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simon44
Joined: 15 Mar 2013
Posts: 118
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 Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 2:11 am Post subject: Teaching Aviation English |
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Does anyone know of an on-line course for teachers who want to teach Aviation English?
I'm toying with the idea of offering courses at the busy (and expanding) Phuket International Airport, where I've lived since 2002, (I mean I live within a few hundred metres of the airport - I build and manage several airport hotels as a sideline to my teaching).
I prefer on-line courses because of the practical issues to attend an in-class course.
Simon |
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ttxor1
Joined: 04 Jan 2014
Posts: 119
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| Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 8:42 pm Post subject: Teaching Aviation English |
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Hi Simon,
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Simon asked: Does anyone know of an on-line course for teachers who want to teach Aviation English? I'm toying with the idea of offering courses at the busy (and expanding) Phuket International Airport,
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I was interested in your question. I've done some academic work in ESP. You could focus on Aviation English for your dissertation / thesis / final paper in an MA in English for Specific Purposes or MA in TESOL program, or in a module of the DELTA program. The DELTA is offered in March and October this year at International House Bangkok (not too far from the sunny, white sand beaches of Phuket). I don't know of any online courses for teaching Aviation English, but some universities offer online versions of their postgraduate programs.
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| I build and manage several airport hotels as a sideline to my teaching) |
To establish an ESP school, I would think you'd need some management of TESOL/director of programs experience. I don't have any experience in management, but am aware that some general main ideas of the field are explained in “Programme Management” by Ron White, in The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Ronald Carter and David Nunan (Editors), CUP, 2001. If you have some / a specific question/s which relate/s to the Middle Eastern, British or American context, I would be happy to pass it / them along to my former Head of Department. Literacy in Thailand is addressed in “Literacy in Thailand” by J. D. Palmer in The Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Vol 4., 1984.
Some references for self study are pasted below.
Best of luck,
ttxor1
The reference list of “Aviation English” by Carol Lynn Moder in The Handbook of English for Specific Purposes, Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield (Editors), Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, John Wiley & Sons, 2001 is a good starting point.
“The use of discourse analysis to enhance ESP teacher knowledge: an example using aviation English” by Patricia Sullivan and Handan Girginer. English for Specific Purposes, 21, Issue 4, pgs 397-404. 2002.
Sullivan and Girginer's journal article might be of particular use to you, Simon, as it discusses a study done for an ESP program in a Civil Aviation School in Turkey. The researchers followed methods of investigating the communicative needs of students outlined in Communicative Syllabus Design: A Sociolinguistic Model for Designing the Content of Purpose Specific Language Programmes, by John Munby, Cambridge University Press, 1978. |
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Sir Winston
Joined: 24 Jan 2014
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:36 am Post subject: |
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| I am a former Air Traffic Controller and Pilot and teaching aviation English is quite technical with no room for misunderstanding. There are about 2,000 industry specific terms related to airspace, aerodynamics, air vector maps, radio communications, meteorology, aircraft controls, avionic instruments, and lots of ATC/pilot jargon to master. If someone really wants to teach Aviation English they may want to attend ground school first. I currently train a class of 16 pilots in Shanghai gut want to move to Beijing in the summer. |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 6:39 am Post subject: |
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| I've been a part of an ATC community for years now, as I've family members in the field. I agree that the only effective language teachers in this area are similar to the poster above, professionals in the field. I don't think it's something to just break into with a course or two or three. Extensive, technical, and very high-stakes communications are involved. Even after being around ATC stuff for a decade and being a professional teacher, I wouldn't try it myself. |
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ttxor1
Joined: 04 Jan 2014
Posts: 119
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| Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 9:23 pm Post subject: Aviation English |
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| I agree that a general academic course or two cannot prepare an instructor for the high-stakes, extremely technical and difficult field of Aviation English. |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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What is aviation English? It's a very vague and general description. I work in aerospace and have taught courses to aeroplane mechanics and engineers, but it was very specialised.
At an airport like Phuket, you will have:
- Air Traffic Control - these people speak English well already.
