Getting some winter sun in Malta
While summer is undoubtedly the busiest season here in Malta, over that past few years we’ve noticed a real increase in the number of people coming in the winter. There are several reasons for this: the islands are more peaceful, the class sizes are smaller and the prices lower, but for many people the most attractive thing is the chance to get some winter sun.
When the weather in Northern Europe turns cold and grey many eyes turn southward to our little Mediterranean Island. The thought of getting some winter sunshine and topping up their tan while topping up their English can be very enticing for many people.
In the winter months the islands are noticeably quieter and significantly greener. This makes exploring the Maltese countryside even more enjoyable. On a sunny winter day, the water looks clearer, the sky seems bluer and the air feels fresher. It’s not unusual for the temperature to go over 20 degrees Celsius, perfect for taking a hike around the beautiful coastline and dramatic cliffs on the west side of the Islands.
The sea is at its coldest in January and February, too cold for most to swim, but you do see a few brave people out challenging themselves. However, on the nicest winter days sunbathing next to the sea is still a popular pastime. You might even see some people out having a BBQ with friends.
Other great activities you can do in Malta in the winter include: quad bike tours of Gozo, shopping in famous fishing village of Marsaxlokk, watching historical re-enactments, boat trips to the beautiful Blue Grotto and many more.
The Maltese love a good celebration and being a strongly Christian country means Christmas is a really special time of year here. The decorations are spectacular and there is a real feeling or excitement and anticipation throughout December. The picturesque streets of Valletta look particularly beautiful when dressed up for holiday season.
Being the sunniest country in the EU certainly means Malta has a lot to offer winter travelers. The chance to absorb some sunshine, boost your vitamin D levels and explore the culture and countryside at a slower pace makes it an especially attractive option.
Have yo been to Malta in the winter? What did you like best? Leave a comment below to let us know.
7 best events in Malta – Autumn 2017
At Maltalingua we love to go to all the great events happening in September and October in Malta. We’ve used our insider knowledge to create the following list of the best events in Malta in Autumn 2017.
While most of Europe is becoming chilly in Autumn, Malta gets lovely average temperatures of around 26 degrees in the daytime. The sea temperate also stays warm enough for most people to swim right into November. These comfortable temperatures make Autumn a great time for events in Malta, and people here make the most of it!
Top events in Malta in Autumn 2017
Maltese Independence Day – Various Locations – 21 September
Malta was a British Colony for 164 years until 21 September 1964 when the country gained its political independence. People here are very proud of their country and they love to celebrate the nation’s achievements. Independence Day is one of the most special, as such there are celebrations all over their islands. Some of the best celebrations can be found in the capital city, Valletta.
Malta International Airshow – Malta International Airport – 23 & 24 September
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Malta International Airshow. The show has grown in one of Malta’s most popular, and most photographed events. Spectators can be amazed by the incredible acrobatic skills of top stunt pilots from around the globe. You’ll also get a close look at these incredible aircraft.
Rockestra – MFCC, Ta’ Qali – 30 September
At Rockestra music fans can see very different genres of music collide. It’s a dazzling show of rock and pop covers played by the orchestra with special guest singers and rock musicians bringing something a little different to proceedings.
The Malta Classic – Mdina – 5 to 8 October
The Malta Classic is the perfect event for fans of classic cars and motor racing. Set in the stunning city of Mdina, classic car enthusiasts show off their beloved machines then take to the roads to compete in the races. The main event is the Mdina Grand Prix held on the 7 and 8th of October.
Notte Bianca – Valletta – 7 October
During the “white night” the cultural centers of Valletta light and open to the public late into the evening. Museums, galleries and even the parliament building welcome visitors for free. There are also many lively attractions happening on the streets of this beautiful city.
Birgu Fest – Birgu – 14 October
On an island famous for its lavish village feasts, it takes something really special to gain the reputation of being the most beautiful of all. For one night of the year, the city of Birgu is covered in candles and transformed. The effect is spectacular and walking through the narrow historic back streets bathed in candlelight is a truly memorable and romantic experience.
