Improving children's English skills boosts their self-confidence

The English Speaking Board (ESB) was founded in England in 1953 by Christabel Burniston, who was its president right up to her death in October last year at the venerable age of 97. Her idea was to give young people the chance to develop two extremely important life skills - speaking and listening - which help to improve a person's self-confidence.

Without such confidence, a child cannot learn properly and very often ESB gives an otherwise unsuccessful child the opportunity to shine for the first time, and from that first achievement, so much more can follow. The ESB believes that every student benefits from being listened to, guided, encouraged and respected by sympathetic, skilled and perceptive examiners.

Two very experienced ESB assessors held their annual visit to Malta last March and found great pleasure in examining many hundreds of local children from St Aloysius College, Birkirkara, the Archbishop's Seminary, Rabat, St Dorothy's Junior School, Zebbug, Convent of the Sacred Heart Junior School, St Julian's, Thi Lakin School, Attard, Little Angels School, Birkirkara, and St Joseph School, Qormi. They both thoroughly enjoyed visiting these schools and colleges and found the students keen, friendly, polite and well prepared for their assessment.

During this year's ESB assessments, the examiners also had the difficult task of selecting a few students from the many who attained the highest award: that of Distinction. These students were invited to participate in the second ESB "Young Speaker of the Year" award held in Malta. The award was introduced by Ms Burniston in memory of the late Elizabeth Rees, who not only conducted assessments in Malta, but also worked tirelessly promoting ESB locally in the 90s.

St Aloysius College hosted this event on March 16. The chosen candidates from the seven schools, ranging from six to 15 years of age, presented a wonderful selection of talks, readings and poetry in front of their parents, heads of schools and tutors. They showed wonderful confidence and were a great credit to their schools, their parents and themselves. Each student was then presented with an impressive certificate and medal designed specially for the occasion.

The ESB promotes and assesses spoken English in a wide range of educational centres in the UK and abroad. The wide-ranging syllabuses cater for all standards of spoken English, from the beginner to those who are already fluent in the language. The assessments are held in the candidates' own environment with their classmates as an audience, and there is no written work required during the whole assessment.

There are four sections in an ESB assessment. First there is the oral presentation, where the candidate shows skills that he or she has acquired through knowledge and understanding. The presentation's content is based on personal experience, vocational context or interests, appropriately illustrated with visual aids.

The second section involves a script-free recitation of a piece of prose or poetry of the candidates' own choice.

The third part is the reading aloud of an extract from a book of the student's own choice, while the last part is the listening and responding section, which encourages everyone in the audience to concentrate, show interest and react intelligently to whatever might be said.

Everybody taking part in the assessment becomes fully involved, both in presenting their own work and as a member of the audience.

For any enquiries with regard to ESB syllabuses and assessments, contact Pat Gauci, regional co-ordinator for Malta, on 2145-4446 or e-mail patgauci@yahoo.co.uk.