- Ground Crew/Baggage - they don't need English.
- Check in and customer service - they would need general English lessons.
- Aircraft mechanics - Phuket is not a big airport, but airlines such as Thai would have support staff there. These people need English to read maintenance manuals, which are written in special simplified English. There may be opportunities here, but it would be the most basic English imaginable, i.e. no grammar whatsoever and 100% vocabulary such as which tools to use.
I once designed a course for German aircraft mechanics. I needed to teach them about 300 technical words and that was it. The mechanics were willing and nice enough, but I really struggled to make a course interesting for them or me, and with no relevant published materials available, the amount of time I had to spend preparing the lessons for this one single course meant it wasn’t worth my time. That course also had to be done entirely in German as they had no need to learn English conversation or any listening, writing or speaking skills, so unless you poot pasa Thai geng mahk, I’d do any other sort of teaching.
I also worked in Thailand and with my background was offered work to teach in-house at an aerospace maintenance company just outside Bangkok. I didn't have time to determine the students' levels, there were hundreds of them, so I got the company to organise TOEIC tests. The results showed nearly all the students were beginners. None of them would be able to speak for ten seconds in English. I told the company to get a Thai English teacher. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:49 am Post subject: |
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| Ditto the other posters' comments about qualifications. I know two aviation English instructors and both are US Air Force veterans with credentials in aviation. Interestingly, another friend is on a 3-month contract teaching English to foreign military pilots who are taking their ESP classes in the US. On a side note, the Defense Language Institute hires English language instructors from a variety of backgrounds. |
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ttxor1
Joined: 04 Jan 2014
Posts: 119
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| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 6:04 am Post subject: Aviation English |
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Hi all,
| Quote: |
| Hod asked:What is aviation English? It's a very vague and general description. I work in aerospace and have taught courses to aeroplane mechanics and engineers, but it was very specialised. |
| Quote: |
| Sir Winston responded: I am a former Air Traffic Controller and Pilot and teaching aviation English is quite technical with no room for misunderstanding. There are about 2,000 industry specific terms related to airspace, aerodynamics, air vector maps, radio communications, meteorology, aircraft controls, avionic instruments, and lots of ATC/pilot jargon to master. If someone really wants to teach Aviation English they may want to attend ground school first. |
Aviation English is a subsection of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). ESP instructors, basically, focus on the particular language demands of students, in academic or professional contexts. There is blurry line between English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and ESP, but the latter is more practically oriented. EAP and ESP cover almost every academic and professional area you can imagine. For example, English for Nursing would narrow down on the language needs of nurses, Legal English for lawyers and law students. English for Science and Engineering and Business English are the largest most in demand areas of ESP. There has even been work done on the functional English language needed for those in tourism in Thailand (Needs Analysis on English Language Use in Tourism Industry, by Nawamin Prachanant, Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 66, 117-125, 2012), professional footballers in the Netherlands and hotel maids in Waikiki (Second Language Needs Analysis, by Michael H. Long, CUP, 2005). The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is covered in Long's book. The important difference between most ESP courses and the DLI is that the former is mostly for syllabus and curriculum design and the latter for preparing students for a known metric, the Interagency Language Roundtable (Long 2005: 106).
ESP is concerned with the sociocultural, sociodiscoursal and sociopolitical (Trends in teaching English for Specific Purposes, by Diane Belcher, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 165-186, 2004) constraints non native speakers and native speakers alike need to be aware of when using a foreign language in a particular context. Technical vocabulary, complex grammatical constructions, specialized/non standard sentence structure, the intertextual nature of texts (both written and spoken), the institutionalized expectations from the discourse community into which the student wants to gain entry, cross-cultural/ intercultural variations on genres and pragmatic considerations are some of the teaching demands placed upon ESP instructors. I have been warned that extensive experience and deep content knowledge is needed to teach ESP courses, regardless of the accuracy and careful exploration of an ESP area in an MA dissertation. I linked us to the specific demands of a Middle Eastern university's skills and abilities demands for a legal English instructor under the “ Legal English” subject heading here at daveseslcafe.
