READ TEXT II AND ANSWER QUESTION:
TEXT II
AVIATION ENGLISH TEACHING MATERIALS AND
RESOURCES
What kind of aviation English training materials would teachers and trainees like to have when the objective is to reach and maintain operational level in aviation English? We would all like the magic English potion – take two spoonfuls daily for 10 days and Bingo, you’re bilingual. Some of the language training programmes proposed nowadays seem to me to be just as unrealistic. The length of English language training courses has been inexorably whittled down from 4 or more intensive weeks, to a flimsy 2-day module. The word “module” often covers a multitude of cost-cutting sins. Bite sized English courses.
The question I want to consider now is what are appropriate aviation English training materials?
That depends very much on the kind of training envisaged. There are many variables a few of which are:
the trainees the hardware the organisation of the courses in time and space the teachers the money available to pay for training
First let’s look at the trainees
Who are they?
Are they controllers or pilots? Unfortunately it is rare, indeed almost unheard of to have both professional categories together. The advantages in the language classroom of having representatives of both sides of the pilot-controller dialogue would be immense. One would no longer have to ask a participant to take the other’s role in a dialogue, or the other’s point of view in a discussion. However since civilian pilots and controllers usually work for different organisations, the idea seems impracticable….
The main question here is how much experience they have with the world of aviation, and whether they can develop their own materials.
A well-trained teacher can always learn from the aviation environment in which they work – we all started that way. Aviation is a sufficiently interesting subject per se. Teachers with little aviation experience may have a fear of not being credible in particular if they are with trainees new to the job. The teachers think that the trainees think they ought to be experts in aviation. The teacher’s field is the language. In some circumstances team teaching is possible with a language teacher and a subject teacher. This can be very rewarding with each teacher observing the other’s input.
The English teacher should not confuse teaching the language (English) with teaching the subject (Aviation), and I would argue the proficient language teacher should be able to teach professionals in most fields. But you cannot expect a teacher new to aviation to immediately start producing teaching materials... Many students complain about a lack of vocabulary. This may be a false problem. By trying to translate in their heads and find the exact turn of phrase they have in mind, they are inhibiting the use of the words they do know. It’s a way of thinking to accept that you cannot be the complete sophisticated adult person in the language you are learning and to learn to say complex things with the simple words you have at your disposal.
Having said that, the aviation English course does have to teach a solid amount of terminology. This should be contextualised in pictures and/or texts with recordings of the correct pronunciation. It has to be practiced and reviewed more than once. It takes quite a lot of practice to internalise new words. Since most aviation English practice is oral, pronunciation practice should be part of every lesson. Not just the sounds, or phonemes, but also the rhythms. The correct accentuation of longer words is essential for comprehensibility, and an awareness of how the English language puts emphasis on the important words in a phrase and then “swallows” the rest is important for understanding spoken English. One French pilot was blown away by his first contact with real North American English at his hotel when ordering eggs for breakfast. The question “How ye wan yer eggs?” corresponded very little to his idea of the pronunciation of “How do you want your eggs?” What had his English teachers been teaching him all these years? Let me emphasise it is not necessary to speak Oxford, BBC or Boston English. Foreign accents are part of the personality of the speaker – I still speak French with an English, maybe a Scottish accent after more than 30 years. But it is necessary to be understood and to understand. Pronunciation and oral comprehension are very closely related. Someone who pronounces badly will have problems understanding.
(adapted from http://www.bigmag.co.uk/main/static/site/1957/download/14- Robertson.pdf on March 9th, 2007)
A few in “a few of which are” means:
