English Didactics — Professional Exam (Middle and High School)

2.1 Learning theories: the four families and their classroom signatures

Other names that appear in answer options:

• Nativism (Chomsky): an innate language faculty (Universal Grammar, the Language Acquisition Device). It explains acquisition; it does not prescribe a classroom routine.
• Bandura’s social learning theory: learning by observing and imitating models.
• Krashen’s Monitor Model, five hypotheses: acquisition vs learning, the Monitor, the natural order, input (i+1), and the affective filter. A teacher who gives “short, slightly above-level podcasts accompanied by visuals” applies the Input Hypothesis.
• Long’s Interaction Hypothesis: comprehension improves when speakers negotiate meaning (“Do you mean…?”, “What I mean is…”).
• Swain’s Output Hypothesis and Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis: producing language and consciously noticing forms both help acquisition.
• Gardner’s multiple intelligences and learning styles: see chapter 3.

2.2 Methods: the discriminating features

Methods questions give a short classroom description with one or two decisive clues. Learn the clues.

2.3 Competency-based and standards-based approaches

The Moroccan secondary English curriculum is explicitly standards-based. The English Language Guidelines for Secondary Schools (November 2007) justify the choice as follows: the approach states what learners must know and be able to do (content standards) and how close they are to the aims (performance standards); it treats communication as a mix of skills; it sees cultural understanding as essential; it connects English with other subjects; it is learner-centred; it holds all parties accountable; and it requires performance-based assessment.

The Guidelines organise teaching around the five Cs:

Three kinds of standards are defined: content standards (what learners should know and be able to do), performance standards (how learners show they are meeting a standard, their progress towards it) and proficiency standards (how well they should perform).

Competency-based teaching shares the same logic: outcomes are defined first as observable, measurable performances in real-life contexts, and teaching and assessment are aligned with them. The Guidelines themselves describe their discovery approach to grammar as “well-suited to hypothesis testing and to the competency-based approach”.

2.4 Teacher and learner roles

The 2007 Guidelines, in the section on learner autonomy, list the teacher’s roles in a partnership model: agent of change, facilitator of learning, diagnostician, learner trainer, collaborator or coach, coordinator, classroom researcher, consultant or adviser, and language learner. The teacher is “no longer considered as a purveyor of knowledge or wielder of power”.

The roles have a measurable effect on learning: teacher talking time, learner practice time, motivation and autonomy all depend on who does the work. A lesson that never goes beyond the teacher’s presentation leaves learners unable to use what was presented.

2.5 Active learning, cooperative learning, gamification

Active learning

Learners do something with the content (discuss, solve, create, evaluate) instead of only receiving it. The flipped classroom (chapter 7) exists to free class time for active learning.

Cooperative learning structures

The five elements usually cited (Johnson and Johnson) are positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, social skills, and group processing. Assigning roles (facilitator, note-taker, presenter, timekeeper) builds interdependence and accountability; the 2007 Guidelines recommend it for group work.

Gamification

Gamification applies game elements to learning: points, levels, badges, leaderboards, progress through challenges, immediate feedback. A board game where a token moves forward after each correct question and goes back after a wrong one relies on the mechanics of movement and progress through challenges. Badges, unlockable levels and adaptive pathways are other game mechanics; name the one the vignette actually describes.

3.1 Young learners and adolescents

3.2 Motivation

Motivation is also shaped by the affective factors that Krashen groups under the affective filter: anxiety, self-confidence and self-esteem. A high filter blocks input even when it is comprehensible.

3.3 Learning styles

The 2007 Guidelines describe a learning style as a set of inborn and developmental characteristics “that make the same teaching method wonderful for some and terrible for others”. They list four styles:

The Guidelines add that the boundaries are fuzzy and that teachers should vary materials and tasks so that learners can “expand their style repertoire”. Other classifications used in ELT literature:

• Visual / auditory / kinaesthetic (sensory preferences);
• Field-dependent / field-independent: seeing the whole context vs isolating details;
• Reflective / impulsive: the reflective learner takes time and weighs options before answering; the impulsive learner answers quickly, with the first idea, and takes risks. Quick problem-solving tasks that call for spontaneous first answers, followed by discussion to refine the language, suit impulsive learners;
• Tolerance of ambiguity: accepting not understanding everything at once.

