NSTS English Language Institute receives Skål Tourism Award

The NSTS English Language Institute (ELI) was presented with the Academic and Professional of the Year award in the first-ever Skål Malta Tourism Awards ceremony held recently on the Birgu promenade.

NSTS English Language Institute is a prestigious training centre for non-native speakers of English founded in 1963 when NSTS in conjunction with the Department of English at the University of Malta invited a group of Italian students from the University of Rome on an educational visit to Malta.

The success of this educational visit encouraged NSTS to carry on this venture by teaching English in Malta to students from France and later on from Germany.

The late 1970s saw turmoil in tertiary education in Malta. This led NSTS to take up the professional training of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).

With the expansion in the TEFL market in 1987, the then National Tourism Organisation of Malta (NTOM) undertook to promote Malta on a national scale as an English language learning destination. This promotion was a boost to the work initiated by NSTS in the early 1960s.

Under the direction of Francis Stivala, NSTS participated in a lobby to form a national Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations of Malta (FELTOM) whose primary objective was to set, improve and ensure the maintenance of standards in all aspects of English language stays in Malta. FELTOM was established in 1989 with Mr Stivala being elected president.

In conjunction with the founding members of FELTOM, NSTS drafted a code of academic conduct, which, among other things, stipulated the minimum professional qualifications required for the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In 1996 the Ministry of Education adopted this code of academic conduct as a legal notice, which, to date regulates the teaching of EFL in Malta through its implementation by the Monitoring Board for EFL Schools.

The academic and professional work originally undertaken by NSTS is reaping great results within the tourist sector. The latest data published by the National Statistics Office show that 4.5 per cent of all tourist arrivals in 2001 were students who followed EFL courses in Malta. If one were to project this solely onto those countries where English is not an official language; one obtains a staggering 10 per cent of arrivals. Moreover the average length of stay of a language student is twice as long as the national average.

This shows NSTS' injection and continuous commitment towards the sustainable development of the local tourism industry.