Rolex Middlesea Race – Valletta Grand Harbour – 21 October
Now coming into its 38th year, Malta’s number one sailing race has become one of the top events of the yearly calendar. Visitors can take a stroll along the Birgu waterfront to see the great vessels close-up or just watch them departing from the any of the bastion walls overlooking the Grand Harbour. It’s a sight to remember!
Want information about all the best events in Malta in 2017? Then check out our Malta Events 2017 page.
Which events would you most like to go to? Are there any you think we’ve missed? Leave a comment to let us know!
Maltalingua Star Awards – May, June and July 2017
We’re having a very busy summer at Maltalingua, and our staff have been doing a great job! We like to thank them for their hard work each month, and choose one teacher and one other staff member to receive our Maltalingua Star Awards.
May 2017 – Maltalingua Star Teacher of the month: The Whole Teaching Team 🙂
The standards of the whole teaching team were so high in May that it was impossible to choose just one winner. Congratulations everyone!
Star teaching team May 2017
May 2017 – Maltalingua Star of the month: Marialuisa Esposito
During one of the busiest times for the year for our registrars Marialuisa was a stand-out. Her organisational skills, calm temperament and efficiency helped her to do an excellent job of dealing with a very high volume of quotations, inquiries and bookings.
Star staff member May 2017
June 2017 – Maltalingua Star Teacher of the month: Toni Cassar-Dowling
Toni was invaluable in June. At a very busy time, her hard work, experience and administrative skills made her a star performer. Our DOS knows she can trust Toni to look after the day-to-day running of the academic department whenever required.
Star teacher June 2017
June 2017 – Maltalingua Star of the month: Julian Micallef
In June Julian did an excellent job of making sure that our new apartment renovations and upgrades were completed on-time and to a very high standard. This was a complicated task that required a lot of planning and people management skills. The new air-conditioned apartments are looking fantastic and the students love staying in them.
Star staff member June 2017
July 2017 – Maltalingua Star Teacher of the month: Louisa Testa
Louisa is adored by our junior students. In July, the excellent feedback she received from our young students propelled her to the Star Teacher of the Month award. Her positivity and helpfulness were also big factors in her receiving the award. In the words of our DOS “She’s a real team player”.
Star teacher July 2017
July 2017 – Maltalingua Star of the month: Indira Gimeno
Indira’s duties changed a lot in July. She received lots of training and did exceptionally well. She learned quickly and adapted to her new role with great positivity and professionalism.
Star staff member July 2017
Do you want to let us know who your favourite member of the Maltalingau team is? Then leave a comment below.
8 Best Events in Malta – Summer 2017
Summer is a fantastic time to be in Malta. The sea is warm, the sun shining and the islands have a really exciting energy, but one of our favourite things about summer is all the excellent events in Malta. Whatever your interests, there is sure to be an event or two that is a great fit for you.
We’ve compiled a list of our top 8 events for July and August 2017. These will give you a good idea of what the islands have to offer this summer.
The Marsovin Summer Wine Festival – Hastings Garden, Valletta – 7 to 9 July, 8pm to 1am
Listen to some great live music and try some of Malta’s finest wines in a beautiful location. Held in Hastings Gardens, a scenic park perched on top of Valletta’s fortress walls, the event has a very special atmosphere and is one of the highlights of Malta’s social calendar.
Malta International Food Festival 2017 – Mdina – 21 to 23 July
The Malta International Food festival isn’t just an excuse to eat delicious foods from around the world. It’s also a great opportunity to improve your cooking skills and listen to some quality live music. Over the course of the weekend, there will be many live cooking demonstrations. The event is held in the beautifully refurbished Mdina ditch, right next to the walls of the famous ‘Silent City’.
Feast of St Julian – St Julians – 25 to 27 August
The Feast of St Julian certainly has one of the best atmospheres of all the festas in Malta. Tourists and locals party side–by–side and celebrate around the streets of St Julians at the height of summer. Over the course of several days, there are fireworks displays, marching bands being showered with shredded paper and even a competition where people try to run up a greased pole – most of whom fall into the sea.
