A former officer and BBC casting director is reading to 10 and 11-year-olds at a school in Safi to help them with their English.

One parent said her son looked up information about Dickens and when he found out it was the bicentenary of his birth he crafted a birthday card- Joe Demanuele

Jonathan McLeish first came to Malta as a small boy, when his father was stationed as an officer here.

When McLeish went back to England and during his years as casting director he always yearned to be back. He visited several times but some years ago, just after an early retirement, he decided to make Malta his permanent home.

“I did not want to ostracise myself and I simply refuse to join any organisation for ex-pats. I want to be part of the community,” he explains.

Upon his arrival he started looking for ways to help the country that adopted him. He has been involved in lots of little projects but one of his latest will leave an impact for at least one generation.

Having worked with the BBC, McLeish has the most beautiful of English accents and perfect diction. Unfortunately not many children get the opportunity to hear English spoken so well. McLeish decided to change this by reading to Maltese children.

St Benedict College Safi Primary School head Maria Montebello was enthusiastic about the idea because while many of her pupils are proficient in reading and writing they find it difficult to speak, especially in English.

“McLeish has been reading to Year 6 students since the beginning of the scholastic year and we have seen a significant improvement in oracy,” she said.

To see McLeish in action I joined him during one of his readings. There was first some chit chat between him and the 10-year-olds and he corrected one boy who called him ‘Sir’. ‘Up till now the Queen hasn’t knighted me, so please call me Jonathan!”

The little joke, I suspected, was aimed at us adults but the boy still understood, giggled and addressed McLeish by his first name.

Soon McLeish started reading from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and looking at the children’s faces I could see some of their jaws drop and their eyes burning bright.

Clearly, many of the children really miss the pleasure of having someone read to them. McLeish enunciated each word clearly but he also put in a lot of acting. The children sometimes asked questions and because they know he is British they did not ask the questions in Maltese as they would usually do with their teachers.

After the reading there was lots of time for discussion and the children were ‘forced’ to say everything in English, otherwise their visitor would not understand.

The learning does not stop with the reading and discussion because when the children go home they look up material. One parent, Romina Cutajar, said her son Benjamin looked up information about Dickens and when he found out it was the bicentenary of his birth he crafted a birthday card.

She is also very pleased that her son now started reading as a hobby while before he never picked up a book for pleasure. Ten-year-old Raisa described how reading Oliver Twist made her look at the people around her and see that some of them were like the characters in the book.

Another pupil, Timothy, admitted that having to speak and act during these lessons helped him for his exams because he needs to do well in the oracy section.

In April, McLeish is helping the school put up an adaptation of Oliver! The Year 6 class will form the cast and they all get a speaking part. This is fuelling their enthusiasm and at the same time helping their English speaking skills.

The head of school, teachers and parents are all looking forward to it too.