Bilingual Education in Malta and the Pedagogical Functions of Codeswitching.
L'éducation bilingue à Malte et les fonctions pédagogiques de l'alternance codique.

Conférence Antoinette Camilleri-Grima, Professeure des Universités, Université de Malte

Jeudi 19 septembre 2013

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Abstract :

Malta is a bilingual country where most people use Maltese and English on a daily basis. The whole education system is also bilingual such that from kindergarten to post-secondary level all schools provide teaching in Maltese and English as subjects, and use them as a medium of instruction across the curriculum. In this presentation I will talk about standard patterns of code choice in the classroom, such as those involved in the spoken and written channels of communication, school ethos and teachers’ personal histories.

I will illustrate bilingual teacher talk with a brief quantitative overview and then I will move on to give examples of when and why teachers and learners quickly shift between languages. I will explain translanguaging with excerpts from lesson transcriptions at both primary and secondary school levels. In Malta lessons are accomplished bilingually as teachers and learners interact, not only among themselves, but also as they access the written text that is always monolingual. Translation switching is one of the ways in which the lesson participants digest and assimilate the text and the lesson content. Other forms of codeswitching support learners’ motivation and participation, and are related to the pedagogical functions of elicitation and lesson and classroom management.

Short Biography :

Antoinette Camilleri Grima is Full Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Education, University of Malta. Her research interests include bilingualism in education, language and cultural diversity, intercultural competence, and learner autonomy. She has co-ordinated several Council of Europe projects (www.ecml.at) and published numerous books and articles. Her latest contribution is a Special Edition of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism on ‘Language Education in Malta’ (2013).