The Farsons Great Beer Festival – National Park, Ta’Qali – 28 July to 6 August
This 10–day long celebration of music and beer has been a summer highlight in Malta for 36 years. An exciting lineup of live music and an equally exciting beer menu keeps fans coming back for more.
Unite with Tomorrowland – Marsa Sports Grounds – 29 July
Tomorrowland, EDM’s biggest and boldest festival is coming to Malta for the first time this summer. DJ Snake, DVBBS, and Laidback Luke have all been announced with more to follow. It’s recommended to book early as tickets are likely to sell out fast.
Fatboy Slim at Cafe Del Mar – 30 July
DJ and producer extraordinaire Fatboy Slim will be taking over Malta’s most famous venue for a night of banging tunes and outrageous mixes. Watch the sunset and enjoy listening to a master at work.
La Belle Musique Malta – 5 August
Starting from nothing in 2013, their mixes have attracted over 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube. La Belle Musique is perfect for those of you who prefer a more chilled out electronic music festival with a very positive vibe.
Feast of Saint Mary Fireworks – Mqabba – 14 August, 9:30pm to Midnight
The Feast of Saint Mary is celebrated all over Malta, but the most popular event is the fireworks display in the little southern town of Mqabba. Malta has a great tradition of creating top–class fireworks. Many small factories compete to put on the best displays. Two of the most respected companies are based in Mqabba so this Festa always has an extra special fireworks extravaganza.
You can read about our favourite events for the whole of 2017 on the Malta Events 2017 page of our main website.
If you’d like to do an English course and join us at some of these great events why not get a quick, no obligation quote?
Which events are you most interested in? Are there any others you’d like to go to? Leave a comment and let us know.
Maltalingua Star Awards – April 2017
At Maltalingua we’re lucky to have such a great team. From the office staff to the teachers, from the registrars to the activity coordinators and from the principle to the group leaders we’ve got smart, capable and committed staff right through the school.
To show appreciation for all the hard work done by the team, each month we’re going to have 2 special star awards:
Maltalingua Star Teacher of the Month
Maltalingua Star of the Month
In April, we had many strong contenders for each award, but we had to choose only one for each:
Maltalingua Star Teacher of the month: Harriett Bussell-Nguyen
Star Teacher!
Well done Harri! She received some excellent feedback from students recently:
I would like to praise Harriet for being really the best teacher I could have imagined to have. She had really lively, well prepared classes, and I really appreciate we had her as a teacher.
– Ilona Cerna
I liked the familiar and friendly athmosphere at maltalingua. Teaching lessons with Harriette were quite intensive and funny.
– Anonymous
I Love Harri & Toni 😉
– Anonymous
She also currently doing a great job of studying for her DELTA (an extremely high level of English teaching qualification).
Maltalingua Star of the Month: Marta Szmidt
Star Staff Member
Well done Marta! She’s made Maltalingua one of the most popular School’s on the Island for Polish students. Her lively personality and dedication to great customer service have been hugely appreciated by all the staff here and all of her clients.
Have you got a favourite staff member at Maltalingua? Leave a comment below to let us know whom!
Maltalingua has a brand new website!
After many months of creative development, we are very pleased to release the latest version of our new Schools website. Yes, we are a little sad to see our old site confined to the archives of the internet but we do love harnessing new technologies.
Besides, the school now has so many new memories which are displayed all over the site and in the new school photo galleries (Adult photo gallery Junior photo gallery)
Build mostly in-house, our web team have worked tirelessly to create what we hope you agree with, is a pretty decent site 
Thank you to the content team (Marta, Indira, Dennis, Chiara and Marina) for inputting the content and for making all the necessary translations to what is now amazingly 9 different linguistic sites. Many thanks to Sumit and Martin for their supreme technical development and a special thanks is reserved for James for managing the entire project and for his exhaustive efforts to capture the essence of Maltalingua and compile many of the awesome images and content on the site.
