Education Act – Chapter 327 of the Laws of Malta, Legal Notice 221 of 2015 – The English Language Teaching Council Regulations: The object of these regulations is to provide for a regulatory framework for the advancement and monitoring of standards with respect to the ELT profession, Schools, English language teachers, Home Tuition Providers, Distance Learning Providers, non-academic services and ancillary services that together constitute the stay of, or the provision to, English language students, speakers of other languages.
Not the most gripping opening for a blog post, and seemingly nothing to do with fruit, but it does explain why Malta is THE destination of choice for so many students and organisations who want to learn or polish their English.
Malta has a strong track record in English language tuition, and it is one of the rare countries that regulates the teaching of English, covering the language schools that receive government approval, teaching qualifications and the issuing of teacher permits. This isn’t a place where you can just rock up and say “hey, I speak English, can I come and teach in your school?”, as is sadly the case in many other countries. In Malta it doesn’t work that way. The industry is closely regulated by the ELT Council, which is part of the Ministry of Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation. Aspiring teachers need specified qualifications, must pass the SEPTT exam and have to be issued with an ELT Council teaching permit. Along with other factors, this goes a long way towards safeguarding the standard of tuition students receive in our language schools.
The ELT Council organises an annual ELT Malta Conference. The 12th edition was held on October 20th and 21st this year in the lovely old university building in Valletta. Most delegates were from Malta, though some had flown in from Belarus, the UK and Greece.
Speakers and workshop leaders from various countries led the 23 workshops, on topics as varied as verb tenses in English, using TikTok in the classroom, English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) presented by Evan Frendo, translanguaging in the classroom, the use of storytelling by the one and only Alan Marsh, how women’s issues can be explored through drama-based pedagogy, and AI in the classroom from Kevin Spiteri.
There really was something for everyone, with plenty to discover. The coffee breaks and lunch gave us time to catch up with former colleagues and old friends, and to make a few new acquaintances.
The second of the three plenary sessions was given by Maltalingua’s very own teacher trainer, Paul Atkins, who in 2022 was awarded the Inspiring ELT Professional Award by the ELT Council.
Paul’s talk on Excellence in ELT was engaging and, at times, cripplingly funny. It combined information with questions for us all to reflect on, and he had us discussing those questions with the person sitting next to us.
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The second of the three plenary sessions was given by Maltalingua’s very own teacher trainer, Paul Atkins, who in 2022 was awarded the Inspiring ELT Professional Award by the ELT Council.
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As to the fruit… the conference closed with a plenary session on eclecticism, where Leo Selivan took us through the history of ELT methodologies using images and video clips, likening each method to a particular fruit. It’s never easy being the last speaker at the end of a full day, but he kept our attention, inviting us to consider which methodologies we still use and so how eclectic we are in our teaching, or more precisely, whether our teaching methods are like a fruit salad or a bowl of fruit. And what are YOU? A fruit salad with everything mixed up, or a bowl of fruit where you carefully pick the right method for each thing you want to teach, taking into account the learner’s level, motivation, challenges and so on? |
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Maltalingua teachers are firmly bowls of fruit, adjusting how they deliver content to suit each student’s learning needs. Fancy joining us? Maltalingua is always happy to receive CVs.