English Language in Aviation (#24)

Since 1944, English is the official language of aviation. However, it was not until 1998 that the ICAO established different levels of proficiency, and it took another ten years before language proficiency was introduced as a basic requirement for pilots and air traffic controllers (source ).

What’s the current state of the English language in aviation? I asked Paul Stevens, CEO of Mayflower College, and Neil Waterman, Commercial Aviation Director at ASTi, to share their thoughts on this topic.

Paul Stevens is a graduate of Cambridge University in the UK and is the founder / CEO of Mayflower College , Plymouth. Mayflower College has specialised in the teaching and testing of Aviation English for 30+ years. Paul’s latest project is to help native English speakers improve their communication skills with non-native English speakers.

Neil Waterman has worked in the flight simulation and training industry for 35 years, specialising in sound and communications systems. He joined Singer Link-Miles in the UK in 1989 before heading over to the USA in 1999 to join Advanced Simulation Technology inc. ( ASTi ). Today, Neil is the Commercial Aviation Director for ASTi and for the past 18 years has championed development of the ASTi SATCE solution SERA.

The Sound of Safety in Aviation

By Paul Stevens , CEO of Mayflower College

We know that language is a vital part of aviation safety. Just think of:

• Tenerife (1977): Miscommunication between the air traffic controller and the pilots due to language differences and ambiguous phraseology resulted in 583 fatalities.
• Charkhi Dadri (1996): The mid-air collision between a Saudi Arabian Airlines aircraft and a Kazakhstan Airlines aircraft. Language and cultural barriers, as well as misinterpretation of instructions, were identified as contributing factors. 349 people?died.
• Crossair Flight 498 (2000): several factors, including a language misunderstanding between the German-speaking first officer and the French-speaking captain resulted in 10 fatalities.

In fact, an analysis of 28,000 aviation incident and accident reports found that more than 70% involved problems with information transfer, primarily related to voice communications.

The language of international aviation is English. But around 75% of international controllers and pilots do not have English as their first language. Most exchanges in English are between people who do not share the same first language.?

A key factor in safe RTF communications is our ability to understand the accent of the speaker.

English spoken by a Chinese pilot / ATCO sounds very different to English spoken by a Brazilian, French or Spanish pilot / ATCO. (Even though they may all have ‘Operational Level 4’ English according to the ICAO proficiency scale.)

Also, English spoken by a native speaker from the USA sounds very different to English spoken by someone from the UK, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.

Within countries accents are different too ... a New York controller will probably sound different to a controller from Boston. A pilot from London might sound different to a pilot from Manchester.

The accents (including sounds and rhythm of speaking) are likely to be different.

Some examples:

1. Transmit: The 's' and 'm' sounds together, as well as the final 't,' can be difficult. Native Spanish speakers may substitute the final 't' sound with a 'd' sound.
2. Runway: Speakers from Asian countries may have difficulty pronouncing the 'r' sound in 'runway’. They may substitute it with an 'l' sound.? The word 'clearance' may pose similar problems.
3. The English ‘th’ sound does not exist in many other languages (that’s one reason why ICAO recommends we say ‘tree’ not ‘three’).
4. Non-native speakers may struggle with the stress and intonation patterns of English, and even add extra syllables which can affect the meaning. For instance, an instruction like 'Maintain altitude 5000 feet', could be misinterpreted as 'Maintain altitude at 5000 feet', potentially leading to a dangerous altitude deviation.
5. Native Arabic speakers might find it challenging to pronounce certain sounds like 'p' or 'v' as they do not exist in Arabic.
6. English has more vowels sounds than many other languages. Therefore non-native speakers often struggle to hear and say the difference between: hit / heat / hate, get / gate,? not / nut, kit / cut, etc.
7. The New York accent tends to drop the 'r' sound at the end of words. For example: 'Landing' may be pronounced as 'landin’', 'Clear' pronounced as 'clea'.

So that is the BAD news. But the GOOD news is that studies show that exposure and active listening can help greatly. The more we listen to a particular accent, the more we understand it. Bradlow and Bent (2008) found that listeners who were regularly exposed to non-native accents demonstrated increased accuracy in understanding those accents.

Mayflower College is therefore pleased to offer this free Aviation Accents tool - https://aviation-english.com/accents.htm

The tool contains 1000+ recordings of Standard Phraseology and ‘plain English’ in more than 40 different accents.

The tool also includes examples of ‘ICAO Level 4’ speakers. What does a Chinese Level 4 speaker of English sound like? What does a Turkish Level 4 speaker sound like? It is important, especially for native English speakers, to understand the limitations of a Level 4 speaker. Level 4 is the minimum English language level required for international aviation … but it does not mean ‘perfect’ English. Far from it. It is a functional, ‘operational’ level of competence which still requires support and accommodation from more proficient users of the language.

