Programme de la deuxime anne des Classes Prparatoires aux

Grandes Ecoles (CPGE)

Discipline : Anglais (LVE)
Filires :

Scientifiques et Commerciales

Options : (MP / PSI / TSI / BCPST / ECT/ECS)

Second Years ELT Program and General

Guidelines

The content of this document is an extension of first year general guidelines. Its instructional
achievement depends categorically on the learners competencies developed during the first
year course at the Preparatory Classes.
Besides strengthening the learners acquired critical thinking strategies in the four skills (R. L.
S. & W.), the purpose at this level of instruction is to focus on the learners ability to
manipulate authentic and challenging material both at the common examinations and later for
their career requirements. Practically, selected purposeful tasks should put the stress on the
reinforcement of self-active and self-directed learning strategies. The achievement of such an
aim relies primarily on the inclusive understanding and the proactive participation of the
concerned actors in the classroom (cf. First Year General Guidelines, 2013).
The teaching/learning approach embedded in these guidelines, i.e. the competency-based
approach (CBA) intends to maintain the self-governed and self-regulated learning initiated
during the first year instruction. This approach is adopted to sharpen the learners
autonomous, independent, and responsible apprenticeship. English language teachers at these
Classes need to act as lesson designers, classroom coaches, and task facilitators. English
language learners, on the other side, need to demonstrate active participation and conscious
cooperation throughout the whole process of their learning.
In addition to the roles of teachers stated in the First Year Guidelines (2013), the following
additional recommendations will certainly help teachers implement this approach successfully
in their classroom. English Language teachers are therefore required to:
(1) build their instruction in line with the competency based-approach advocated by the
MEN,
(2) administer their lessons in the most purposeful and the best motivating way possible,
(3) assess their lessons and their learners achievements vis--vis their stated objectives,
(4) plan remedial work to cope with the inefficacies of some activities and learners need,
(5) support learners assessing their progress as well as raising their awareness of the
common examinations
(6) encourage students to enhance their psychological and intellectual growth as well as
their motivation for learning,
(7) coach reluctant learners to catch up with the requirement of the assessment standards.

1- Terms Program Partition

The main purpose of this partition is twofold (1) to provide teachers with an outlined structure
of the second year ELT program and (2) to delimit and homogenize the content of English
language teaching and learning in the Moroccan Preparatory Classes. The subsequent table
revolves around the following main the objectives:
A- Instructional objectives:
Teachers should enable their learners to:
1. develop their knowledge about contemporary issues,
2. reinforce their learning skills and competencies in English,
3. enhance their practice of the four skills (R-L-S-W) and of translation (theme & version),
4. train them for various examinations.
B- Performance objectives:
Based on different types of instructional documents, learners are expected to:
1., learners express their personal stances both orally and in writing on a variety of local and
global current issues,
2. sharpen their critical thinking skills and strategies,
3. raise their awareness about language differences,
4. improve the appropriateness of their response strategies.
C- Content objectives:
During each school term, the design instructional material ought to:
1. stimulate the learners knowledge about different thematic issues which target the
improvement of the skills of critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving,
2. provide learners with the possibility to process, evaluate, and communicate information
both orally and in writing,
3. help learners cope with syntactic, semantic, and cultural differences while translating,
4. Train students on the rubrics of different common national examinations.
These second year main objectives can be implemented in class according to the following the
school year term partitioned program:
Second year Partitioned program
Instructional Objectives
Trimester 1:
1. Expose learners to authentic and
challenging material to get familiar
with worldwide current issues,
2. Strengthen students practice of
essential critical thinking strategies
in the four skills and in translation,
3. Offer guided practice on how
learners should respond to different
exam tasks.
Trimester 2:
1. Reinforce students preparation
for written exams.
2. Review of key lexis related to
the themes coved in the first year,
3. Practice culture-loaded
translation (e.g. idioms, metaphor).
Trimester 3:
1. Intensify students training on
different oral examinations,
2. Practice oral presentation skills

Performance Objectives

Content Objectives

- Familiarize learners with global

current issues,
- Deepen learners acquisition of
low and high order thinking skills
and thinking strategies,
- Practice fluency and accuracy in
composing different types of texts,

- Improve students practice of:

a) low order thinking skills in (R.,
L., S., & W.),
b) High order thinking skills in the
four skills,
c) Thme & version,
d) Production of paragraph
summary and commentary, and
argumentative essay.

- Train learners on the rubrics of

various common examinations.
- highlight the rhetorical structures
of the paragraph and the essay,
- Practice self and peer-editing.

- Develop students mastery of:

a) basic communicative functions
(focus on oral skills),
b) questioning, summarizing,
commenting, and translating both
orally and in writing.

- Via audio (visual) material build

on learners oral skill and get them
prepared for oral examinations.

- Strengthen learners presentation

skills by targeting:
a) quick reading
b) focused listening
c) note-taking
d) oral delivery.

