Special Issue: Languages in Education /library/oar/handle/123456789/84415 2025-12-28T16:44:07Z 2025-12-28T16:44:07Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/84480 2021-11-24T06:29:03Z 2021-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Editorial [Malta Review of Educational Research, 15(2)] Abstract: The three papers in this special issue on languages in education share a number of similarities. In all there is a strong presence of academics working within a faculty of Education, specifically within a department dedicated to the humanities and the teaching and learning of languages in Malta. It is no surprise therefore, that issues relating to pedagogy run through the three papers and the authors’ close relationship to the subject is evident. Another similarity is the stimulus that prompted the research. All are grounded in the local educational context and the authors respond to a felt need in their respective areas as their research addresses issues that call for study, analysis, and evaluation. In recent years, the linguistic landscape in Malta has changed considerably and several schools now have a range of nationalities on their roll call. Malta has practised bilingual education, albeit not consistently successfully across the board, but that practice and the usefulness of models of bilingualism are now in question as the contextual features that typify bilingual education no longer hold. Teachers can bear testimony to the challenges of teaching linguistically diverse groups of learners; which challenges are not only pedagogical but also social and cultural. [excerpt]

2021-12-01T00:00:00Z Caruana, Sandro Pace, Mario /library/oar/handle/123456789/84479 2021-11-24T06:28:45Z 2021-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Italian nationals in Maltese schools : a case of ‘so near but yet so far’? Authors: Caruana, Sandro; Pace, Mario Abstract: Italians represent the largest community of foreign learners in our schools. In this paper we provide some background regarding the recent migration of Italians to Malta and we present and discuss language-related issues which affect the inclusion of learners in local schools. We refer to data provided by educators who responded to a questionnaire and to semi-structured interviews included in a Master in Teaching and Learning dissertation (Palazzo, 2020). Our analysis reveals that the inclusion of Italian learners is conditioned by their levels of competence in Maltese and English, and that this could determine their active participation in class, even during lessons of Italian itself. Although their experience in Maltese schools is generally positive, there are instances where adapting to a new educational system is the cause of demotivation which leads to absenteeism, as well as other cases where they are victims of bullying. Furthermore, some Italian learners show signs of distancing from their mother tongue, although many of them reveal a sense of pride towards their cultural heritage.

2021-12-01T00:00:00Z Bezzina, Anne-Marie Gauci, Joanne /library/oar/handle/123456789/84478 2021-11-24T06:28:17Z 2021-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Spoken interaction in the French as a foreign language classroom in Malta : learner responses elicited by teachers’ questioning patterns Authors: Bezzina, Anne-Marie; Gauci, Joanne Abstract: This study investigates the state of health of the spoken component in the teaching and learning of French as a Foreign Language (FFL) in Malta, positing that this may throw some light on the nature of foreign language (FL) pedagogical methods employed locally. A review of research conducted on the practice of the spoken skill by Maltese learners of French is supported by a study of questioning techniques employed by FFL teachers and their effect on the quality of learners’ spoken participation in class. Modern language pedagogy values practice of the spoken skill by L2 learners. The language teacher as interaction facilitator needs to master strategies based on asking direct, specific, open-ended questions which may trigger replies that go beyond single-word answers. Using Bloom’s taxonomy ensures that through their questioning, teachers engage learners in different cognitive processes. The analysis is based on a corpus of 16 transcribed FFL lessons delivered in two Maltese secondary schools, studied by means of Natural Language Processing (NLP), with a focus on questions, classified according to the types of responses they generate. The corpus is tagged with a tokenizer for French and another one for Maltese. The platform used for collocation searches and statistical calculations in the multilingual corpus is the Sketch Engine corpus management toolkit. Identification of grammatical categories mostly used by learners is carried out. Results confirm a rather traditional tendency in these classes, with the teacher as dominant figure, and a significant imbalance in the distribution of teacher and learner talk. Teachers frequently ask closed questions about word/phrase meaning and meta-language. Classroom verbal exchanges tend to involve lower order cognitive processes. Grammatical categories used in learner talk are predominantly heads of phrases, with very limited expansion. An improvement in the quality of classroom exchanges is warranted. Teacher training should go beyond theoretical knowledge of Bloom’s taxonomy, to include practice of efficient questioning strategies that may help learners produce longer stretches of L2 talk and develop their thinking skills. Not much progress seems to have been achieved in recent years regarding the practice of speaking in the FFL classroom; a culture change in the FL teaching scenario seems to be necessary to allow for advancement.

2021-12-01T00:00:00Z Żammit, Jacqueline /library/oar/handle/123456789/84434 2021-11-23T07:54:32Z 2021-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Maltese as a second language : learning challenges and suggested teaching strategies Authors: Żammit, Jacqueline Abstract: Adult learners experience challenges when learning a second language (L2), and educators must think of potential teaching strategies to overcome these challenges. This study explores the learning challenges that adult participants experienced while learning Maltese as a second language (ML2), including some of the teaching strategies which they indicated were effective. This study applied a pragmatic epistemology and a longitudinal, qualitative research design to clarify the complex phenomenon of second language acquisition (SLA) and comprehensively address the research question. Thirty-five adult participants in an ML2 class sat for two timed grammaticality judgement tests (TGJTs) and verb conjugation (VC) tasks, picture interpretation tasks six times over a 15-month period and reflective journals. For post-hoc analysis, the participants participated in an interview and a stimulated recall session. Despite participants’ learning difficulties, which were collected through reflective journals and interviews, they indicated that the acquisition of the Maltese verbal tense and aspect did take place over time, although this was a particularly challenging area of ML2 acquisition. The participants recommended teaching strategies that could facilitate ML2 learning.

2021-12-01T00:00:00Z