A select review of bilingualism in education in Malta

Abstract

This article offers a review of some of the major issues of bilingualism in education in Malta. It starts by contextualising the current situation in a historical perspective. From the macro-perspective it then moves to a micro-perspective to illustrate how, in practice, Maltese and English are used as a bilingual medium of instruction across levels and subjects. It overviews some of the significant dimensions in which these two languages share roles in the teaching–learning process, and gives examples of how code choice fulfils pedagogical, discourse and management functions, paying particular attention to the variety and range of translation switches. It concludes by returning to a number of issues that fuel the continuing national debate about the medium of instruction in local education.

Keywords:

• education
• codeswitching
• translation
• medium of instruction