3.4 Multiple intelligences

Howard Gardner proposed several relatively independent intelligences. Each has a typical EFL activity.

3.5 Learning strategies (Oxford, 1990)

The 2007 Guidelines summarise Rebecca Oxford’s classification of language learning strategies, which is the reference for any question on strategies:

A pre-lesson task where learners fill a graphic organiser with the strategies they use to learn, memorise and use vocabulary is metacognitive: they are thinking about how they learn. For reading, metacognitive awareness means planning how to read, monitoring comprehension and evaluating whether the chosen strategy worked; the Guidelines add “how to tolerate ambiguity”.

3.6 Communication strategies

These are the strategies speakers use when communication breaks down. They are the “strategic competence” of Canale and Swain, which the 2007 Guidelines define as the ability to use verbal and non-verbal strategies “to make up for breakdowns in communication” and to make communication more effective.

Clarification requests and confirmation checks are the tools of negotiation of meaning. A teacher who intervenes when a conversation breaks down and gives learners ways to question, repeat, ask for clarification and rephrase is teaching compensation strategies.

3.7 Language transfer

• Positive transfer: an L1 (or French) feature helps learning English, e.g. cognates.
• Negative transfer / interference: an L1 feature causes an error, e.g. word order or false friends.
• Code-switching: alternating languages within a conversation or sentence. Using an L1 word for a cultural item with no English equivalent is code-switching (borrowing), not an error of transfer.

4.1 The Moroccan frameworks

High school: the 2007 Guidelines

The English Language Guidelines for Secondary Schools: Common Core, First Year and Second Year Baccalaureate (November 2007) cover all streams. They have five parts: (1) the standards-based approach and a standards-based lesson plan; (2) teaching listening, speaking, reading, writing, functions, grammar and vocabulary; (3) learner autonomy and learner training, classroom management, project work; (4) performance-based assessment; (5) the syllabi for the three levels. The 2025 Baccalaureate exam specifications still name “the syllabus specified in the Guidelines (2007)” and the textbooks adopted by the Ministry as the basis of the national exam.

Middle school: the new curriculum and English Spotlight

Ministerial memo 088×25 of 23 September 2025 organises the generalisation of English in middle school for 2025–2026. What it says:

• A new three-year curriculum is being rolled out, in line with the 2022–2026 Roadmap.
• Textbooks: English Spotlight 1 in 1st year; Spotlight 2 in 2nd year for pupils who studied English the year before, Spotlight 1 for those who did not; Spotlight 3 in 3rd year, an experimental edition in 2025–2026. The memo sets which units are covered in each semester (for example units 1–3 in semester 1 and 4–6 in semester 2 for Spotlight 1 and 2).
• Mixed-level classes: differentiated instruction; flexible grouping, sometimes homogeneous and sometimes mixed; ICT and audiovisual resources; cooperative learning (role-plays, pair work, information-gap activities); a focus on individual progress, not comparison between pupils.
• Assessment: continuous assessment follows memo 182 of 13 December 2010 on second foreign languages: two short tests spread over the semester and one summative test at the end of each semester.
• Regional in-service training on the curriculum, and a “pedagogical kit” (العدة البيداغوجية) to be published on the Ministry portal.

The curriculum document itself is not public. The 2025 middle-school paper presented three of its principles as correct: a context-based approach to language components, integration of all skills and components in the lesson, and principles of assessment for learning built into the materials. The fourth option, adherence to norm-referenced assessment, was the one that is not a principle: the curriculum judges each pupil against criteria, not against the rest of the class.

