By Amine Mechaal
Rabat - L’Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) and the Moroccan Association of Teachers of English (MATE) co-sponsored a conference on Friday entitled “Essential Skills for Better Quality Teaching” in Rabat, focussing on best practices for English-language teaching.
Organized by the English department at ENS in collaboration with the Calliope Library, the conference began with an opening ceremony led by Rachida Guelzim, a teacher trainer at the British Council, and Imane Nejjar, the head of the English department at the ENS, followed by a series of presentations.
MATE's President, Noureddine Bendouqui, who is also an English-language teaching (ELT) supervisor, spoke about ELT basics in the new millennium. Rahal Ajbilou, also an ELT supervisor, discussed the best ways to teach English vocabulary. MATE member and English-language teacher Abdellatif Zaki, highlighted issues education in Morocco is grappling with.
The conference also featured workshops in which teacher trainers and high school teachers demonstrated activities and teaching techniques that teachers can use in their classrooms.
One of the most interesting workshops was by led by high school teacher Khalid Said and his students. Simulating a real classroom situation, Said taught a grammar lesson to his students in an entertaining and funny way, to the delight of the trainees. He ended the lesson by playing guitar and singing a song. The students had to figure out which words were missing from the lyrics, words which were relevant to the grammar lesson being taught.
“A good English-language teacher is someone who knows how to make his or her students interested in learning grammar,” explained Said. “As a teacher, you should be funny all the time. For me, I’m like an actor inside the classroom, I play different roles and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to keep my students interested in what I teach them.”
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