Perception versus performance: a study on attitudes towards, and performance in Maltese and English

Abstract

The National Curriculum Framework (2012) establishes ‘the knowledge, skills, competences, attitudes and values’ that a learner is expected to have at the end of the Junior Years Cycle (Year 6). Amongst the NCF’s projected outcomes is the goal of seeing that children are able to competently make use of ‘the range of ageappropriate language skills in both Maltese and English’, whilst enabling children to ‘appreciate and promote their Maltese culture and heritage’, as well as appreciating their ‘European and global contexts’ (NCF 2012, p.21). This paper deals with one of a series of questions laid out in a questionnaire which formed part of a quantitative survey with 987 Grade V Primary school children from State, Church and Private schools. This quantitative large-scale survey was but one section of a tripartite study which included in its totality, two largescale quantitative surveys with Grade V primary students and subsequently Grade V parents respectively, as well as a qualitative study with Grade V teachers. The research aimed not only to gauge attitudes towards bilingualism in the Maltese Islands from the viewpoint of primary school children, but also to establish what the perceptions towards and proficiency in the two official languages of the Maltese Islands; namely, Maltese and English, were. Moreover, this study is the first of its kind to carry out research on such a large-scale, not just limiting itself to one group of respondents, but rather seeking to document the attitudes and opinions towards bilingualism as seen from the perspective of the primary school sector, from the point of view of the major stakeholders involved: students, parents and teachers. Hence this paper focuses on the results obtained when primary school respondents were asked to rate their written Maltese and English proficiency. These perceptions are then compared to an actual impromptu written task in the two languages, thus serving as a gauge of written bilingual proficiency.