4.2 Standards, performance indicators, objectives

The 2007 Guidelines ask teachers to “include performance indicators in your assessment plan”. When a holistic score cannot distinguish between two close performances (9/20 and 11/20), the cause is usually the absence of clear performance indicators and level descriptors.

4.3 Syllabus types

For the Baccalaureate, the 2025 exam specifications require all streams to cover the 10 units of the textbook. Arts students also cover four supplementary reading texts (cultural issues and values, the gifts of youth, women and power, sustainable development), and Humanities students two (women and power, sustainable development).

4.4 Planning a lesson

The 2007 standards-based lesson plan

The Guidelines list five components:

1. Goals and rationale of the lesson;
2. Focus content area: one or two major skills or strategies, language items, knowledge;
3. The standard(s) addressed and how the lesson addresses them;
4. Teaching procedures: the major steps and the flow of the lesson;
5. Assessment: how you will know the goals were achieved, including performance indicators.

Two principles apply to every plan: variety (to sustain motivation and cater for different styles) and flexibility (the plan must change when things go wrong). The Guidelines also recommend long-term planning by unit, which lets the teacher prepare materials and launch project work before the unit starts.

Lesson frameworks

Backward design

Backward design (Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design) plans in reverse:

1. Identify the desired results: the competencies, standards or outcomes;
2. Decide what evidence will show that learners have reached them: the assessment;
3. Plan the learning activities and materials that lead there.

A teacher who starts from the curriculum and the target competencies, then collects activities, texts and language that serve them, is using backward design. So is a teacher who aligns lesson outcomes with national standards before designing activities and assessments. Forward design goes the other way: from content and activities to outcomes.

4.5 Skill integration

The 2007 Guidelines ask for “a systematic and principled integration” of skills because it “reflects real-life and purposeful communication”. A listening task may be followed by an oral or written report; a conversation may lead to writing. Integration also means integrating language components (grammar, vocabulary, functions) inside skill work, which is one of the principles of the new middle-school curriculum.

A task where learners record a podcast, listen to it, evaluate their pronunciation and share reflections integrates speaking, listening and evaluation: it develops integrated skills.

4.6 21st-century skills

The most commonly cited are the “4 Cs”: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, plus digital and media literacy, problem-solving, initiative, and social and cross-cultural skills. The 2007 Guidelines already ask teachers to develop problem-solving, informed decision-making, critical, creative and analytical thinking, constructing and defending an argument, and working in pairs and groups.

• Critical thinking: evaluating two contrasting articles, identifying bias, justifying a position with evidence.
• Media literacy: analysing how media messages are built and for what purpose.
• Empathy and perspective-taking: reporting the other side’s arguments.
• Collaboration: needs a group task. An individual project (“Choose one: draw a map, write your schedule, make a video”) develops digital literacy, communication and creativity, but little teamwork.

4.7 Ethics and values

Values are taught through themes, discussion rules and classroom routines: tolerance and respect for other opinions (debating cheating in exams while respecting disagreement), honesty, responsibility, citizenship, and the environment. The English Spotlight textbooks include a Global Citizenship component; lessons on young people’s innovative projects, on nomads facing climate change, or on making one’s city greener all belong there.

4.8 Culture: products, practices, perspectives

The 2007 Guidelines define culture through three Ps: products (books, laws, music, food), practices (patterns of social interaction: greetings, table manners) and perspectives (values, ideas, attitudes). A task where learners compare table manners with those of Morocco works on practices; deciding which manners are surprising, and why, moves towards perspectives.

5.1 Grammar

Form, meaning, use

The 2007 Guidelines reject two extremes: grammar as a list of rules drilled out of context, which produces learners who can complete exercises but “rarely” produce meaningful language, and a purely “acquisition-based” view that leaves grammar to exposure alone. Grammar is “a rational, dynamic system with three dimensions of form, meaning and use”. Teachers should not hold rigidly to one approach: “eclecticism is needed”. The Guidelines favour a discovery approach that is “experiential, context-based and problem-driven”, while noting that a combination of inductive and deductive teaching suits different learners.