This discussion only becomes richer with the input of those more seasoned and certified. Some general, academic consensus on Aviation English is pasted below.
ttxor1
Source: "Aviation English” by Carol Lynn Moder in The Handbook of English for Specific Purposes, Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield (Editors), Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, John Wiley & Sons, 2001 :
Introduction
Aviation English describes the language used by pilots, air traffic controllers, and other personnel associated with the aviation industry. Although the term may encompass a wide variety of language use situations, including the language of airline mechanics, flight attendants, or ground service personnel, most research and teaching focus on the more specialized communication between pilots and air traffic controllers, often called radiotelephony.
The language used by flight attendants and other general aviation personnel, like many forms of English for specific purposes, uses conventional English pro- nunciation, structure, vocabulary, and interactional patterns, but adapts them to the purposes of the particular domain and context (Cutting 2011). The language of air traffic control is a more specialized and restricted variety, for which the language patterns are tightly regulated by professional and international stand- ards. The language used among pilots and flight engineers in the cockpit is often a hybrid of specialized technical language and everyday language and may use varying amounts of English or other languages (Linde 1988; Nevile 2004; Wyss- Bühlmann 2005). Whereas the demands for the use of English by other aviation personnel vary widely by country and context, the use of English as the interna- tional language of air traffic control is officially mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) (227).
Aviation English Discourse
Air traffic communication occurs entirely over radio frequencies and includes no face-to-face communication. The linguistic exchanges occur within a sociotechni- cal system supported by material anchors (Hutchins 1995, 1996, 2005). Controllers and pilots share information from charts, navigational aids, and flight plans. Most significant for the controller are radar displays, and most significant for the flight crew is the cockpit instrumentation. All communication within the cockpit and from the cockpit to the controller relies on speaker and hearer interpretations of these material symbols. Because most flights occur in highly regulated airspaces, most of the communication between pilots and controllers involves routine exchanges of predictable, shared information concerning the aircraft in the area, the parameters of the airport or airspace, and the expected actions at particular points in the flight. The specific language and exchange sequences required for routine pilot–controller communications is specified in professional training docu- ments, most particularly in ICAO Document 4444 Air Traffic Management (ICAO 2001). The prescribed vocabulary and syntax are referred to as phraseology. Non- prescribed uses of more common English vocabulary and syntax are called “plain English” by aviation professionals.
Example 1 provides a sample of the prescribed phraseology of this highly spe- cialized variety. All examples come from the radiotelephony portion of the Okla- homa State University Corpus of Aviation English (Moder and Halleck 2009, 2012). The call signs and reporting points have been modified to preserve anonymity.
Example 1
PN395: Center Control, Papa November tree-niner-fife at tree-tree-zero.
CC: Papa November tree-niner-fife, Center Control, roger, maintain
flight level tree-tree-zero, report at Dukka.
PN395: Report at Dukka, Papa November tree-niner-fife.
Example 1 is a routine communication between an en route controller, Center Control (CC), and the pilot of an aircraft with the call sign PN395 (Papa November tree-niner-fife). En-route air traffic controllers, or area controllers, typically monitor thousands of square miles of airspace and may also provide services for smaller airports in their area. For an aircraft that is already airborne, the en route controller monitors the direction, speed, and altitude (flight level) at which the aircraft flies and ensures that each aircraft is separated by an appropriate distance from other aircraft in the immediate area. Flight paths are typically well-established with well-mapped position points and typical flight levels and directions. The pilot and controller both have access to the intended flight plan and established flight paths and, in most cases, the controller also has radar information on the location of the aircraft.
Several distinctive aspects of the language of radiotelephony are illustrated in Example 1. The exchanges are brief, and the grammatical forms employed are limited. Most verbs occur in the imperative form and function words are limited to a small number of prepositions. The vocabulary is specialized and the use of numbers and letters is very prominent. Furthermore, the pronunciation of the letters and numbers follows the prescribed ICAO alphabet, which is also common to maritime and military contexts.