A wonderful team effort – Thank you to all!
Mark Holland
Director
P.S Watch this space for further website features and development in the coming weeks
Merry Christmas from Maltalingua
We might not get any snow in Malta, but people here certainly now how to enjoy the holiday season. All the towns and villages are covered in Christmas lights and there’s a real feeling of festive cheer across the islands.
Last week we had our annual Maltalingua School of English Christmas party. Lots of the staff, teachers and English language students joined in the fun and a good time was had by all. We had our staff party that evening and it got a little bit wild in the best possible way. There was even an epic dance battle between Jonathan and Katrin, and Brian and Toni!
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- Katrin wasn’t very impressed by Brians’s dance moves.
The staff here at Maltalingua would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and successful New Year!
We would also like to say thank you to everyone who helped make 2016 such a great year at Maltalingua. That’s why we made a little video slideshow of out favourite memories from 2016. The staff, teachers, students, host families, agents and all really helped to make 2016 our best year yet!
Here’s hoping that we can make 2017 even better!
Happy Halloweens at Maltalingua
At Maltalingua Halloween is a great time of year. Our team certainly aren’t shy and really enjoy dressing up in some crazy costumes.
We love to have some spooky fun, doing things like carving pumpkins and going to fancy dress parties. Check out the photos!
Last year we made this short video of students and staff trying to say a fiendishly difficult Halloween themed tongue twister:
If you want to try it yourself, here’s it is:
Which wicked witch wished which wicked wish.
Here are another two you could try:
Ghoulish goblins and gargoyles going golfing.
Special spiders slowly spin slick slimy webs.
We’re looking forward to another super spooky weekend of Halloween fun this year. We might even challenge our students to try another wicked tongue twister 🙂
If you’re thinking about joining us this Halloween, why not get a quick quote?
Online Video Lessons #9 – Grammar and Vocabulary
Jonathan and Danielle worked hard last week to bring you 5 more great Maltalingua lesson videos. This week we have a mix of grammar and vocabulary. The lessons are about prepositions, prefixes, ‘have’/’have got’, ‘few’/’little’ and advanced phrases for ‘too much’.
You can always find many more lesson videos on our YouTube channel. Remember to like share and subscribe!
Elementary: Prepositions of Place – English Grammar Lesson
Elementary English lesson videos on YouTube.
Pre-Intermediate: ‘Have’ vs ‘Have Got’ – English Grammar Lesson
Pre-Intermediate English lesson videos.
Intermediate: Little/Few – English Grammar Lesson
We have lots more Intermediate level videos on YouTube.
Upper-Intermediate: Prefixes – English Vocabulary Lesson
Check out our Upper Intermediate level playlist.
Advanced: Phrases to Describe ‘Too Much’ – English Vocabulary Explanation
Find all out out Advanced level lesson videos here
We love comments! If you’ve got any questions or if you just want to say ‘hi’, leave a comment below.
Online Video Lessons #8 – Adjectives, punctuation and more
Last week our YouTube channel reached 150 subscribers so Danielle and Jonathan wanted to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who watched, liked, shared and subscribed!
Now, here are this week’s English lesson videos. We have three lessons about adjectives, one about punctuation and one about present perfect vs past simple.
Elementary: Adjectives to Describe Food – English Vocabulary Explanation
More elementary lesson videos.
Pre-Intermediate: Describing Weather – English Vocabulary Lesson
Watch all our Pre-Intermediate English lesson videos here.
Intermediate: Present Perfect vs Past Simple – English Grammar Lesson
You can find all of our Intermediate level English video tutorials in this playlist.
Upper-Intermediate: Punctuation Revision – English Grammar Lesson
Go to our YouTube channel to watch all our our Upper Intermediate level English tutorials.
Advanced: Confused Adjectives – English Vocabulary Explanation
Check out our playlist of advanced level English lesson videos.