Four distinctions to master

The 2007 framework for a grammar lesson

Adapted by the Guidelines from Rod Ellis:

1. Listening or reading task: learners process a text for meaning.
2. Noticing task: the same text, gapped, or learners underline the target forms.
3. Consciousness-raising task: learners discover how the structure works from the data.
4. Checking task: learners check their understanding (concept check).
5. Production task: learners try the structure in their own sentences (experimenting, not mastery).
6. Contrast strategy: the new form is contrasted with a known one (present perfect vs past simple).
7. Free production: an extended piece of discourse using the form accurately and appropriately.

Correction should be non-threatening and “often restricted to the structure in focus”.

Why practice matters: memory

A teacher who rarely goes beyond presentation finds that learners forget the form. Presentation places the structure in working memory, which is limited and short-lived. Extended, varied practice helps move it to long-term memory, from which it can later be retrieved. Presenting too many items at once overloads working memory (cognitive load); spacing them over several sessions (spaced practice) helps retention.

5.2 Vocabulary

What it means to know a word

The 2007 Guidelines list what knowing a lexical item involves: its frequency; its morphology (affixes, word families); its semantics (denotation, connotation); its boundaries with related words; polysemy; its collocations (“take / pass / mock” an exam); its register (formality, age, place, mode); its grammar (take, took, taken); and its L1 equivalent, which “might have a different cultural load”.

The five stages of vocabulary learning (2007 Guidelines)

1. Meeting new items in naturally occurring language;
2. Establishing them by meeting them again in new contexts;
3. Enriching them through sense relations (synonyms, antonyms);
4. Developing strategies for recording and revising vocabulary;
5. Developing fluency with known vocabulary through communicative tasks.

Recycling, pacing and spacing

“Recycling is not to be mistaken for repetition”: the Guidelines picture it as a snowball that gives earlier words “a second chance” to be fixed and enriched. New words should be revisited “with increasing space between practices (Pacing and spacing)”. Presentation techniques should be varied, and vocabulary should be taught in context rather than from isolated lists.

Guessing is not enough

The Guidelines have a section titled “Guessing is not enough for effective reading”. Guessing from context fails when vocabulary is too limited, when the text is opaque, or with deceptive words: false friends, idioms, polysemous words, “synforms” (economic/economical). “A threshold vocabulary is needed for reading strategies to be applied.” A teacher who never pre-teaches vocabulary and always asks learners to guess from context is therefore likely to leave them with insufficient vocabulary knowledge.

Semantic mapping

Semantic mapping (a word web around a key concept) is used to introduce and review vocabulary, activate prior knowledge before reading, and show comprehension after reading. It is a collective, generative technique; it is not an instrument to assess individual learners.

5.3 Language functions

Functions are “what people can do with language”. The Guidelines distinguish:

• Social functions, for the Baccalaureate level: making and responding to requests, responding to good and bad news, expressing regret, complaining, apologising, asking for and giving advice, expressing opinion, agreeing and disagreeing, expressing certainty and uncertainty, expressing lack of understanding and asking for clarification. The same list is tested in the national exam.
• Rhetorical functions, used in academic texts: defining, cause and effect, purpose, addition, concession.

The recommended approach is text-based: learners discover the exponents of a function in a dialogue or text, attention is drawn to appropriateness (the social parameters of the situation), and learners then use the exponents in communicative activities (information gap, opinion gap, role-play, interviews, discussion). For rhetorical functions, the pattern is noticing → practice → performance.

Practising formulaic expressions in situations that require different levels of formality develops pragmatic knowledge: knowing what to say to whom, and how.

5.4 Assessing the components: the Baccalaureate model

The 2025 national exam specifications for English describe the Language section (15 of 40 points):

These rules are a good model for classroom tests too: contextualised items, a balance of receptive and productive tasks, and varied techniques.

