Malta Writing Programme trains over 1,200 teachers

The Foundation for Educational Services (FES) is about to organise the Seventh Invitational Writing Institute, an intensive writing, reading, feedback and lesson delivery experience for teachers. The four-week training forms part of FES's Malta Writing Programme (MWP).

The programme teaches a writing methodology based on 30 years of research and reflected practice that have shown how writers should go about writing, and the best ways to create the right learning environments to foster this writing process in the classroom.

Sandro Spiteri, head of MWP at FES, said the process of writing is not linear, but recursive - good writers tend to revisit thinking, drafting and revising over and over again as they build up and polish a text. Good writers do this because they have learnt that the point of writing is to communicate effectively to a real audience; it is therefore well worthwhile striving to find the right style, or voice, to ensure that the reader understands what the writer intended to communicate.

Over 1,200 teachers have received training by the MWP, which receives significant support from the Education Division, Mr Spiteri said.

"Experience has shown that the more intensive the period of training, the greater the likelihood of teachers actively experimenting with new strategies and asking for technical support to do so. We usually recommend a three-day, 12-hour workshop for training to be translated into significant and sustained classroom implementation."

The workshops are followed by a four-week Invitational Institute. Participants go through an intensive programme intended to help them review profoundly how and why they have taught writing as they have up to now. A learning community is built; many participants remain in touch through social and writing activities.

Mr Spiteri said: "This summer we shall be holding the seventh institute, which so far has trained around 165 educators. We have seen that institute participants are much more likely to independently attempt classroom implementation, become valued school resource persons, request technical assistance, be willing to offer themselves as assistance to others and continue writing themselves," Mr Spiteri said.

He explained that most schools start by asking for assistance in the teaching of English, and this is used as entry point to then help the school use writing as a tool for learning in all subject areas.

"The target audience is teachers, not students. The best institutes have as mixed a group of educators as possible; in Malta we have had kindergarten educators, facilitators, teachers in primary and secondary schools from both the state and non-state sector, school administrators, adult educators and tertiary-level teaching staff. In this way participants look at what is common in the writing process and then apply it to their situations, rather than starting with highlighting differences."

Nora Macelli, CEO of the Foundation for Educational Services, explained how the programme is presently being implemented holistically in four state primary schools, with another seven primary schools receiving regular technical support for more limited implementation. Another three state primary school and two secondary schools have requested full-programme support as from next scholastic year.

"We have had to refuse a lot of requests from the non-state sector because our resources do not stretch that far, although we would dearly love to be of greater assistance in the non-state sector than at present," Ms Macelli said.

She said the programme has reaped positive results. In the pilot state school, where the programme was initiated two years ago, there has been a 25 per cent increase in the quality of writing, and a significant increase in annual examination marks. This increase was seen in both boys and girls irrespective of age, although girls tended to make a greater improvement than boys.

"This is coupled with very high satisfaction ratings by school administration, teachers, parents and pupils, and significantly higher classroom implementation rates than in schools where more limited technical support is being given. We also have extensive data, through interviews, video footage and textual analysis that show that participating pupils have integrated the strategies and the underlying philosophy. We are presently extending our research base to confirm these findings, but all qualitative and quantitative data up to now is very encouraging," Ms Macelli said.

Furthermore she said that students were confident in their writing, were writing longer, more complex and more correct pieces, were reading more, and were transferring their knowledge in other writing-based areas of the curriculum.

Raymond Camilleri, director of Curriculum Management at the Education Division, said the MWP enabled teachers to experience the writing process before they impart it to their learners. "The steps involved in pre-writing, writing, sharing, revising, editing and evaluating are not simply told to teachers, but participants in the writing workshops go through these steps till they actually end up becoming budding writers themselves."

Mr Camilleri said that when students are at university, writing as a process is taught as a theoretical area of study.

"Here, they actually experience the motions of becoming writers. This is a basic difference since here teachers actually end up considering themselves as writers and hence they can speak with authority on the issue of teaching writing," Mr Camilleri said.

Producing better ideas as opposed to better skills to translate ideas into text is one of the issues. Mr Camilleri explained how brainstorming sessions to generate ideas are often held in schools but less attention is given on transmitting skills of how these ideas can be translated into text.

"Many schools bank on the ability of learners to do this automatically. However, this does not always happen. Naturally, one cannot stop at the level of ideas since this is just the first step involved in writing. Teachers need to work on developing better skills to translate ideas into text."

Another problem concerns the fluency/accuracy debate. He said that it was often the case that students lose interest in writing since heavy focus is made on the issue of accuracy or the lack of it, that is on errors made.

"A task can become anathema to students if they end up seeing their output criticised unduly while the formative dimension of teaching is not taken into account. I would say that in education it is never enough notwithstanding the efforts that one puts in."

The successful results in Malta parallel over 30 years of experience with over two million participants in National Writing Project (NWP) Institutes in the US. Being the only other country to be accorded affiliate status with the NWP, and the first in Europe, in 2005, the US Embassy presented a grant to FES for its programme. NWP executive director Professor Richard Sterling of the University of California Berkeley and Dr Christine Johnson of Rowan University, director of the Centre for the Advancement of Learning, the strategic partner of the Let Me Learn Malta programme, had come to Malta to participate in the programme. 

US Embassy press and educational exchange assistant Joanna Zingariello said that one of the embassy's priorities was to reach out to young audiences and youth organisations.  "My colleagues and I have visited primary and secondary schools in Malta and Gozo to give presentations on American history, culture, literature, etc. Ambassador Bordonaro has also met with several youth organisations to discuss political, economic, entrepreneurial and social issues - there is wealth of talent among Malta's youth which will translate into success as these young people become the nation's leaders."

The Seventh Invitational Institute is being held from June 27 till July 25. Teachers may apply by sending their application to Muriel Grech, Malta Writing Programme secretary, by e-mail to mwp.fes@gov.mt or by fax on 2145-5625. Applications can be downloaded from www.fes.org.mt (clicking on the MWP icon). Inquiries can be made by calling 2145-5600 ext 115 or 2145-5607 ext 120.