The Beginning In May 1994 the first RSA/CTEFLA (now known as CELTA) to be held in Malta took place at NSTS - ELI. There were twelve trainees and three trainers on that first course: two well known local EFL personalities, Louis Grech and Alan Marsh and, equally well known, Jim Scrivener. When the course was over we all decided to meet up six-months’ later to catch up. Unlike many such appointments made during the euphoria of the end of a training course, this one was kept. We all met up at Gillian Camilleri’s house (Gillian was one of the CELTA trainees) and over a good meal and facilitated by several bottles of fine wine we reminisced about the course and (more relevant to this story) posed the question ‘where do we go from here?’ We all felt that EFL teachers in Malta were isolated from one another and, apart from their immediately colleagues, rarely had the chance to meet up with other EFL teachers to share ideas about lessons and TEFL in general. In short, there was a need for some kind of association which could organise seminars and workshops to exchange and share ideas and inform teachers of new developments in the EFL sector similar to IATEFL (the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language). The seed was sown and a few weeks later, in December 1994, a meeting was organised to set up an association for Maltese EFL teachers. MATEFL was born!
The Early Days There were 19 people at that initial meeting: the first MATEFL members. Six of these are members to this day and were made honorary members to commemorate the tenth anniversary. On 25th March 1995 the first seminar/workshop was held at the University of Malta, which was well attended and reaped another 32 members. On 21st June 1995 MATEFL held its first AGM at which time the first committee was elected, the statute was approved and 5 new members joined bringing the total membership to 56. On 18th November 1995 another seminar/workshops was held and by the end of 1995 membership had grown to 79. In March 1996 Margaret Naudi gave a talk on graded readers, a seminar/workshop was held in June and a barbeque was held at the Malta Yacht Club in August. The first newsletter was also sent out in the summer of 1996 which has been followed by one or two a year since then.
Guest Speaker Seminars In early 1997 the committee decided to invite a speaker from abroad to lead a seminar for MATEFL. It was particularly fitting that this first “foreign” speaker should be Jim Scrivener, as he had been a course tutor on the first RSA/CTEFLA course, which had initiated the formation of MATEFL. Consequently, on 15th February 1997 Jim Scrivener led a seminar entitled ‘Learning Teaching’ which was opened by the Hon. Evarist Bartolo, Minister of Education and National Culture. This was to be the start of the Guest Speaker Seminars, which have since welcomed other internationally-renowned EFL names such as Tim Bowen (1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2014), Eleanor Spicer Lundholm (2002) ; Jim Scrivener again in 2001, 2004, 2010 and July 2016 for MATEFL's 21st birthday celebrations, Evan Frendo (2005)Hugh Dellar (2006),Lindsay Clandfield (2006 & 2007), Paul Seligson (2007) andTim Herdon,Jon Hird (2008)Finn Kirlkland in 2009, John Hughes in 2010, 2011 and 2019, Andrew Walkley in 2011, Philip Kerr 2012, Paul Dummett in 2013, Majorie Rosenberg2015 and Antonia Clare 2017 and 2018. Due to the Covid pandemic all events for 2020, 2021 and 2022 were online. As well as the multi-session events by local speakers, guest speakers includedJon Hird in 2020, Alan Marsh in 2021 andLindsay Clandfield in 2022.
Pre- and post-season seminar/workshops Every year in June and November/December MATEFL holds a seminar/workshop. The workshops are led by MATEFL member teachers who share tried and tested or new ideas with their peers. These workshops always attract a large number of members indicating the desire of our members to further develop as EFL teachers, thus meeting one of the main aims of MATEFL. Our Chairperson, Alan Marsh, is a valued and prolific contributor to these seminars/workshops: leading two workshops at every seminar/workshop since the first one in 1995 and at every AGM since 1996. Other regular contributors to the local seminars in the early days were Louis Grech, Bev Harrison, Sandra Attard Montalto, Julia Pearson, Daniel Xerri, Angie Conti, Jean Sciberras (who still leads workshops) and more recently Ian Scerri, Adrian Theuma, Pam Borg, Larissa Jonk, Natasha Fabri, Jean Theuma, Caroline Campbell and numerous others who have shared their ideas with the rest of us over the years.
Other Events In addition to the annual Spring Seminars and local seminar/workshops MATEFL also organized a forum on ‘The contribution that the EFL sector can make to communicative language teaching in mainstream education’ in April 1997. In 2001 British Council, Malta and MATEFL held a seminar in which EFL personalityAlan Pulverness discussed the relevance of knowing the cultural background of ones’ students. In March 2003 a seminar was organised between Macmillan Publishers and MATEFL in which EFL author Vaughan Williams looked at ways of personalising coursebook material and, during the run-up to the EU referendum, a question and answer session with the Malta Information Centre on the effect that joining the EU would have on the EFL industry in Malta.
Saturday 6th June 2020 This was an historic day for MATEFL for several reasons. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we held our first-ever online AGM and our first-ever webinar which was attended by more than 70 members. It was also historic for a different reason: after more than a quarter of a century Alan Marsh stepped down as President of MATEFL. As he would be commuting between the UK and Malta he decided to take on a more advisory/consultative role. He had been our president since the beginning in 1995 and will be greatly missed by the committee and members. He is now our Honorary President and will continue to give advice and conduct workshops for MATEFL sessions. Jean Theuma was the committee's obvious and unanimous choice to succeed Alan as President and everyone is secure in the knowledge that she is a worthy successor and the association will continue to grow and support EFL teachers in Malta.
Our Sponsors Over the years MATEFL seminars have been held in such diverse venues asThe University of Malta, The University Residence in Lija, The Institute of Water Technology, Water Services Corporation in Luqa, St. Martin’s Collegein Swatar, St. Catherine’s School in St. Andrews and various EFL schools: NSTS – ELI, the former Bell Language Centre, LAL Malta,am Language StudioEC and Ace English Malta, thereby validating MATEFL’s claim not to be too closely associated with any one school. British Council, Malta sponsored several of our first Spring Seminars. Audio Visual together with publishers Cambridge University Press and Macmillan have also sponsored several seminars bringing over EFL authors such as Steve Flinders, Lindsay Clandfield, Paul Seligson, Tim Herdon, Jon Hird, Finn Kirkland, John Hughes, Phillip Kerr and Paul Dummett, .
IATEFL representation In April 2006 MATEFL sent a delegate to the IATEFL Conference in Harrogate. Alan Marsh, our chairperson and IATEFL contact person at the time, took full advantage of the occasion, establishing contact with many other Associate members from other countries and sharing information, experiences and future hopes and plans. He also picked up a lot of very useful information regarding new tendencies, developments and ideas all of which have been shared with our members. In April 2008 MATEFL sent a second delegate, Sandra Attard Montalto, to the IATEFL Conference in Exeter. We partially sponsored 2 committee members to attend the Conference in Harrogate in 2010, Richard Twigg and Angie Conti. From 2011 MATEFL opened this sponsorship up to all MATEFL members and one of our members has been sponsored to attend the conference each year since.
So, from humble beginnings MATEFL has grown into a formidable association. Membership has increased from 79 in 1995 to 285 in 2022 and the last membership number issued - 1756 (November 2022) - indicates the number of EFL teachers who have passed through the association since the beginning in 1994. The original objective of facilitating the sharing and exchanging of ideas and keeping abreast of new developments in the EFL world is still our main objective and we hope that this will continue for many years to come.