6.1 Receptive skills: processing and sub-skills

The 2007 Guidelines stress that listening and reading are interactive: effective learners use both kinds of processing, “concurrently, flexibly and interactively”. They also distinguish three schemata: content (facts, values, cultural conventions), language (grammar, vocabulary, cohesion) and textual (the structure of genres).

Skimming and scanning are the two strategies that require reading quickly without understanding every word. Learners should be trained to vary their speed with their purpose.

6.2 Listening

The 2007 Guidelines give listening priority because it is the most used skill and the main source of input. The lesson has three stages:

• Pre-listening: activate schemata, set a purpose, introduce key vocabulary. A mind map before a podcast serves mainly to facilitate comprehension.
• While-listening: listening for gist first, then for specific information or detail; playing the recording twice to allow checking.
• Post-listening: react, discuss, write, link to another skill.

The Guidelines also recommend developing metacognitive strategies: planning how to listen, tolerating ambiguity, monitoring comprehension and evaluating whether listening succeeded.

Listening with young learners

Tasks that combine listening with a simple, concrete response suit younger learners: listen and draw, listen and circle the right picture, listen and act out (TPR), listen and number. Tasks with heavy reading or writing demands, such as filling in a detailed chart while listening, suit older learners better.

6.3 Speaking

The 2007 Guidelines focus on two communicative modes, interpersonal (conversation) and presentational (talks, reports), and recommend four activity types:

• Consciousness-raising about features of spoken discourse: turn-taking, interruption, negotiation of meaning, formality, stress and intonation, cohesive devices;
• Information-gap activities: one speaker has information the other lacks; only negotiation of meaning (clarification, paraphrase, circumlocution) closes the gap. Partners usually sit facing each other with their sheets hidden from each other;
• Role-plays and simulations: develop functions, register and cultural appropriateness;
• Discussions, debates, short presentations and oral reports.

Among the Guidelines’ tips: prepare learners (vocabulary, functions, grammar), provide models, move from open to closed pair work, encourage fluency and communication strategies, and “tolerate errors which do not affect the meaning”.

Speaking competencies worth targeting even with young learners include clarification and repair strategies, the use of follow-ups (showing interest, asking a further question) and lexical range. When stronger students dominate, pairs with rotating roles (questioner/respondent) create structured interaction that guarantees equal participation.

Oral corrective feedback

6.4 Reading

Intensive and extensive reading

• Intensive reading: short texts, studied closely for detail, language and structure.
• Extensive reading: large amounts of easy, interesting texts read for pleasure and general understanding, without stopping at every word. It builds fluency, vocabulary and the habit of reading. Programmes such as DEAR (“Drop Everything And Read”) are a form of extensive reading.
• Jigsaw reading: each learner reads a different part, then they share to rebuild the whole.
• Critical reading: evaluating arguments, evidence and bias.

The three stages (2007 Guidelines)

1. Pre-reading: previewing the title, semantic mapping, pictures, theme discussion, learner-generated questions, key vocabulary, reading a chunk to predict. Aim: activate schemata. The Guidelines warn that activated knowledge may contain misconceptions, and that without the necessary schemata a text stays “opaque”.
2. While-reading: check predictions; find where comprehension failed and why; analyse text structure, cohesion and coherence; distinguish main ideas from details and fact from opinion; recognise the function of the text.
3. Post-reading: react, summarise, debate, integrate with other texts, compare cultural aspects, start a project.

The Guidelines also recommend SQ4R (Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review, Reflect) as a study-reading method, and integrating reading with content-based instruction to serve the “Connections” standard.

Metacognitive awareness in reading

A teacher develops metacognitive awareness when learners think about how they read: choosing a strategy before reading, monitoring whether it works, evaluating it afterwards. Asking learners to underline attitude markers trains a reading skill; asking them to reflect on which strategy helped them is metacognitive.

