Picture this: a pilot has been flying globally for years in command of a large airliner, and suddenly he is advised that if his licence is to remain valid for international operations he must pass an internationally approved test of spoken English communications skills. The same is true of experienced air traffic control officers (ATCO) in their own line of business.
Since these skills must have served this aircraft commander or ATCO well since they got their jobs, it seems a sudden imposition to have their English communication tested for the first time. This requirement exists even for those whose mother tongue is English.
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DEADLINE
Qualified air transport pilots and their employers are aware of this International Civil Aviation Organisation requirement, even if they have done nothing about it yet. But the deadline is looming: it is 1 March 2011, and the backlog at most examining stations is months or even years long.
By 1 March, commercial pilots operating international routes must have passed an approved English test that shows them to have reached ICAO's Level 4 standard in Aviation English in both speech and comprehension. Level 6 is the kind of fluency a native speaker has, and Level 4 represents an ability to make yourself clear in unsophisticated English.
This is more than a test of the examinee's knowledge of English air traffic control terminology, it is a test of language skills aimed at determining whether the pilot will be able to communicate effectively to ATC in a non-standard situation, like when something goes wrong. Can the pilot describe the problem, and ask for appropriate assistance?
ICAO quotes seven accidents that began with a manageable problem and ended as serious events because of the crew's - or the ATCO's - inability to communicate sufficiently well. Perhaps the most well known is the Avianca Boeing 707 that ran out of fuel and crashed short of New York's Kennedy airport in January 1990. The crew were unable to communicate the increasing degree of urgency, even though they had plenty of time to do so.
ICAO decided to act over this issue because of changes in the world's aviation scene. Some 20 years or more ago, relatively small nations, or those with immature economies, generally did not operate airlines globally, or if they did the number of services was small.
The world's trunk routes were plied mostly by the airlines of nations with a mature aviation culture and developed economy. Now, with increasing economic prosperity, many small or developing countries have sizeable international fleets operating intercontinentally.
The best way of illustrating the problem is to contrast two different nations, neither of whose mother tongue is English: Germany and Vietnam. Germany has the advantage of a long international aviation history and cultural exposure to English, whereas not long ago Vietnam had neither of these advantages, so has had to work hard to generate the skills that international aviation demands. One of these is Aviation English among its pilots and ATCOs.
One result of this ICAO-driven requirement is the rapid expansion of a specialist sector within the English language instruction industry worldwide. Mayflower College in Plymouth, south-west England, has taught aviation English to pilots and controllers since the early 1990s as an adjunct to its non-specialist courses for foreigners wishing to learn spoken English. It has developed a course to meet ICAO standards, and has been awarded examiner status by the national aviation authorities of 24 countries in 20 of which it has examiner stations.
DEMAND
Mayflower's aviation centre manager Lee Higgins says the ICAO requirement, adopted two years ago, has dramatically boosted the demand for courses. The most popular, he says, is a four-week one in which a student with Level 3 English can be brought up to Level 4, and successfully examined.
The college uses ordinary techniques for teaching English as a foreign language, but introduces aviation scenarios for teaching purposes and discussion sessions to extend the students' technical and aviation vocabulary. If Level 4 is the aim, complex grammatical structures or tenses beyond the simple present or past are not necessary, says Higgins.
For ATCOs, he suggests, Level 5 or 6 is desirable unless they want to spend their careers at airports dealing mostly with domestic traffic. He says airlines or air navigation service providers tend to send their pilots or ATCOs for short courses, starting with those whose English is least good, on the basis that those whose English is already fairly capable might pass at a Level 4 without further instruction. With little time left before the ICAO deadline it would be reasonable to ask for an extension for them if they cannot be examined in time.
Mayflower has examined 10,000 pilots and controllers in the past three years, says Higgins, with most of those tests taking place in the past 18 months. The rate is continuing to accelerate as the deadline approaches.
Source: Flight International
