Development of Moroccan University Students’ Intercultural Competence -Department of English Studies

Department of English Studies

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the development of intercultural communicative competence in Moroccan universities to identify whether the pedagogy administered by teachers and educators caters to the intercultural competence goals and teaching objectives and whether students manage to develop their competencies over their undergraduate program. The researcher conducts questionnaires with 875 university students from three different English departments in three different universities and 40 observation classes. Besides, investigations are implemented on the curriculum content, the materials, and the teaching strategies involved in developing intercultural competence. Findings generated from data demonstrate that most Moroccan university students partly develop their intercultural competence from S2 to S6 on particular intercultural components, including attitudes, skills, and values. Conclusions attest that more efforts are to be considered by policymakers and educators to rethink the factors halting this development and design more advanced strategies and syllabi that contribute to the improvement of all intercultural components central to adequate and appropriate foreign communications.