Levels of comprehension and Bloom’s taxonomy

Comprehension questions move from literal to higher-order. One sequence used in the 2025 paper is RIEA: Retrieve (locate explicit information), Interpret (build meaning: main idea, implications), Evaluate (judge: “I think the last app is the best”), Apply (transfer to one’s own life: “I want to try these apps”).

A task asking “What is the moral of the story? Tick the best option(s) or write your own” targets higher-order thinking.

6.5 Writing

Three approaches

The 2007 Guidelines “endorse the process approach”. Writing is “not a solitary activity” but an interactive process involving the writer, peers and the teacher. They list the writing strategies in this order:

1. generating topics through pre-writing (brainstorming, mapping, KWL, discussion);
2. matching purpose and audience;
3. writing a first draft;
4. revising the first draft’s content: organisation, relevant details, clarity;
5. editing or peer-editing the revised draft with resources (dictionary, grammar reference);
6. proofreading, individually or in groups;
7. presenting or publishing a final copy.

Writing sub-skills

The Guidelines and the Baccalaureate specifications list: adequate and relevant content; text structure (beginning, middle, end; topic sentence); cohesion (connectors and transitions); appropriate style and register; mechanics (spelling, punctuation, capitalisation); variety of sentence structures. Arranging jumbled sentences into a paragraph with attention to linking words targets cohesion and paragraph structure.

6.6 Assessing the skills: the Baccalaureate model

The 2007 Guidelines add that assessment of the skills should be performance-based: authentic texts, open-ended prompts, and scoring rubrics shared with learners in advance (chapter 8).

7.1 Classroom management in the 2007 Guidelines

The Guidelines define classroom management as “the multidimensional and varied ways in which learner behaviour, movement, and interaction are organized by the teacher during a lesson”. It covers lesson planning, pair and group work, transitions, instructions, disruptive behaviour, and the management of space, materials and equipment. They list behaviours teachers should avoid: lack of preparation, uncalculated improvisation, loose group forming, lack of variety and challenge, no recycling, careless homework practice, neglect of off-task learners, abuse of power and violence, and too many anxiety-producing tests.

Pair work and group work

• Pair work procedure: form pairs, explain and model the task, let a pair demonstrate if needed, set a time limit, monitor, invite volunteer pairs to perform. Move from open pairs (in front of the class) to closed pairs (all at once).
• Group work (four to five learners) in three phases: a moving-in phase (organise groups, give instructions), a monitoring phase (walk around, intervene only when asked), and a moving-out phase (wind down, report back). Assign roles: reporter, recorder, timekeeper, monitor.
• Groups can be mixed-ability, same-ability or random. Memo 088×25 recommends flexible grouping: sometimes homogeneous, sometimes mixed.

The Guidelines also list the management skills an effective teacher uses: suitable pace, limited teacher talk, appropriate feedback, questioning, wait time, gestures and mime, board use, turn-taking strategies, handling transitions and discipline.

Preventive and reactive strategies

Seating

Choose the arrangement for the interaction you want: facing pairs for information gaps and dialogues, clusters for group work, a horseshoe for whole-class discussion, rows for individual tests.

7.2 Inclusive education

Inclusive education means that all learners, including those with disabilities or learning difficulties, learn in the ordinary class with the support they need. It is one of the equity principles of framework law 51.17 on the education system (2019). In the EFL classroom it translates into accessible materials, varied ways of presenting and practising, reasonable accommodations in tests, and a climate where differences are respected.

7.3 Differentiation

Following Carol Ann Tomlinson, teachers can differentiate four elements according to three learner characteristics:

7.4 Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

UDL, developed by CAST, is a framework for designing goals, methods, materials and assessments that work for all learners from the start, instead of retrofitting adaptations afterwards. It is neither a language teaching method nor a lesson procedure. Its three principles:

1. Multiple means of engagement (the “why” of learning): choice, relevance, cultural connection, varied challenge;
2. Multiple means of representation (the “what”): visuals, audio, text, examples;
3. Multiple means of action and expression (the “how”): several ways to practise and show learning.

