TEFL Certificate Course

In its commitment to continually upskill its teacher cohort, the Unit in collaboration with the EFL Monitoring Board offered a TEFL Cert Course subsidised by MEDE during the Summer of 2014.  Thirteen teachers completed this hands-on Course. Subsequently other courses have been done over the following years in collaboration with the EFL Monitoring Board.

ECML

One of the beneficial trainings organised over the years is the workshop on Supporting Multilingual Classrooms.  This training is organised by the MLU in collaboration with the European Centre of Modern Languages (ECML) in Graz. It focused on developing a whole-school approach to valuing and supporting linguistic and cultural diversity and multiple ways of collaboration among teachers of various levels and subjects. Education professionals representing public entities attended the workshop. These included education officers, members of school management teams, teachers from both the primary and secondary sectors and community liaison workers. This provided a cross-section of stakeholders working at multiple levels, with the aim of exploiting multilingualism as a valuable resource. 

The workshops demonstrated that all learners, both those speaking the majority language and those speaking minority languages, can be empowered by their own plurilingual identity in a multilingual society. Teachers were encouraged to develop positive attitudes towards linguistic and cultural diversity. The strong point of the training was the practical approach to supporting plurilingual learners in mainstream classrooms. Ideas were shared on how learning can be scaffolded and on how to develop strategies for differentiated learning. The moderators guided participants during workshops on how to apply these principles to their existing school context. The experts referred to existing ECML resources and participants discussed how these could be adapted to their learners’ needs. Formative assessment was addressed and in particular its supportive role in language development in different subjects with the help of a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach. The experts’ delivery was greatly appreciated by the participants attending the workshop. In order to reach as wide an audience of educators as possible, various sessions of the Supporting Multilanguage Classes Workshops were organised over a period of three years, namely:; 27/28^th April 2017, 9/10^th May 2019, 5/6^th March 2020. A total of 140 participants from all school sectors and services benefited from these workshops.

CLIL ECML – 2017

The Migrant Learners’ Unit, in collaboration with the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) of the Council of Europe, organised a two-day training course for educators in Content and Language Integrated Learning: a Pluriliteracies approach to teaching for learning. The aim of the training was to:

• expose participants to sound theoretical principles of CLIL;
• provide individual teachers and professionals with an opportunity to look into approaches to learning which takes into account the multicultural and plurilingual nature of classrooms in Malta;
• enable participants to interpret principles and approaches and translate them into daily practices.

Training was provided by Professor Do Coyle, Sixth Century Chair in Learning Innovation, King’s College, University of Aberdeen. Professor Coyle was in Malta as an expert from the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML). Participants expressed satisfaction both verbally and in questionnaires, and follow-up sessions were held a few weeks later.