Malta? Why Not?!
We are very fortunate these days to have access to a wide range of professional materials and resources. The coursebooks and supplementary materials that we use are attractive, well written, extensively piloted before publication, and in most cases are stimulating for both teachers and students. The vast majority that we use here in Malta are produced by the British EFL publishing industry, which invests a lot of time, money and expertise in making their products popular in a highly competitive market.
In many cases, too, these publishers are moving away from situations and contexts which are too UK culture-bound. True, we still get the odd British café (“listen and write down the price for a salad and chips and a cup of tea” or “Seumas lives and works on the island of Ghiga in the west of Scotland”), but there is clearly an effort to place English in its global context as an international lingua franca.
Malta, however, rarely appears as a setting in these published resources. In many ways, this is understandable, as Malta’s size hardly warrants inclusion in coursebooks which are used by millions of English Language learners all over the world, many of whom know little or nothing about Malta. However, about 50,000 of these learners do know something about Malta, and for a variety of reasons choose Malta as an English language destination every year. And surely some of these have some interest in the setting in which their language course is held? And if so, would it be entirely illogical if some of their lessons occasionally had some local flavour?
I do not for a minute mean that we should subject these poor innocents to two weeks of information about the Neolithic Temples, the Knights, the Second World War, and Nationalists, Labour and AD, but perhaps every now and again we could respond to any interest in local culture (both small and capital ‘c’) and adapt (or even design) materials that acknowledge the fact that our students’ lessons are actually taking place here on this island in the Med. True, the focus would still need to be on International English in a global context, but that surely doesn’t exclude English in Malta?
How? Well, here are a few examples which I’ve used myself. Please feel free to try them out, and if they work for you, perhaps they’ll inspire you to design your own Malta-based materials. If you use or adapt any of these materials and you fancy dropping me a line to tell me what worked/didn’t work, and how students responded, I’d be pleased to hear from you. And if you already design your own Malta-based materials, I’d love to hear from you too.
Where do these ideas come from? Well, sometimes I just simply adapt a text, or exercise, or material that already exists in published materials, and just change the names or places. Other times, I hear something on the radio, or read something in a magazine article, and think “Now that might make interesting classroom material …”. And at other times I think, “ Now, that’s a useful teaching technique. How can I use it for some Malta-based material?” And sometimes it’s a mixture of all three! Have a look at these materials, and see if you can guess how the material was ‘born’.
We are very fortunate these days to have access to a wide range of professional materials and resources. The coursebooks and supplementary materials that we use are attractive, well written, extensively piloted before publication, and in most cases are stimulating for both teachers and students. The vast majority that we use here in Malta are produced by the British EFL publishing industry, which invests a lot of time, money and expertise in making their products popular in a highly competitive market.
In many cases, too, these publishers are moving away from situations and contexts which are too UK culture-bound. True, we still get the odd British café (“listen and write down the price for a salad and chips and a cup of tea” or “Seumas lives and works on the island of Ghiga in the west of Scotland”), but there is clearly an effort to place English in its global context as an international lingua franca.
Malta, however, rarely appears as a setting in these published resources. In many ways, this is understandable, as Malta’s size hardly warrants inclusion in coursebooks which are used by millions of English Language learners all over the world, many of whom know little or nothing about Malta. However, about 50,000 of these learners do know something about Malta, and for a variety of reasons choose Malta as an English language destination every year. And surely some of these have some interest in the setting in which their language course is held? And if so, would it be entirely illogical if some of their lessons occasionally had some local flavour?
I do not for a minute mean that we should subject these poor innocents to two weeks of information about the Neolithic Temples, the Knights, the Second World War, and Nationalists, Labour and AD, but perhaps every now and again we could respond to any interest in local culture (both small and capital ‘c’) and adapt (or even design) materials that acknowledge the fact that our students’ lessons are actually taking place here on this island in the Med. True, the focus would still need to be on International English in a global context, but that surely doesn’t exclude English in Malta?
How? Well, here are a few examples which I’ve used myself. Please feel free to try them out, and if they work for you, perhaps they’ll inspire you to design your own Malta-based materials. If you use or adapt any of these materials and you fancy dropping me a line to tell me what worked/didn’t work, and how students responded, I’d be pleased to hear from you. And if you already design your own Malta-based materials, I’d love to hear from you too.
Where do these ideas come from? Well, sometimes I just simply adapt a text, or exercise, or material that already exists in published materials, and just change the names or places. Other times, I hear something on the radio, or read something in a magazine article, and think “Now that might make interesting classroom material …”. And at other times I think, “ Now, that’s a useful teaching technique. How can I use it for some Malta-based material?” And sometimes it’s a mixture of all three! Have a look at these materials, and see if you can guess how the material was ‘born’.
1 Find Someone Who - Speaking
This is an activity which can be used during the first day(s) of a course. It gets students up and out of their seats, helps them to get to know each other better, and gives the teacher some feedback about what the students can and can’t do in English. At the end of the activity, the teacher conducts a feedback session. This allows him/her to give some interesting information about Malta and the Maltese, particularly about:
a) why we’re so crowded and so much building goes on (1)
b) delicacies which are extremely popular with the Maltese, but relatively unknown by tourists (2)
c) the Maltese language, and its importance vis-à-vis English (5,6,11)
Find Someone Who - Speaking
2 Nice? Yuk! – Vocabulary and Writing
When I was at school I remember being told time and time again not to use ‘nice’ all the time in my writing. So here’s a vocabulary and writing activity (originally inspired by an activity in a Headway workbook) to help students enrich their vocabulary- and to find alternatives to the N-word!
Nice? Yuk! - Vocabulary and Writing
3 Guess the Country – Reading and Writing
This activity acknowledges the Mediterranean context in which your students’ course is taking place. It’s adapted from a Headway coursebook.
Guess the Country - Reading and Writing
In another article I’ll include some more Malta-based suggestions and materials – including how to introduce Kinnie, Twistees and Cisk (!) to your students.
Good luck!
Alan Marsh
This is an activity which can be used during the first day(s) of a course. It gets students up and out of their seats, helps them to get to know each other better, and gives the teacher some feedback about what the students can and can’t do in English. At the end of the activity, the teacher conducts a feedback session. This allows him/her to give some interesting information about Malta and the Maltese, particularly about:
a) why we’re so crowded and so much building goes on (1)
b) delicacies which are extremely popular with the Maltese, but relatively unknown by tourists (2)
c) the Maltese language, and its importance vis-à-vis English (5,6,11)
Find Someone Who - Speaking
2 Nice? Yuk! – Vocabulary and Writing
When I was at school I remember being told time and time again not to use ‘nice’ all the time in my writing. So here’s a vocabulary and writing activity (originally inspired by an activity in a Headway workbook) to help students enrich their vocabulary- and to find alternatives to the N-word!
Nice? Yuk! - Vocabulary and Writing
3 Guess the Country – Reading and Writing
This activity acknowledges the Mediterranean context in which your students’ course is taking place. It’s adapted from a Headway coursebook.
Guess the Country - Reading and Writing
In another article I’ll include some more Malta-based suggestions and materials – including how to introduce Kinnie, Twistees and Cisk (!) to your students.
Good luck!
Alan Marsh