What can you do in Malta?

Malta offers a variety of activities for both young and old. Watch the video below and think about which activities shown attract you.

Historical places in Malta

Malta has a rich history, in both recent and pre-historical times. Recent history begins with written texts, which start around the 9th century with the entry of the Arabs in Malta. But Malta had inhabitants a long time before that, starting 7,000 years ago with the Temple Builders.

Qrendi Temples

Ggantija Temples

The temples were used for thousands of years by both the local population, that numbered around 10,000 at the time, as well as most of the Mediterranean. They were used for religious celebrations that involved animal sacrifice, and also for grain storage. They all had roofs when they were first built and were richly decorated on the inside and outside with coloured plaster. Nowadays, the temples in the best condition still have pitting on the rock surface, showing where decoration was attached.

The temples, that used to number close to 250 according to archeological information, were built by the Temple Builders, who disappeared shortly before 1,000 B.C. The Maltese population is not descended from them.

Throughout Maltese history many temples were dismantled by the weather and by local farmers who used the stone as building material for their farmhouses and border rubble walls.

Teacher Training in Malta

Malta is a small English-speaking island in the middle of the Mediterranean which has recently become a hub for teacher training. Schools like ETI Malta offer teacher-training courses that focus on methodology for kindergarten, primary and secondary levels, as well as using and integrating technologies in the classroom.

Pets

 Below is an example of a collage that you can make with the SparkAdobe website.

Maltese attractions

 Below you can see Mdina, the first capital of Malta, also called 'The Silent City'. Mdina is a very old village which was built at the one of the highest points of Malta. It is centrally positioned and has views of most of Malta, some of Gozo, and, in good weather, even of Sicily.

Malta warmer video (SparkAdobe)

Start the lesson by playing the video. Instruct students to take notes.

After the video divide students in small groups to discuss their answers.

Video lessons

How do you use videos in the classroom? Here are a couple of ways:

Low Levels:

With a lower-level class, the first thing would be to pre-teach or elicit some vocab, such as octopus, van, chase, stairs, swimming pool,  fish tank. 

Then we can present learners with some gap-fill or true-false exercises.

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Intermediate Levels:

Students describe the story of the video in pairs, then write it out in the form of a story.

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High Levels:

Students summarize the video briefly, and then brainstorm and write a story with similar elements and themes: love, devotion, fighting for others.


Below are some other tried-and-tested videos that work well with a variety of levels and ages:

The smallest car in the world

Paperman

Experience the Power of a BookBook

History through the Eyes of the Potato

Life of a Plastic Bottle

Bizarre sports - cheese-rolling 

World's Smallest Car - video lesson

Get Ss to discuss the different types of cars they know. Ask them what the smallest car they've seen is. Then show them the video. Ask them to take note of all numbers that they hear and what they refer to. Then in pairs they combine their information. 

After watching the video for the second time, they will create an advert for this car in groups of 3 and present it to the rest of the class.

  

Wedding Customs

Weddings are a topic that the majority of students can relate to in some way. They are also a good entry point for a discussion on national traditions, customs and differences.

Bulgarian wedding customs are a mix of old and new that might seem strange at first glance but young couples are happy to be able to mix and match as they see fit to their needs and beliefs.

Below is one way you can create a lesson around wedding customs:

• Tell your learners they will watch a video. First, give them the link to this matching LearningApp to practice some wedding-related vocabulary.
• Play the video below, and tell learners to make a list of the traditions that they can see.
• Give learners some time to discuss these traditions and whether they find them interesting, strange, familiar, or anything else.
• Divide learners in groups and tell them to describe to each other how a wedding goes in their country. Then, in the same groups, they can compare wedding customs among their countries and discuss their personal feelings towards those customs.
• At the end of the class, one or two learners can present a typical wedding in their country to the class. Take class feedback on impressions and comments.

Weddings in Malta

Weddings in Malta are almost always big, lavish affairs that involve a long church ceremony, fancy cars and huge receptions for anything from 250 to 600 guests on average. It is typical to invite all the family on both sides, including distant cousins, as well as the couple's colleagues, bosses, neighbours and even old school friends.

In contrast, Bulgarian weddings, while slowly becoming Westernized in clothes and traditions, are usually a little smaller, around 50-200 guests, and will involve close family and friends, and the occasional neighbour.

Below is an example of a modern Bulgarian wedding, mixing traditional costume with a Western-style wedding gown, as well as an image of a traditionally dressed couple.