Comprehension and Negotiation of Meaning
The difficulty of comprehension in the radio channel makes the negotiation of meaning a critical skill in Aviation English. Comprehension is especially difficult in portions of the flight that involve the exchange of a great deal of rapidly pre- sented information essential to flight safety, such as takeoff and landing. During these segments of the flight, aircraft are monitored by approach, or terminal, con- trollers. Approach controllers must ensure that departing aircraft are guided from the runway up into controlled airspace and approaching aircraft are guided down to the runway safely. At busy airports, approach controllers communicate concur- rently with multiple aircraft at differing stages of flight. The flow of information is primarily from the controller to the pilot. Because of the typically heavy work- load, controllers provide multiple pieces of information in a single turn in order to balance accuracy and efficiency. The pilot must attend to all of the information given and provide a readback to ensure comprehension accuracy. Example 5 presents an exchange between an approach controller and an aircraft approaching for landing (232).
Example 5
AC: Airline four-zero-five, turn right heading zero-five-zero to intercept the localizer, cleared for the ILS approach, reduce speed one-eight- zero knots.
A405: Airline four-zero-five, right heading zero-five-zero to intercept the localizer, say again speed required please.
AC:Airline four-zero-five, one-eight-zero knots.
A405: one-eight-zero knots, Airline four-zero-five, thank you.
The controller identifies the aircraft addressed (Airline 405) and directs the pilot to turn the aircraft to the right until it reaches the heading of 050 degrees. The aircraft is flying an instrument landing system (ILS) approach with the help of signals from the antenna array near the end of the runway (the localizer). The controller also directs the aircraft to slow down to a speed of 180 knots. The pilot is given several pieces of key information in this one turn – the direction of the turn, the heading, and the speed. He reads back the first two pieces of information correctly but fails to recall the speed. He uses prescribed phraseology (“say again required speed”) to request a repetition. He adds the politeness marker “please,” possibly acknowledging that his request has made the exchange less efficient. After the controller repeats the speed, the pilot reads it back correctly and ends by thanking the controller for the repetition (233).
Cognitive Load and Comprehension
As we have illustrated above, comprehension of complex information is central to safe and effective communication in the aviation domain. In most exchanges, information flows from the controller to the pilot, making the comprehension skills of the pilot critical. However, radio communication is only one small part of the work of flight crews in this sociotechnical system. The ability of flight crews to understand and manage radio communication is directly related to the cogni- tive load imposed on them by other tasks.
Farris et al. (2008) describe the multiple concurrent tasks pilots perform that require memory and processing demands in terms of cognitive workload. They suggest that high cognitive workload may interact with language proficiency to affect the ability of flight crews to adequately interact in radio communication with controllers. The cognitive load of communication becomes higher for the flight crew in critical stages of flight because of the need to coordinate flight procedures and information among the crew members in the cockpit in preparation for landing (see Goodwin (1996), Linde (1988), and Nevile (2004) for a detailed discussion of the cognitive and linguistic demands of the cockpit environment).
An additional factor that contributes to cognitive workload is the length of the controller messages. We saw an illustration of a pilot’s failure to recall an extended message in Example 5 above. In a study of 268 turns-at-talk from approach control at Portland Airport, Barshi (1997) found that the message length varied from 2 to 6 pieces of information per controller turn. Most controller instructions contained 2 or 3 pieces of information, but about a fourth contained between 4 and 6. As the message length increased, the number of full and correct pilot readbacks decreased (1997: 25) (235).
Aviation English Curriculum Development and Testing
In English for specific purposes teaching and testing, the task of the curriculum or test designer is to mirror as accurately as possible the language, tasks, and contexts of the target language situation. The discourse-based studies we have discussed above provide background on authentic aviation discourse that would be of value for those wishing to create authentic materials (238).
