Students are repeating the same mistakes in orthography, grammar and essay writing, a report by Maltese language SEC examiners has concluded, despite similar warnings made in the past.
Moreover, it transpires that, in last May’s session, students’ overall performance in their native language was slightly worse than in the English language.
The number of students obtaining a grade in the Maltese language exam that is good enough to enter post-secondary institutions dropped slightly on 2017 and stood at 67.9 per cent. In comparison, the overall performance in English was better at 71.3 per cent.
In total, 3,675 candidates sat for Maltese, a fifth of whom could not even be classified due to their extremely poor performance. On the other hand, there were 2,410 candidates who obtained a mark between Grade 1 (highest) and Grade 5 (lowest pass mark).
In the very first line of their report, the examiners refer to recurring shortcomings while remarking that “all general comments made last year also apply for this year”.
Spelling mistakes were perennially on the rise
The poor command of the Maltese language was mostly evident in the essay, with the examiners remarking that, bar a few exceptions, all marks for orthography were lost. Unfortunately, rather than being rooted out, spelling mistakes were perennially on the rise, the report said.
In the case of punctuation, the situation was not as bad. However, a significant number of students failed to make a distinction between certain terms used on colloquial conversations and the proper written language.
Another persistent trend, possibly due to the ever-increasing influence of poor writing skills on social media, was the literal translation of English phrases to Maltese, which, at times, resulted in the coining of inexistent terms.
On a positive note, the majority of candidates had a very good performance in the oral paper, which tests their skill to engage in a conversation without resorting to any other language.
In their conclusion, the examiners made the point that even those opting to sit for paper 2B, which is less demanding than paper 2A, were nonetheless ex-pected to have a good command of the Maltese language.
A few months ago the Education Ministry unveiled a controversial public consultation to gauge feedback for a proposal to introduce Maltese as a foreign language. Among the reasons behind the proposal, it noted that the current syllabus was not tailor-made for students having either a foreign parent or who were brought up in an English-speaking environment. Education Minister Evarist Bartolo had also backed the initiative as part of a strategy to address the relatively poor results being achieved in the SEC Maltese exam.
The idea had triggered a barrage of criticism from scholars and academics who warned such a move would deal a huge blow to Malta’s native language.
‘Maltish-English’ mistakes in SEC exam
Insalva l-flus - save the money.
Fuq l-id l-oħra - on the other hand.
Fattoriji - factories.
Nirrentja karozza - rent a car.
Nipprektisja - to practise.
Ħustaġġ - hostage.