Students aged between 17 and 19 should be benefitting from an international public-speaking programme, with far-reaching aims, as the first concrete step of the English-Speaking Union's establishment in Malta.

Schools will be able to take part in the competition, one of the union's most important programmes, starting from the next scholastic year.

English-Speaking Union director-general Valerie Mitchell has met head teachers and education officers and was impressed by the positive feedback, convinced that schools across the board will be participating.

Malta should be pleased with any number of schools for the first run, she said, expecting at least 10 to participate. These were bound to increase with time - Argentina started out with four and today can boast of 500.

English-language teachers will be provided with guidelines on how to run the competition as well as with hand-out material and structures to follow, Ms Mitchell explained.

Officers from the centre for speech and debate at the ESU headquarters in London, who were former competition winners, will be holding workshops in Malta and "teaching the teachers how to teach public speaking".

"Although it is a competition, we are really helping them to improve their aural presentation skills, stand up in public and have that confidence they need to articulately deliver their exact ideas and transmit information.

"But above all, the idea is to be able to share their thoughts not only with their peers but also with the outside world from a platform."

Ms Mitchell insisted it was not just a competition but was "uniquely building bridges between cultures".

The most important aspect of the exercise was learning about other cultures and making international friends for life, she stressed.

"We are not about teaching English but are involved in effective English programmes, through which we have made a great passage into the world community.

"We are giving these youths an opportunity to express themselves on an international level and to recognise their potential. It is a terrific confidence booster."

Each of the participating countries, around 38, selects two winners, who get to gain other experiences, visiting London for a 10-day programme that offers the opportunity to mingle with about 60 foreign counterparts, attending workshops and benefitting from training to improve their aural skills at an even higher level.

The next stage after the competition is the art of debate, and officers will be coming over to train teachers on that.

Ms Mitchell said the university has responded enthusiastically to the setting up of debating societies.

"Malta is not the only country where people may find it difficult to stand up and ask questions," Ms Mitchell says from experience. Having travelled the world to get the unions going, she has often heard this "cry" from other non-native English-speaking countries, which have concentrated more on the written word.

Ms Mitchell was in Malta to attend the first inaugural meeting of the steering committee, set up in December and including "capable and well-respected persons in the community" - a prerequisite for success.

The steering committee will now formally apply to become a member of the ESU, which exists in 50 countries worldwide, at the next international council meeting in Munich in October.

Ms Mitchell was most impressed by the standard of English of the teachers she encountered, contrary to what she had been hearing.

"English is a language of opportunity for the young; it is the language of communication and no longer of imperialism," she stressed, adding that "communication is the path to understanding and understanding is the path to peace between nations".

Ms Mitchell calls it "an international passport to enter the world community", and to those who reject it, she says: "Please try because it is your opportunity to help a world that is facing so many difficulties and misunderstandings".

Highlighting the ESU's role in education, which she claims forms the strongest links among people, Ms Mitchell hopes that these small, slow programmes will make a difference in tomorrow's world.

Having said that, "we must never lose individual languages and the ESU has absolute respect for their autonomy. We would hate to see them disappear".