Conclusion
Aviation English is an ESP domain in which common language features and pro- fessionally regulated standards interact to define a restricted variety designated for use in routine contexts, with a slightly more elaborated plain English variety needed for use in unusual or unexpected circumstances. Because ICAO governs Aviation English proficiency standards, ESP professionals should be cognizant of the ways in which the sociopolitical context affects language policy and use (see Moder and Halleck 2012 for a fuller discussion). Since public safety is at stake in the determination of the minimum proficiency level and its component features, it is imperative that proficiency standards be adequately validated through research. We have focussed on two key areas of interest in this regard. The question of cognitive workload and its impact on communication has been a continuing focus in aviation studies. Studies have just begun to tease out the posi- tive and negative effects of the use of politeness markers and request mitigation features on the effectiveness of pilot–pilot and pilot–controller communication. More work needs to be done to elaborate the linguistic strategies that pilots and controllers can use to maintain communication under stress. In particular, there is a strong need to consider the extent to which the informational focus of radio- telephony training should be expanded to encompass relational features. The value of such relational features should be considered in terms of their possible contribution to more cooperative, efficient communication, but also in terms of their possible effect on communication involving aviation professionals who have attained only the minimum required proficiency level. A further issue is the need for native speakers of English to develop more effective paraphrasing strategies that rely on basic phraseology in order to accommodate the abilities of aviation professionals with widely varying English proficiency levels. ESP researchers, teachers, and test designers have much to contribute to the ongoing efforts to ensure that the English language proficiency levels of aviation professionals enable the greatest possible safety in international air travel (240). |
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simon44
Joined: 15 Mar 2013
Posts: 118
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| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 10:26 am Post subject: |
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To respond to the comments about the need to have a technical background, I should add that prior to my teaching and hotelier careers, I worked for 20 years in the military, commercial and scientific aerospace and comms sector (fixed and mobile radio and telecomms), as both a designer, technical manager and hands-on integration manager, with an MSc in Space Comms from University College London and more than 30 years as an active shortwave radio ham.
So my previous technical career, particularly the work in satellite integration (where you absolutely have to build it right!), should provide me with familiarity and understanding of the aviation sector.
As has been commented, the airport staff range from pilots to toilet cleaners - with different language needs. |
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HLJHLJ
Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 1218
Location: Ecuador
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| Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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Although the term aviation English covers a huge range of potential language uses, in a general EFL context it usually refers to general English in an aviation context. It is typically test prep for pilots and ATC who need to test/retest for ICAO. It covers very little technical language, and no radiotelephony.
Test prep is test prep, and you don't need to be an aviation expert to teach aviation test prep anymore than you need to be a lawyer to teach ILEC test prep. It's highly unlikely that the anyone in the aviation industry would hire a regular English teacher for anything else, if they need someone to teach tech or radiotelephony, they won't be looking for an English teacher.
There are lots of courses available for experienced English teachers, the basics are usually a week or two long. I don't know of any online ones. It also depends what tests are used in the country you want to work in. The better courses offer combined language and rater training geared towards a specific test.
For bricks and mortar course in the UK I'd recommend http://www.anglo-continental.com/en/uk/courses/aviation/Aviation-teachers.htm they also do a generic rater course and an excellent aviation language awareness course for people with a technical background but little or no English teaching skills.
Mayflower College is also good http://www.maycoll.co.uk/aviation-english/aviation-english-teachers.htm (though personally I think a-c is slightly better, but there probably isn't much to choose between them).
There is then a big drop in quality down to the other UK courses, or at least the ones that I am familiar with, plus a couple in Spain.
There's also the Australia (?) based RMIT/RELTA which trains internationally. http://www.relta.org/training/teacher-and-examiner-course. They focus heavily on the RELTA test, so if it's not used in your country, it won't be much help to you. They are usually only interested in working with institutions not individuals, but sometimes institutions will let you join their courses (for a fee of course). |
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crewmeal1
Joined: 08 Jul 2010
Posts: 75
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| Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 7:36 am Post subject: |
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Here is an excellent example of why Aviation English is so important in the world today especially with emerging carriers in Asia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NDqZy4deDI |
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