Second year syllabus gradation: All mainstreams concerned

In conformity with first year program, the second year syllabus is partitioned into three terms.
The content of the first term intends to consolidate the critical thinking skills and strategies
acquired during the first year program with focal practice on the tasks assessed in the
common national examinations.
The content of the second term program is set to reinforce the students diverse reading and
writing sub-skills and strategies assessed in different common examinations. Particular
Emphasis is put on answering critical reading questions in addition to summarizing,
commenting, essay writing, and translating from English to French and from French to
English.
The program of the third term targets the listening and communication skills idiosyncratic to
oral examinations. Students need to be trained on listening to authentic audio material and on
developing oral presentation and communication skills.
The primary role of the English Language teacher is to integrate a collection of purposeful
sequences and activities in each lesson to foster most of the learners skills and sub-skills
listed under the heading of each school term of the following syllabus gradation. Learners
also need to be motivated to learn then acquire the skills and the sub-skills stated below.
Syllabus Gradation
Skills
TERM 1
Grammatical - Practice mixed modals
- Practice mixed conditionals.
structures
- Practice wh-questions
- Practice simple, compound,
and complex sentences,
- Practice linking words.
- practice lexical mapping
Lexical
- Practice collocations (N. /V.),
items
- Practice the use of compound
adjectives,
- Practice the use of adverbial
clauses,
Reading
Skill

Listening &
Speaking
Skills

Writing
Skill

Translation
skills (thme
& Version)

Practice the use of:

- skimming and scanning,
- anticipating and predicting,
- Speculating and deducing,
- inferring and interpreting
- Identifying discourse markers,
- summarizing and commenting,
- Paraphrasing and translating.
Practice the use of :
- listening to authentic material,
- listening and notetaking,
- formal speaking discourse.
Practice the use of:
- drafting and editing
paragraphs and essays,
- paraphrasing compound and
complex sentences,
- describing and interpreting a
graph, a photo, or a poster.
Practice the translation of:
- the main idea of a text,
- a list of given sentences,
- a paragraph or an extract from
an article.

Term 2
- Recycle various grammatical
structures related to editing a
sentence, a paragraph and an
essay.

- Review miscellaneous
expressions of introducing
oneself, agreeing, disagreeing,
giving opinions, hypothesizing,
exemplifying comparing,
contrasting, arguing, reasoning,
deducing, and concluding.
- Highlight adequate responses
to HOT tasks,
- Remedy the misuse of the
strategies related to
summarizing, commenting,
translating, and editing
paragraphs and essays.

Term 3
- Practice grammatical structures
related to oral presentation
skills,
- reinforce students mastery of
the rhetorical structures related
persuasion and argumentation.
- Practice expressions linked to:
starting and ending a
conversation, a presentation, a
discussion or a debate.

- sustain notetaking techniques,

- Practice the delivery of oral
summary and commentary,
- Practice responses to critical
thinking questions,
- carry out a debate or a
discussion on critical current
issues.
- Listen to a tape and react to the - Practice viewing, and listening
attitudes of speakers,
- Practice oral summaries and
- Listen, summarize, and
commentaries on the material
comment orally on the content of presented,
the audio material.
- Practice debate.
- Practice writing to support or
- Practice outlining, notetaking,
oppose a statement,
and organizing notes for the
- Practice writing on a fixed
delivery of a speech, a debate, or
number of words or lines,
a communication.
- Writing an outline for an oral
summary or a commentary.
- translate a summary of a text,
- translate a comment on a text,
- translate a synthesis of a text.

- Read/listen, summarize and

translate the content of a text,
- listen and translate the main
idea of a given text.

2- Assessment Procedures
Assessment is an integral part of the learning process in the Preparatory Classes. It is
performed both as a formative practice and a summative one. Formative assessment intends to
help students learn (assessment for learning) and summative practice measures students
learning outcomes (assessment of learning).
First Year General Guidelines (2013) sorted out the different written and oral assessment
procedures performed in the Preparatory Classes. For second year level, standardized
common examination rubrics are shaped to incorporate both The Moroccan common
examinations rubrics and the French ones.
Whether we prepare our students for the written or the oral examinations, students exam
preparation to common examinations should focus on enhancing students receptive skills
(reading and listening) to help them display their proficiency in productive skills (writing and
speaking).
Each of the written Moroccan National examinations requests students to respond to some or
all of the following exam tasks:
(1) read carefully the text; generally, the reading passage is an authentic article adopted from
an international newspaper or magazine,
(2) answer the comprehension questions; the comprehension questions assess students ability
to (a) clarify key terms or expressions, (b) analyze or evaluate arguments, and/or (c) suggest a
possible solution to the raised issue,
(3) summarize the whole reading passage or an extract of it,
(4) translate the whole reading passage, a part of it, its main idea, or a set of given sentences,
(5) comment on the main idea of the reading passage, or on a citation underlined in it,
(6) write an argumentative or a persuasive essay on a contemporary issue.
Therefore, for the sake of various Common National Examinations that students from the
Preparatory Classes set for, teachers are warmly advised to train their students on the
following reiterated main exam tasks:
Reading and responding to critical questions,
Reading and writing a summary or a commentary,
Reading and translating,
Writing an argumentative paragraph or a persuasive essay,
Listening/watching and summarizing or commenting on the content of the presented
material,
Listening and discussing or debating an issue.
Students responses to these tasks may be initiated by instructions asking students to produce
a limited number of words, lines, or to respect the space given.
These recommendations are plainly stated to guide teachers at the Preparatory Classes to
normalize the content of their lessons and homogenize the training of their students for
various common national examinations (CNC/CNAEM) and any other international
examination CPGE students may take.
At the preparatory Classes the role of the ELT teachers is not only limited to teaching English
as a second foreign language but to train their learners for higher education and then for
lifelong skills and strategies (i.e. interpersonal communication, critical inquiry, qualitative
reasoning, use of ICT for education, and problem solving). Teachers should be aware that the
necessities of the modern world entail that teachers help their learners be equipped with
global values and be ready to compete successfully both at the national and at the
international levels.