facilitators whom we thank for both the delicious food and the
food for thought they supplied us with.
Please do accept my apology
but I may not cover all people to whom we need to express
our deep gratitude and sincere thanks. If that is the case,
it is
certainly not out of neglect; Far from that. I will conclude
with this quote I particularly find inspiring:
“We should jealously
keep for tomorrow things we take for granted today.”
Ladies
and gentlemen,
Thank you very much. |
