Every now and then the spectre of falling standards comes to haunt us and puts the frighteners on many. Accusations fly wildly at the usual suspects: “It’s the teachers, it’s the teachers’ preparation, it’s the learners, it’s the syllabus, it’s the schools, it’s Matsec, it’s texting, it’s the parents”.
And then, equally dangerous, policymakers look around feverishly for solutions: make the SEC examination easier, adopt methodologies used to teach English as a foreign language (EFL), introduce a new curriculum, introduce e-learning, classify English as a foreign language, no less…
Depending on who you are, opinions differ. University lecturers wonder how some students have made it to University; the Faculty of Education has its own proficiency tests on top of the regular entry requirements; employers are nonplussed at young people’s inability to use English accurately; ministers quote poor showings on international tests; Matsec examiners bemoan students’ limited skills.
On the other hand, some teachers, parents, and indeed some policymakers think that times have changed and examinations are unrealistically and unnecessarily tough. So tough, that several hundred school-leavers do not even attempt the SEC examination.
Whose opinion will hold sway?
It should not be a matter of opinion. What hard evidence do we have that standards are falling? Of course, there are the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa). Hardly flattering for our country, though there is some consolation in pointing out that other countries were tested on their first language while our learners were tested on English. But then the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) results showed that our younger learners struggled even more on their Maltese.
These international tests are useful snapshots but we could be doing more to understand better the issues. Are we looking at the research we have in hand, and generating more?
We could be doing more to understand better the issues
For instance, the benchmark examination at age 11 could serve a far more valuable purpose if we studied the examination scripts (not results) and then fed this information into the loop to the primary schools and the receiving schools.
The same goes for the SEC English examination. Year after year, chief examiners lament falling standards – but have scripts been analysed systematically?
Are there measures in place to detect deterioration in competence in English? It would also help if we sifted the results of school leavers from those of the others taking the examination – these could amount to 25 per cent.
Why does Matsec still report SEC results as a global grade? Reporting results by skill will credit students for what they know and can do. This simple change will encourage the hundreds who now shy away from the examination and the backwash can only be positive.
Making sure that all those teaching English in State, Church and independent schools are indeed qualified as teachers of English is fundamental.
Those teaching English to schoolchildren through that legal aberration that allowed anyone with a Master’s degree to so, should be trained.
Curricular entitlement must be assured: are days spent at school well spent and are all learners developing competence in all four language skills?
What evidence do we have that the comprehensive education set-up has filtered into the classroom?
Does inclusion through differentiation take place?
Teaching in lockstep fashion, pacing a class according to the average-achieving learners is essentially shortchanging the rest.
Schools used to practise a rudimentary form of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) until the 1999 recommendation that schools should develop their own language policy regarding the use of English to teach non-language subjects. Have the effects of that policy been studied at all?
With data on these and several other issues, we can see the spectre for what it is.
Doreen Spiteri is a senior lecturer at the Department of Arts and Languages at the University’s Faculty of Education.