The “language question” has been an issue in Malta for almost 140 years. With hindsight, if the then British colonial government had changed the official languages of the islands in the early post-Waterloo days (1815) the difficulties which were later to lead to a succession of political crises surrounding the issue might have been avoided. By the time it was confronted in about 1900, at the close of the Victorian era, it was too late to avoid the bitterness of entrenched nationalism.
As it was, shorn of its complexity and passion, it became instead essentially a tussle between “nationalism”, represented by the Partito Nazzionale (forbears of today’s Nationalist Party) under Fortunato Mizzi, and “imperialism”, represented by the then Governor of Malta, Lord Grenfell, and his chief secretary, Sir Gerald (later Lord) Strickland.
Maltese, at that stage in our history, was a language spoken, but seldom written or read. The educated and cultivated upper classes of the nobility, the clergy and professional classes spoke Italian. Some knew English, but these were in the minority. To face the future, English was preferred by the imperialistic circle in Malta, and to develop Maltese was popular with the working classes. The Nationalists, however, felt deeply that the Maltese culture would be undermined if the language of Dante and “of elegance” was displaced by either English or Maltese.
Moreover, by 1900 Malta was more populous, external Italian influence was stronger and international relations were tense from a wave of events that were to lead eventually to World War I. These same factors and arguments were to dog Maltese politics, which came to be dominated by the language question, for another 40 years. The first Italian bombs to be dropped on Malta at the start of World War II by an Italian Fascist government led by Mussolini put an end once and for all to cultural arguments about the language question.
After the war, Malta effectively adopted Maltese and English bilingualism, a position formally acknowledged by Malta’s Independence Constitution in 1964. This embedded Maltese and English as the country’s two official languages, making it, both constitutionally and in practice, a bilingual country for the last 52 years.
Malta has been fortunate that the founding fathers of our Constitution were far-seeing enough to make English one of the official languages of Malta, after Maltese. That decision has ensured that in an island that borders both Africa and Europe, uniquely placed at a strategic geopolitical crossroads, a nation that is blessed with the facility to learn, speak and use English gains an advantage of incalculable proportions over other countries in this region.
English has given Malta the ability and the means to conduct and attract business, commerce and visitors to these islands, to the considerable benefit of our economy and the enrichment of our culture. Regular surveys of foreign firms working in Malta have shown they were overwhelmingly attracted here because it was an English-speaking country.
Teaching English to our students as a foreign language would be a deeply retrograde step
Our bilingualism gives us a huge competitive edge in achieving our goals of economic growth, international communications and friendship.
Today’s language question in Malta is not about politics, however, but about standards of both spoken and written English. The Ministry of Education has commendably shown a determination to confront Malta’s 21st century language question. In a detailed study which it commissioned of Maltese students’ English language proficiency, Cambridge University experts have recommended a number of changes to the way English is taught in Maltese schools.
In response, the English Department of the University of Malta has raised a number of extremely pertinent points. Its main concern has focussed on whether the key solutions being proposed to improve the teaching of English in our schools are the right ones.
In an otherwise sensible analysis of the report, there was just one aspect of the English Department’s response with which I would disagree. It questioned whether standards in the use of English in Malta are actually falling, or whether this was simply a misplaced perception due perhaps to “the increased access to education” resulting in a wider spectrum of students studying and sitting for their SEC exams.
The Department of English is run by a dedicated and capable body of academics. They are perfectly right in arguing for proper research to be conducted before concluding firmly that standards of English have fallen and why. It may be, as they point out, that the problem is one of falling educational standards in all other subjects more generally, not exclusively in English.
I must confess, however, that all my own experience of the last 20 years, dealing closely with Malta’s largest employer, the public service, and a number of major commercial entities, leads me to conclude that standards of spoken and, especially, written English leave much to be desired. My limited involvement of marking a number of Masters’ theses also leads me to conclude that standards even among our best students are inadequate.
The crux of the issue – as the Department of English has rightly pointed out – is whether the proposals made by Cambridge University “to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL)” are sensible and likely to be effective in raising standards of English, or whether they will instead lead to “a short-sighted race to the bottom”. My own instinctive reaction, as a layman, is that this would be a counsel of despair that does not convince.
Lowering the bar for teaching and assessing English – which teaching it as a foreign language, like French or Italian, would inevitably entail – instead of striving to raise standards in both English and Maltese would be not only retrograde and defeatist, but also would detract from Malta’s unique selling point as a country which uses English as one of its official languages.
Maltese bilingualism is a strength which must not be sacrificed on the altar of pedagogic expediency. If English teaching standards are deficient – and all the anecdotal evidence demonstrates that they have been for at least the last two or three generations – the answer is not to lower the assessment bar, but to strive to raise it.
English is increasingly the language of global communication. It is the language of commerce, diplomacy, business, science, technology and the internet. In Europe, young people between 15 and 24 years are five times more likely to speak English as German or French. At EU meetings, speakers automatically choose the language that excludes the fewest people in the room. This is almost always English. English is quite simply the best instrument for communication because it is now the world’s language.
Malta’s use of English has the distinctive merit of bringing together not only the nations who use English as a first language, but also those – as in our case – who use English to achieve their goals of economic growth and, most importantly, international communication.
The government’s efforts to seek ways of raising standards in our schools and University are greatly to be commended. But the central thesis of the proposals put forward by Cambridge University as the possible way out of Malta’s falling standards appears to be flawed and should be revisited. Teaching English to our students as a foreign language would be a deeply retrograde step.