Malta has had a long history of being a bilingual nation. It served our tourism industry well in the fledgling years when Brits found a home away from home where just about everyone could speak English and guide them to the next bus stop of give them directions to where they needed to go.

It also served Malta well in terms of doing business abroad. Fast forward to the 1980s. Every single adult, teenager and children, especially, picked up Italian as a result of the free to air stations we used to receive on our old antennas (incidentally, why are there so many of those still around?).

We had a position where were almost trilingual, and again, this encouraged more tourists to visit our islands and the close proximity of Italy allowed us to do business there too.

The 90s and 2000’s were the boom years. Malta experienced growth like never before – and again, it was tourism, coupled with financial services and IT that allowed that to happen.

And here we are, in the very changed and altered year 2015. Social media changed everything. Globalisation changed everything. To find a Maltese child with Irish and Italian parents (for example) is nothing at all out of the ordinary. These kids pick up Maltese and the mother and father’s tongues with no problem at all. Why? Because they are young, they are sponges and they learn so fast it is almost beyond belief.

So what is all the fuss about? It’s about what Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said in terms of Maltese parents teaching their child only one language till they master it and then move on to others. Irrespective of which language is taught first, we agree wholeheartedly with the Minister. The generation of 30-40 somethings today are the ones that have the best spectrum of languages in Malta. They can speak English, Maltese, Italian and perhaps some German or Spanish. Why? Because they learned them all together in one go when they were young.

Vocabulary, intonation, correct use of grammar and above all else, the ability to understand and respond are all down to the repeated practice of one’s own language, as well as any others. It must also be mentioned that sometimes parents are falling into the trap that some teachers used to (and still do) by teaching the wrong pronunciation of words to their children.

Reading, writing and above all else, the practice of speech is the way to teach children (or even older people) how to speak a foreign language. We should cherish our ability as a people to master numerous language at one go – that’s what we have always done. Instead of pigeonholing children and telling that they must learn one language before another, we should expose them to as many different ones as possible and at an early age, before they lose the ability to learn and adapt so quickly.