Embracing code-switching – the much-maligned practice of mixing English and Maltese – and turning it into an asset could be the way forward for language education in Malta, a new report has suggested.

According to the Language Education Policy Profile, prepared by Council of Europe experts, code-switching is widely practised in education and society at large and is often “self-evidently successful”.

Despite this, the report notes, “it does not have more than grudging official sanction and good practice is not systematically analysed as a basis for teacher education”.

Rapporteur Elidir King said code-switching is a normal phenomenon in any bilingual environment and can be positive as long as it is not used to cover up deficiencies in one of the languages. “The question is whether we train teachers to manage it or just allow it to happen spontaneously,” he said.

The report’s recommendation is “validating code-switching” by researching the most successful practices currently being used by teachers and developing new training programmes to promote more effective approaches. More.

See: Times of Malta

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