A grammar lesson with many visuals and audio materials, several options for practice and use, and references to learners’ own culture (local names and places) follows UDL principles.

7.5 Flipped classroom and blended learning

• Flipped classroom: learners meet the new content at home (video tutorial, podcast, reading) and class time is used to apply it through tasks, discussion and problem-solving. Its main advantage is to maximise active learning time in class. A teacher who shares a podcast on greetings across cultures as homework, then uses class time for role-plays and discussion, is flipping the classroom.
• Blended learning: a planned combination of face-to-face and online learning (a learning platform, online practice, forums).

7.6 Learners with special needs

An accommodation changes how a learner accesses or shows learning, without lowering the objective (extra time, assistive technology, visual supports). A modification changes the objective or content itself (a simplified text, fewer items). Exam questions favour accommodations that keep the learner on the same objective and inside the group.

8.1 Using the textbook well

The textbook is the main material in Moroccan classrooms, and the national exam is based on its units. The teacher’s job is to evaluate it, then adapt and supplement it for a particular class. The 2007 Guidelines say that some tasks are supplied by textbooks “while others need to be provided by teachers themselves”, and that when materials fail to recycle vocabulary, the teacher must do it.

Evaluating materials

Evaluation usually looks at: fit with the curriculum and standards; level and progression; interest and relevance for the age group; cultural appropriateness; balance of skills and integration; authenticity of texts and tasks; clarity of instructions; recycling; support for differentiation; and accompanying resources (audio, teacher’s book). A quick external evaluation reads the blurb, contents and introduction; a detailed internal evaluation examines sample units.

Adapting materials

Using the textbook: English Spotlight

The 2025 middle-school paper included tasks reproduced from Spotlight 2: a story task asking for its moral (higher-order thinking), a listening task to circle the main topic (gist), a table-manners comparison (culture), a unit project with three individual options, and a component called Global Citizenship. Candidates are expected to recognise what each type of task targets.

8.2 Purposes of assessment

A related distinction: assessment for learning (formative, used to improve learning), assessment of learning (summative) and assessment as learning (learners assess themselves and reflect, for example with rubrics for self- and peer-assessment, which builds metacognitive awareness). One task can serve several purposes: a poster presentation scored with a checklist, followed by individual feedback and a remediation class, whose mark also counts in the final grade, is criterion-referenced, performance-based and formative.

8.3 Criterion-referenced and norm-referenced

The 2007 Guidelines state that performance-based assessment “is criterion-referenced… It does not determine who is best.” The new middle-school curriculum likewise does not adhere to norm-referenced assessment.

8.4 Performance-based and alternative assessment

The standards-based approach “requires performance-based assessment”, based on two principles: teaching drives testing, and “teach as you test and test as you teach”. The Guidelines define it as assessment through authentic tasks in which learners show what they can do with English. Its features: performance tasks, regular and continuous assessment, criterion-referencing, and greater validity because it is authentic and relevant.

Alternative assessment tools include projects, presentations, portfolios, learning logs, and self- and peer-assessment. Their main challenge is practicality: they take much time and effort to design and grade, and their reliability depends on good rubrics.

Scoring instruments

Rubrics must be explained to learners before the task: “Testees should know the tester’s expectations in advance.” When a teacher scores paragraphs holistically and cannot tell a 9/20 from an 11/20, the problem is the lack of clear performance indicators and descriptors, not the use of writing.

8.5 Qualities of a good test

Tests also differ in design: discrete-point items test one element at a time (multiple choice, gap-filling); integrative tasks combine several (writing a paragraph, an interview).

8.6 Assessment in Moroccan secondary schools

• Middle school: continuous assessment follows memo 182 of 13 December 2010 (second foreign languages): two short tests spread across the semester and one summative test at the end of each semester, as memo 088×25 recalls for English in 2025–2026.
• High school: the Baccalaureate national exam in English is “a summative written achievement test” for certification, directly based on the national curriculum, with three sections (comprehension 15, language 15, writing 10, out of 40). Coefficients and duration depend on the stream: 4 and 3 hours for Arts, 3 and 3 hours for Humanities, 2 and 2 hours for science, technical and original streams.

