Mind your languages

There are many positive factors in the Maltese language situation, but also a number of challenges. There is a need to establish for the Maltese education system, a clearly articulated and widely understood and supported Language Education Policy, one which can also be interpreted and appropriately applied taking account of the circumstances of individual schools.

In view of these considerations, the Language Education Policy Profile (LEPP) for Malta of the Council of Europe was launched in May. It makes a number of proposals relating to quality and standards, languages in education and support for policy and practice.

Standards of English Language Use

The Ministry for Education and Employment has a strategic vision to maintain and raise standards of English language proficiency within the school education system so that Malta remains a leading Commonwealth country providing bilingual education in its truest sense and preparing graduates for the global employment market who are equally fluent in Maltese and English. 

To this end, in 2014, the ministry entered into a dialogue with Cambridge English Language Assessment to provide an assessment of English language proficiency of Maltese students in the school sector. Such an assessment is intended to complement international surveys like PISA and PIRLS.

The intention is to create an international benchmark of proficiency levels of English in Malta to enable comparisons within Malta, with other Commonwealth countries and with the rest of the world. The international standard for English language proficiency is the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).

Cambridge English has a unique relationship with the CEFR from inception through evolution to operationalization. The outcome of the student benchmarking study will be an evidence-based framework of current and target proficiency levels which will inform future reform of curriculum, learning outcomes and teaching. 

Discussions moved towards a more integrated solution which includes not only benchmarking of students but also institutional capacity building in assessment and teaching methodology, and a strategic plan for continuous professional development of the teaching cadre.  Given the unique status of English in Malta, the above mentioned initial Cambridge English student benchmarking project will provide the ministry with the evidence required to ensure that learning outcomes are set at the appropriate levels of English proficiency for Maltese students, given the uniqueness of the Maltese context and the existing high levels of English language proficiency in comparison to other European countries.

The success of our students depends on the levels of competence of our teachers. Continuing Professional Development opportunities will be provided by Cambridge English to teachers. These will include internationally-recognised Cambridge English Train the Trainer and Assessing Language Proficiency courses for more experienced teachers. Cambridge English Language Teacher-Primary and Secondary courses will be offered to less experienced teachers.

The expected outcome of this activity is to provide continuous professional development in train the trainers and in language testing to a cadre of experienced teachers. This will help enhance the existing cadre of Master trainers and will enable a more efficient cascade and application of knowledge gained; establishing a larger cadre of Master Trainers to complement existing Ministry of Education Master trainers.

It will provide also primary and secondary school teachers with relevant skills and an internationally recognised qualification at the end of the training. The outcome of this Continuous Professional Development programme will be measurable improvement of the teaching and therefore the learning of English language in Malta.