SOME TECHNIQUES OF DEVELOPING FUTURE PILOTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

Svitlana Muravska (Kropyvnytskyy, Ukraine)

English language training for pilots focuses almost exclusively on improving their listening and speaking skills. Effective verbal communication is essential to ensuring safety in civil aviation. Communications are voice only, that is controllers and pilots talk to each other at a distance, through radiotelephony communications. The verbal message is the only communication tool at their disposal.

Classroom activities that develop learners’ ability to express themselves through speech would therefore seem an important component of a language course. Yet it is difficult to design and administer such activities. First of all, it is necessary to give definition to “an effective speaking activity”.

Characteristics of a successful speaking activity:

1. Learners talk a lot. As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk. This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses.
2. Participation is even. Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants: all get a chance to speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed.
3. Motivation is high. Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective.
4. Language is of an acceptable level. Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy [5, p.120].

Our observation has shown that there can be the following problems with speaking   activities:

1. Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience. Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.
2. Nothing to say. Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking.
3. Low or uneven participation. Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard; and in large group this means that each one will have only very little talking time. This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all.
4. Mother-tongue use. In classes where all, or a number of, the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it is easier, because it is unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue. If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes  − particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones – to keep to the target language [5, p.121].

What the teachers can do to solve some of the problems:

1. Use group work. This increases the sheer amount of learner talk going on in a limited period of time and also lowers the inhibitions of learners who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class. It is true that group work means the teacher cannot supervise all learner speech, so that not all utterances will be correct, and learners may occasionally slip into their native language; nevertheless, even taking into consideration occasional mistakes and mother-tongue use, the amount of time remaining for positive, useful oral practice is still likely to be far more than in the full-class set-up.

     The students in groups may discuss the following questions:

-         Do you believe in unmanned aviation?

-         History of aviation is written in blood.

-         Why is so much attention paid to air crashes investigation?

1. Base the activity on easy language. It is a good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary before the activity starts.

When you give students the task to describe a picture with sequence of aircrafts, you may present such vocabulary to make it easier for students to speak: commercial, sequence, instrument, configuration, final, radar.

1. Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest. On the whole, the clearer the purpose of the discussion the more motivated participants will be. The topics should be professionally oriented. You may suggest discussing the following questions learning Airfield and Navigation Equipment Failure:

-         Which navigation aids do you use in your job?

-         What problems can occur when using the navigation aids?

-         Have you ever had navigation equipment failure?

-         How have navigation and ATC systems improved?

-         What technology do you expect to see in the future?

1. Give some instruction or training in discussion skills. If the task is based on group discussion then include instructions about participation when introducing it. For example, tell learners to make sure that everyone in the group contributes to the discussion; appoint a chairperson to each group who will regulate participation.
2. Keep students speaking the target language. You might appoint one of the group as monitor, whose job it is to remind participants to use the target language, and perhaps report later to the teacher how well the group managed to keep to it. Even if there is no actual penalty attached, the very awareness that someone is monitoring such lapses helps participants to be more careful.

However, when all is said and done, the best ways to keep students speaking the target language is simply to be there yourself as much as possible, reminding them and modeling the language use yourself: there is no substitute for nagging [5, p.121-122].

The given below discussion activities are to encourage future pilots and                             controllers to speak:

1. Describing pictures. One of the examples can be a picture with a fire in the Control Tower. While describing students are encouraged to use the words from the box: extinguish, fire damage, blackened, explosion, evacuate, fire fighting.
2. Picture differences. A well-known activity which usually produces plenty of purposeful question-and-answer exchanges. The vocabulary is specific and fairly predictable. The teacher may put down unknown words on the blackboard.
3. Things in common. An “ice-breaking” activity, which fosters a feeling on solidarity by stressing shared characteristics of participants. For example, one student says: “I am going to work as a pilot and Ivan, Dmytro are going to do the same. I have already flown Boeing 737 and Sergey and Vova have flown this plane too”.
4. Shopping list. Students imagine that they are in the miracle shop. They have a list of things which they may buy. They are to choose 4 things from the list. They should explain their choice. Future pilots are offered the following choice:

ü good weather conditions during flights;

ü flying the latest model of Boeing;

ü excellent English listening and speaking skills;

ü a big private house with all conveniences, a swimming pool and a tennis court;

ü working as a pilot for Pacific International Airlines;

ü perfect health;

ü more free time;

ü more patience;

ü popularity.

1. Solving a problem. This is particularly suitable for people who are themselves adolescents, or involved with adolescent education. It usually works well, producing a high level of participation and motivation; as with many simulation tasks, participants tend to become personally involved: they begin to see the characters as real people, and to relate to the problem as an emotional issue as well as an intellectual and moral one [5, p.128].

The example of the situation can be the following: you are a private pilot of the President of Ukraine. You are flying to Russia at the present moment. The President and the members of delegation are on board now. Your plane is going to land in a few minutes in one of small airports. But weather conditions are not favorable and the airport does not have special equipment. You think it’s dangerous to land but there is pressure from the President and the members of delegation. If you refuse, you may lose your job which is prestigious and well-paid. If you try to land your plane, everything may happen. What decision will you take in this situation?

It is crucial for pilots and air traffic controllers to have excellent communication skills to provide safe flights. The good knowledge of phraseology is sufficient in 95%, but in emergency situations good and understandable communication may save the lives of pilots and their passengers. According to statistics human factor is a leading cause of air crashes. We should try to do our best to decrease the number of air crashes due to human factor.

References

1. Emery H. Check Your Aviation English / Henry Emery, Andrew Roberts.  – Oxford: Macmillan Education, 2010.  – 127 p.
2. Grice H.P. Logic and Conversation. / Martinich A.P. (ed.). Philosophy of language. – N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1975. –P.165-175.
3. Manual
4. Petrashchuk O. Test of English for aviation personnel to meet ICAO language proficiency requirements / Olena  Petrashchuk  // Вісник НАУ. – 2012. −№3. –С.160-163.
5. Ur P. A course in language teaching. Practice and theory / Penny Ur. – Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. – 375 p.