[lg policy] Malta: Answer to the language question

[Harold Schiffman]

Answer to the language question

Malta’s varied colonial past has often raised the question of what language
should prevail in the education sector. Almost a century ago, the battle
between the use of Italian and English in public administration, the law
courts and even in education waged on until Malta gained independence and
Maltese and English were recognised as official languages.

Yet, the language question has not yet been fully resolved in the
educational sector as, despite any official guidelines on which language
teachers should use in the classroom, many educators adopt a pragmatic
approach and use either Maltese or English or both to ensure their lessons
are understood by the great majority of their students.

Maltese society is unavoidably becoming multi-ethnical with the flow of
migrants who speak little or no English or Maltese, mixed marriages between
persons with different mother tongues and cultural issues that influence
some local families in their choice of the language they speak at home. No
wonder many young pupils find the mastery of English and Maltese a hard nut
to crack in their first school years with many speaking a hybrid language
that is neither good English nor Maltese.

It is, therefore, encouraging that, following a consultative process, the
Ministry of Education has approved a language policy for the early years in
Malta and Gozo that stipulates that all children should have equal
opportunities to develop and practise both languages equally.

This policy is not much different from that of other countries like the US
where education policymakers are trying to crack the anti-bilingual wall in
terms of education. In some schools in California both English and Spanish
are used equally in the education of young pupils many of whom come from
Mexico and other South American countries.

The implementation of bilingual education in primary schools will not be
without its challenges. The language spoken at the home of pupils will
affect their ability to absorb the teaching that is imparted to them in the
classroom that, presumably, will be either in English or Maltese.

The goal should be to give students education in all core areas in both
English and Maltese – acquiring English and maintain Maltese if one is a
pupil that lives in a family where Maltese is the main language spoken at
home and learning both English and Maltese for those pupils who are not
fluent in either of these languages.

This will be a tough challenge for teachers who may need to retrain
themselves to acquire the skills of teaching in different languages to
pupils of mixed language abilities. The task becomes even more arduous if
high standards of both written and spoken Maltese and English are set in
early primary school curricula. It is a sad reality that the standards of
written and spoken Maltese and English are not what they used to be three
or four decades ago when reading good books was a far more common practice
among people of all ages.

Socio-educational research maintains that the reason why bilingual
education programmes produce higher-achieving students has to do with
cognitive benefits such as enhanced understanding of mathematics,
creativity and selective retention. It makes very little sense to block the
use of either Maltese or English until secondary school.

It is, therefore, essential that teachers must be able to adequately switch

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write
directly to the original sender of any offensive message.  A copy of this
may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman, Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20161007/eacfa12c/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list