The National Council for the Maltese language and the Department of Curriculum and eLearning within the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education are jointly working together on a new project to promote the Maltese language in the most informal and entertaining way for infants and young children.
A committee set up for this aim is inviting anyone who has poems, lyrics or nursery rhymes in Maltese for children up to five years to participate.
This Music Committee will evaluate the lyrics sent. Music will be composed for the ones selected which will then be uploaded on YouTube and compiled in a CD. This will be distributed free of charge to kindergarten and early years primary classrooms.
The lyrics sent are to have basic themes with the aim of introducing children to the world and social life around them. These include: seasons, names of months and days of the week, weather, clothes, holidays (such as Christmas, Carnival and Easter), village festas, numbers, alphabet letters and their sounds, body parts and movements, colours, shapes and dimensions, animals, family members, jobs, real or fictional characters that appeal to children, toys, musical instruments, transport and games.
This list of topics is being given as an indication. The Committee will consider any other topic which is suitable for young children.
The wording sent should:
• be original and entertaining
• be related to the world of children today
• look at things through the eyes of children, and is not a reflection of adult life on childhood
• include an element of imagination
• have proper use of the Maltese language
• have an open attitude towards other cultures and embrace the principles of social equality
Lyrics should be sent in by 31 August 2012 to [email protected].
Rights shall remain to their authors and their names will be mentioned wherever these are used. This is a non-profit project with the aim of compiling educational material for children. No payments will be given to authors whose lyrics are selected.
The Music Committee is not bound to promote all the lyrics it receives, but only those that are appropriate and of good quality. The lyrics that are not considered suitable for this project will not be used elsewhere.
Have you heard the Maltese version of the popular song Happy Birthday? ... Ferħ u Awguri. Listen and sing along from: www.youtube.com/kunsilltalmalti
You can also visit http://malti.skola.edu.mt