Educators from 31 countries meet in Malta to discuss Language Learning and Cultural awareness

The Minister of Education and National Culture, the Hon. Evarist Bartolo, today delivered a speech on the occasion of the official opening of a Workshop on "The specification of objectives for learner autonomy and cultural awareness within syllabus development at secondary education level" organised by the European Centre for Modern Languages.

The European Centre for Modern Languages, based in Graz, Austria, aims to promote the learning and teaching of modern languages in a multinational and multicultural Europe. It was set up in 1994 in the form of a Council of Europe "Enlarged Partial Agreement". Malta was one of the eight founding States.

In his opening speech Minister Evarist Bartolo said that the success of such workshops must be measured only on the positive impact on what happens in the classroom. "We must put ourselves in the shoes of 11 to 16 year olds and see whether school is attractive and interesting" said Minister Bartolo.

The Minister said that schools today run the risk of becoming irrelevant and obsolete with students switching off. That is why there is such an urgent need to change the educational material and methods used in schools.

Minister Bartolo said that educational achievement is intrinsically linked to language proficiency. Students who fall behind in languages are then excluded from the benefits of education.

Minister Bartolo said that in today's and tomorrow's global reality language learning becomes an indispensable cultural tool to help young people celebrate diversity and be able to live with different cultures.

Today the ECML incorporates 34 states from both Western, Central and Eastern Europe. The political framework of the activities of both ECML and the Council of Europe are similar.

The ECML offers, generally through international workshops or seminars as well as an annual colloquy, a platform and a meeting place for officials responsible for language policy, specialists in language pedagogy, teacher trainers, textbook authors, syllabus designers and other multipliers in the area of teaching and learning of modern languages.

Every year, a small number of Workshops is organised outside Graz and Malta has been chosen to hold Workshop 5/98. The Workshop will focus on syllabus development in the context of the specification of objectives of learner autonomy and cultural awareness in modern language learning at secondary education level. The Workshop will be facilitated by three European experts: D Newby, A. Cain and B. Kogoj, and is co-ordinated by Dr Antoinette Camilleri, a specialist in applied linguistics from the Faculty of Education, University of Malta.

Thirty participants from as many European countries together with twenty Maltese participants are taking part. The theme of the Workshop is particularly relevant to our island at a time when the national minimum curriculum is being revised and developed.

The European participants will take part in cultural events as part of their workshop activities and will be attending a Good Friday procession.

Participants are from the following European countries: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, the Federation of Russia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Norway, Poland, the Principat d'Andorra, the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijdan, the Republic of Belarus, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Romania, and the Ukraine.