Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) at school in Europe : country reports

Abstract

In Malta, both Maltese and English are considered to be official state languages. However, it should be noted that in public state schools, there is a tendency to use Maltese as the predominant medium of communication and teaching. In some private and church schools, on the other hand, English tends to be the main language of instruction. Principle 10 of the Maltese National Minimum Curriculum (NMC, 1999) ‘…considers bilingualism as the basis of the educational system. This document regards bilingualism as entailing the effective, precise and confident use of the country’s two official languages: Maltese, the national language, and English’. Moreover, the NMC advises that ‘… This goal must be reached by the students by the end of their entire schooling experience’. It recommends that, with regard to official languages, all schools should adopt a policy of utilising the two languages, i.e. Maltese and English, specifying in their respective school development plans the language strategy they intend to adopt over a period of time. The present report should thus be considered in the light of this bilingual context in which Maltese and English are used from a very early stage. In the Maltese context, CLIL takes on the meaning of teaching the majority of subjects in English at primary, secondary and post-secondary levels. As has been noted, reference is currently made in the Maltese context to bilingualism and not specifically to CLIL. It should also be noted that the NMC recommends code-switching at both primary and secondary levels in order to facilitate communication and instruction in class when the teaching of certain subjects requires it: ‘…one should revert to code-switching only in those cases where the use of English or Maltese poses problems’.