Sophia English Department

Chers parents,
Dear Parents, Dear Visitors,
Our outstanding long experience in the field of language education makes us your best adviser to help your children learn English . In our school, we do not teach English only for the sake of passing exams; we teach English to help your children discover the English-speaking world cultures and be open on these cultures; we teach English to prepare your children for their further studies, we teach English to prepare your children for their dream jobs. As a testimony of our achievements in the field, I would mention our participation in the workshop organized by Italian Diplomatic Academy (IDA) in New York in 2020. A group of 11 students from our school were selected and took part in that experience which gathered more than four thousand participants from all over the world. According to the organisers’ evaluation, they were among the best at all levels.

We are aware of the worldwide growing importance of communication in foreign languages in general, and in English in particular; therefore, we have opted for an eclectic approach in our teaching of English. Our methodology, though geared towards communication in its different forms, namely the interpersonal, the presentational, and the interpretive forms, does not neglect the other components of language; we give as much importance as necessary to accuracy and to fluency as well. However, as we believe that ‘Language’ is a whole , in our school, neither of these is taught separately we teach both of them at the same time. The same view is implemented concerning the four language skills, i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing; thus we help our students learn them in an integrative way.

To achieve our objectives in this sense, we depend on a well trained team of teachers who have been selected on a set of well-defined educational criteria set by the administration of our school. Besides their attendance to an intensive training course twice a year, once at the beginning of the school year and the second one at its end, they profit from an in-service training in the form of a customized clinical supervision which aims at helping them reflect on their teaching so as to adopt what works well in their classrooms and improve what seems not to work well in order to enhance their students’ learning.Moreover, our teachers are informed permanently about the novelties of ELT and encouraged to make use of these novelties for the profit of their learners.

The manuals we use make another factor of paramount importance in our teaching policies. We always select the books that respond to our needs and would help us achieve our objectives. Currently we are using books published by a well established and worldwide known publisher. We have chosen them because they teach English, but also because they develop the learning skills that any potential independent learners should master. This enhancement is implemented through very well designed activities that boost the students’ creativity and their learning strategies with the ultimate objective of making them independent learners in the future.

Our confidence in our students, our confidence in our teachers, and in our teaching policies, and armed with our teaching know-how, we have decided to start preparing and giving the Cambridge English Tests starting from this year, so do not miss this opportunity! Give your children the chance to be prepared for further studies in the world best universities; make them prepared for the future they deserve, the future you want for them. Thank you for your visit.

Pr. S. Berdouz,
Head of the English Department, Institution Sophia, Marrakech
ELT (English Language Teaching) Consultant
Retired Main Inspector of the Ministry of National Education, Morocco
Previous Regional Inspector of Marrakech AREF (Academy Regionale de l’Education et de La Formation)
Previous Member of the MEN Programmes and Curricula Commission
Previous Head of the MEN English Textbooks Commission
Previous President of Moroccan Association of Teachers of English
Previous Member of the CSE (Conseil Superieur de l’Enseignement) Languages Ad-hoc Commission
Previous Member of the Executive Board of Marrakech AREF.