In pairs / groups discuss the following questions.

1. What can affect flight safety? Why?

2. What does miscommunication result in?

3. What are the reasons for pilot-controller misunderstanding?

4. What are the main linguistic problems / non-linguistic? Identify and explain each of them.

5. How to prevent linguistic problems?

Search the Internet and give example for each type of miscommunication mentioned above.

7. Work in pairs / groups and discuss the following questions:

1. Have you ever experienced problems when communicating with people who were native English speakers?

2. Which aspects of their speech did you find most difficult? Discuss speed of delivery, accent, vocabulary used, jargon etc.

3. In which countries have you encountered the most problems or with people of what nationalities can you have communication problems?

4. What do you think native English speaking controllers and pilots can do to be more understandable to the aviation community?

8. Read the text and answer the question: What effect may native-speaking controllers have on non-native speaking pilots?

Say Again, Please

Part I

Forty-six percent of the pilots said that they considered voice communications between non-native English-speaking pilots and native English-speaking controllers “very good in most respects,” but 29 percent said that communications “could use some minor changes,” and 21 percent said that communications were “not good enough for extreme conditions. ”

Even the pilots who characterized communications between the two groups as very good said that they had observed problems.

“It’s been my experience that controllers in New York speak too fast and often get impatient with non-native English-speaking pilots,” the report said quoting observations from the surveyed pilots. “I can tell right away whether the pilot’s ‘getting it’ or not, from the time lag after the controller has given three or four instructions at once and the presence of a big pause before he reads it back.

“I don’t think many controllers have a clue about the level of stress they put the non-native English-speaking pilots under. I know because I’ve been on the other side of the equation (flying into non-native English airspace). We are tired of flying all nights and are feeling the stress of too rapid communication rate, use of slang, non-standard ICAO terms (or no ICAO terms to begin with) and having to deal with all that.”

Pilots who said they considered the communication that they overheard “not good enough for extreme conditions” said their concerns focused on safety issues.

“I have seen some dangerous things purely because of a lack of communication,” one pilot said. “We’ve had near misses, taxiing situations, and clearances for takeoff executed by another airplane”.

 

Read the second part of the text and do the tasks that follow.

Say Again, Please

Part II

As an example, one pilot described an event at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. “A non-native English-speaking pilot was given taxi instructions and ended up somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. There was a miscommunication between him and air traffic controller. We became distracted from our own operation because we were trying to figure out where he was (in proximity to us).”

Another pilot observed, “A lot of non-native English-speaking pilots and controllers only learn so many words, and phrases and basically work off a script. … I hear long periods of silence after controllers asks pilots a non-standard idiomatic question in English. When non-native English-speaking pilots get into a non-standard situation, such as the need to deviate around a thunderstorm or a traffic conflict, they cannot adjust.”

The pilots said they based their opinions of non-native English-speaking pilots’ skills with the language on a number of factors, including their comprehension of clearances and other ATC instructions, fluency, verbal interactions with controllers, pronunciation, sentence structure and vocabulary. “Are controllers getting their point across the first time, or are they in a debate with the pilot?” one pilot questioned. “Do controllers have to slow their speech and, instead of giving a whole rapid-fire clearance, give it in pieces?”

“I can tell by how pilots react whether they got it or not. Are they slow to respond, or do they come right back? The worst thing I want to hear after ATC’s given a clearance is silence. If I hear nothing, a long hesitation, a really slow readback, or an incorrect readback, then I know there is a trouble.”