The English-Speaking Union of Malta

The English-Speaking Union is an international charity, founded in 1918, to promote English in international public speaking, encourage the enjoyment and constructive use of English through educational programmes and provide a forum for international friendship through the worldwide network of English-Speaking Unions in every part of the world. Some 52 countries now boast of having an English-Speaking Union, from as far afield as Morocco to Mongolia and Chile to Croatia.

In common with the objectives and ethos of English-Speaking Unions worldwide, the English-Speaking Union of Malta is committed to raising standards of spoken English, with particular emphasis on our schools and the University of Malta, fostering the enjoyment and constructive use of English through educational programmes and encouraging cultural activities in English. Given the importance of English to Malta's development in business, commerce, financial services and tourism, the establishment of the English-Speaking Union of Malta is a crucial step forward.

Our programme of work is actively under way. We have started introducing debating skills and public speaking in schools and at the University and we will continue to press for the development of this activity in the months ahead.

Following our success last year, we have just nominated several young people to attend ESU-sponsored scholarships in England this summer, for an International Relations seminar at Oxford University and also for two Shakespeare scholarships.

We arranged for an outstanding speaker, Stanley Wells, a world authority on Shakespeare, to address audiences at schools, the University and at public forums last November. We have already arranged for David Crystal and Mrs Crystal, renowned experts on the English language, to come to Malta next January. It is our intention to invite other top-level English speakers to address audiences here in the months ahead.

In addition, we started an initiative last October to introduce a practical, hands-on English-speaking support programme in primary schools, known as Arm Of Support, starting with Żabbar Primary School. Here, over the past eight months, just under 180 children in Kindergarten 2 classes have been very successfully and enthusiastically exposed to English conversation, through play activities under the guidance of our dedicated volunteer teachers and in close collaboration with the excellent teachers at Żabbar school.

The Centre for Literacy at the University of Malta is kindly assisting us in conducting some research into the benefits of the Arm Of Support programme. We hope to be able to extend the programme to another school very shortly and we are seeking new volunteers to enable this to happen.

ESU Malta started a programme of courses aimed at improving spoken English skills, known as English In Action, which is run from our office in Sliema and is open to all residents of Malta and Gozo. So far, about six concurrent English conversation courses for groups of five or six people, as well as one-to-one courses, are being run. Tailor-made courses are just getting under way in a number of private banks, at the Institute of Tourism Studies and in some hotels. We intend to expand these considerably in the months ahead. We have also run two very successful workshops on public speaking and on diplomatic negotiating skills.

We have the support in all that we are doing of the Minister for Education, who has kindly consented to be our patron, and the opposition spokesman on education, both of whom recognise the considerable added value the English-Speaking Union of Malta can bring to both promoting and improving the all-important use of the English language in Malta.

The International Council of the English-Speaking Union in London has ratified the establishment of the English-Speaking Union of Malta, which will be formally launched here tomorrow by Lord Watson of Richmond, chairman emeritus of the ESU International Council, in the presence of some 60 delegates from around the world.

We are also establishing a most enthusiastic Gozo Branch with effect from next Sunday, with the same aims and objectives, and our visiting delegates will be going to Gozo on that day for the official launch.

The establishment of the ESU in Malta will enable us to benefit from all the splendid educational and other facilities the ESU offers as well as access to over 50 other countries that belong to the union. We are convinced it will act as a catalyst for raising standards of spoken and written English in Malta.

The author is a graduate of Cambridge University and director of education and administration at ESU Malta