8.7 International assessments

Morocco takes part in international surveys such as PISA (15-year-olds: reading, mathematics, science), PIRLS (reading at primary level) and TIMSS (mathematics and science). They do not rank or certify individual pupils. Their results are used to diagnose the system and to inform education policy, curriculum design and materials.

9.1 The SAMR model

Ruben Puentedura’s SAMR model describes four levels of technology integration. The first two enhance a task, the last two transform it.

9.2 TPACK

Mishra and Koehler’s TPACK framework says effective technology integration sits at the intersection of three kinds of teacher knowledge: Technological, Pedagogical and Content knowledge. Knowing an app is not enough; the teacher must know how it serves a specific language objective.

9.3 The roles of technology in a lesson

Memo 088×25 lists the use of modern technology and audiovisual resources among the strategies for mixed-level middle-school classes. The 2007 Guidelines already tied the “Communities” standard to the internet.

9.4 Good practice with ICT

• Start from the learning objective, not the tool.
• Plan for failure: a no-technology alternative when the network or projector does not work.
• Teach digital literacy: evaluating sources, citing, protecting personal data, respectful online behaviour.
• With AI tools, keep the learner doing the thinking: use AI to generate input or feedback, not to replace production.
• Check accessibility and equity: not every pupil has a device or connection at home, which matters for flipped and blended designs.

9.5 Professional development

Professional development is the continuous learning a teacher undertakes after initial training. It can be formal or informal, individual or collaborative:

9.6 Reflective teaching

• Donald Schön: reflection-in-action (adjusting during the lesson) and reflection-on-action (thinking back after the lesson). Reflection-for-action looks ahead to the next lesson.
• Kolb’s experiential cycle: concrete experience → reflective observation → abstract conceptualisation → active experimentation.
• Tools: teaching journals, recordings of one’s lessons, student feedback, peer observation, self-evaluation checklists based on the lesson plan.

The 2007 Guidelines describe the standards-based teacher as someone who is committed, knows the subject, helps learners learn how to learn, and is “reflective about their teaching”. They present lesson planning as a sign of professionalism that “can also contribute to teachers’ development”, and list “classroom researcher” and “language learner” among the teacher’s roles. Expertise grows from experience that has been reflected on, not from experience alone.

10.1 Shape of the two papers

10.2 Where the questions came from

A rough classification of the questions we can read, by content area (some questions touch two areas):

Area 4 was the largest group in both papers, and area 1 was well represented. The small areas 7 and 8 produced one or two questions each, as their 5% weights predict.

10.3 Five question shapes

1. “Name the concept”: a vignette ending with “This is referred to as ___” or “The teacher is using ___”. Find the one decisive clue and ignore the decoration.
2. “Which theory/principle underpins…”: the answer is a level higher than the technique (scaffolding → ZPD → social constructivism).
3. “Which is NOT…” / “least consistent with…”: three options share a principle; find the one that breaks it. Read the capitals: NOT, CORRECT, primarily.
4. Complete a text with a set of four words: check each word in its gap; one wrong word eliminates the whole option.
5. A textbook task (Spotlight 2) or a picture: identify the skill, the aim or the arrangement.

10.4 Distinctions the distractors are built on

10.5 Handling option E and negative marking

• Option E, “None of the above”, is a real answer. It is the key when every option describes something other than the vignette, for example when a lesson’s real problem (too little practice before a free task) is not among A–D.
• “All of the above” appears as option D in some questions. Check each of A, B and C separately: if one is false, D is false.
• With negative marking, a wrong answer costs points. Answer when you have eliminated at least two options with certainty; otherwise, leave it blank.
• In the high-school paper, Section B questions are worth 2 points: a wrong answer there probably costs more than one in Section A. Spend your checking time there.

Unit references