We conduct research on English language use and proficiency, as well as on a variety of topics in TESOL.

We are responsible for co-ordinating the UM’s English Communicative Aptitude programme. We are currently collecting data through the ECA programme in order to develop a better understanding of University students’ English language proficiency.

Our Centre is currently engaged in various research projects:

• Corpus of Learner English in Malta (CLEM) – the project focuses is to build a corpus of leaner English, which will support research connected with areas such as SLA, bilingualism, textual analysis and more.
• TELT corpus – the project focuses on building a corpus of written and spoken data collected from the Test for English Language Teachers (TELT) examination. Funded by the ELT Council, this project aims to investigate the language used by pre-service teachers. Part of the ELT Council’s remit is to enhance language awareness in the ELT industry in Malta.
• Designing and running the Spoken English Proficiency Test for Teachers (SEPTT) – the research that is being conducted on SEPTT consists of an investigation into the impact and washback of the test on the ELT industry at large, on school management, on teacher trainers, on pre-service teachers, and on teaching and learning. The long-term plan is to analyse the speech data collected from each examination session with a view to comparing the teacher discourse used in SEPTT with authentic classroom discourse.