Teaching English to foreigners (1)

The Talking Point by Carmelo Abela, Shadow Minister for Education, Youth and Culture, about the teaching of English as a foreign language (August 17) was timely and pertinent. The points he raised about teaching, accommodating and entertaining foreign students who come here to learn English should all receive due consideration. Here, I shall consider only the question of teachers.

I believe that Malta is the only place where teaching English as a foreign language is regulated by legislation. Our Education Act lays down that any person who teaches English as a foreign language must possess an EFL Permit, and goes on to specify the qualifications required in order to be granted such a permit. There are two:

One has to do with the level of English: An Advanced-level certificate in English of a recognised institution or comparable qualification is required. However, faced with a situation where there are not enough people with this qualification who want to teach EFL English, the EFL Monitoring Board has introduced a new English Language examination which is more suited to the needs of EFL teaching as it lays stress on grammar, the way language works and how it should be written. This examination, so far held twice a year, has now established itself and is enabling a substantial number of qualified teachers to join the sector every year.

The other qualification has to do with the teaching process. Before they are issued with an EFL Permit, prospective teachers have to complete successfully a recognised induction course in the methodology of teaching English as a foreign language approved by the Monitoring Board. Such courses are run by a number of the established schools according to detailed guidelines formulated by the Board. The people running the courses have to be approved by the Board, which assesses their qualifications and experience to ensure that the courses are professionally run.

Internationally recognised EFL qualifications, like the Cambridge CELTA, or the London Trinity College TESOL, are considered to satisfy this requirement. So are relevant qualifications offered by our University.

The 2,332 licensed EFL teachers mentioned by Mr Abela are all the teachers who have received a permit since legislation was introduced in 1996. It does not mean that all of them are teaching at any one time. In fact, this summer, heads and directors of studies have found it extremely hard to recruit all the teachers they required as a result of the substantial increase in student numbers. Many of them have had to run double-shift teaching programmes, in the morning and the afternoon, to make the fullest possible use of the teachers available. As to the young age of EFL teachers, it has to be said that most of the mainstream teachers in our primary and secondary schools are not interested in EFL teaching. Moreover, opportunities for making a full time career of EFL teaching are still very limited. So, the bulk of summer teachers are young men and women, generally university students, who are fully qualified, enthusiastic and ready to learn. They are proving to be very good teachers.

There is also an increasing number of foreign teachers who satisfy all the local requirements and have the added advantage of being native speakers of the language. More and more schools are opting to have some of these on their staff because they maintain that the healthy mix is beneficial to students and teachers alike.

So the immediate problem is not that we have too many EFL teachers but that we do not have enough and must find ways of attracting more teachers to this expanding sector without lowering the established standards.