Critics deride TEFL-style Maltese course for native speakers seeking University entry

Bilingual, code-switching Malta is facing yet another debate on the place of its national language.

Non-native speakers of Maltese are being offered the option of learning Maltese “as a foreign language” – similar to the English TEFL – to obtain their matriculation for entry to the University of Malta.

The news has startled critics since the course will be open to Maltese nationals, suggesting the band-aid is being applied for predominantly English-language speakers.

The novelist Guze Stagno was quick to point out the obvious, for the predominance of spoken English in Malta is confined to the Anglophone middle-classes. “It’s not a question of ability. Children of ordinary ability should have no problem picking up two or more languages, and speak them well. This is classism. We’re going back to the times when Maltese was considered ‘the language of the kitchen’.”

The online debate has been playing out on social media with the publisher Chris Gruppetta saying this latest move was “exaggerated”.

Stagno’s concerns were echoed by academics who fear the national language is being sacrificed at the altar of convenience.

Prof. Arnold Cassola, a researcher in Maltese linguistic history, attacked the “demotion” in a post on social media.

“Imagine the Italians sitting for Italian ‘as a foreign language’, the French for French ‘as a foreign language’. As usual, for [Joseph] Muscat and his cronies, all that counts are numbers… and money generated. It seems that, as from now onwards, Dun Karm will be speaking to his canary in Maltese... as a foreign language!”

The head of the University of Malta’s department of Maltese, Dr Bernard Micallef, was equally concerned, dubbing it a ‘new language question’.

“It is positive that foreigners living in Malta will have the opportunity to learn Maltese, but it raises a number of questions if this same subject will be offered to Maltese students,” he said.

While the language of instruction at the university is indeed English, the Maltese are predominantly Maltese speakers in everyday affairs and business, politics or the law courts.

“A lawyer and architect will study in English, but they will speak in Maltese in the courts or with the builders. The same goes for the Parliament or inside a church,” Micallef said. “This [course] will institutionalise the deterioration of communicative ability and Maltese literacy.”