Who should use this tool and how?

The tool is intended for both native and non-native English speakers. Safe, effective communication is a shared responsibility and native English speakers need to play their part too. As well as ...

• becoming more empathetic to the challenges faced by non-native English speakers,
• sticking to Standard Phraseology,
• speaking slowly and clearly,

… native English speakers can also help by improving their ability to understand internationally-accented English.

We encourage all pilots and ATCO’s throughout the world (both licensed and those in training) to make use of this free tool. It can easily be integrated into existing training programmes or used independently by aviation professionals who understand the importance of improving their understanding of accented English.

English Language in Aviation

By Neil Waterman , Commercial Aviation Director at ASTi

When I received the invitation to contribute an article under the topic “English Language in Aviation”, it gave me a moment to pause and hesitate. How am I qualified to comment on this topic? I am not a linguist, nor am I a teacher, language or otherwise. Neither am I a pilot or ATC controller. So far, this wasn’t going too well. Am I disqualified?

But then I reset my thinking a little - for the past 18 years, I have been focused on developing training products to support the use of language in aviation. Wait, did I miss out a word in that last sentence? Wasn’t the title “English Language in Aviation”? Yes, of course, but perhaps that’s where at least part of the problem lies. Let me explain.

The history of why the language of the airways is English can easily be Googled, so I’ll save you the history lesson, excepting to note that since 2003 the ICAO stipulated that aviation professionals involved in operational flying (and associated roles) must meet a specified standard of English proficiency. The ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements require pilots and controllers meet a language proficiency defined as ICAO Level 4 English. One thing to note is that ICAO Level 4 English is not the same as “aviation English”.

And this is where I can begin to make my point. Aviation English is the use of standard phraseology defined by the ICAO (and/or variations defined by national aviation authorities) for radio communications. Standard phraseology is designed to maximize the transfer of flight-critical information between pilots and controllers with the least ambiguity and to minimize the potential for confusion. This is clearly not a function of English proficiency. You might be surprised by that statement? What is this guy talking about?

Isn’t it obvious that a high level of English proficiency will naturally lead to a high level of proficiency in aviation English? I would argue maybe not, and can easily prove that to be a true statement… I am a native English speaker, and have no doubt whatsoever that I would be rated at an ICAO Level 6 for English proficiency, which is defined as “Expert Level”. However, if you ask me to make a clearance read-back over the radio in the A320 FTD we have to test our products, things are not going to go well at all.

Despite 18 years of involvement in both our Simulated ATC Environment and Phraseology Trainer product development, I cannot speak “aviation”. To be honest I haven’t tried to learn “aviation”, but that’s exactly my point. I think it’s time we recognize that aviation English is, to all intents and purposes, a language in it’s own right. And, if we accept that is a true statement, perhaps this might change the way we approach teaching and training aviation English.

Let’s think about this for a moment? One problem, often stated, when it comes to native English speakers in the cockpit, is their tendency to diverge from standard phraseology, using colloquialisms and slang as part of their routine radio exchanges. On the surface this perhaps seems innocuous and not at all surprising, but consider this: Who is the bigger threat, a native English-speaker using non-standard phraseology, or someone speaking English as a second language with a noticeable accent, but perfect phraseology? Certainly, if the native-English speaker is operating in a non-native English speaking part of the world, this can become a significant challenge.

There are also issues due to the use of both local and regional variations for the standard phraseology. For example, there is the obvious use of imperial and metric units depending on whether you are in the USA or the rest of the world. But phraseology ‘creep’ seems to be a more subtle, but worrisome trend. This is adding additional information to the standard phraseology leading to confusion. The recent tragic incident at Haneda, Tokyo, included the following call from ATC to the Coast Guard aircraft as it approached the runway: “JA722A, Tokyo tower good evening. Number one, taxi to holding point C5”. With the return call, “Taxi to holding point C5 JA722A, number one, thank you”.

The use of “number one” here is non-standard added phraseology, and the meaning is ambiguous. Consensus is that it was intended to indicate the aircraft’s sequence number in the order of take off or landing, so number one for a departing aircraft would be the next aircraft to take off, but, given the runway was in mixed-use operation, supporting both take-offs and landings, there is no way to understand where in the order of runway occupancy “number one” fits. It is possible there could be three aircraft landing before the next take-off. It appears this sort of call was common at Haneda, but the inclusion of the ‘number’ is not supported in any published phraseology. It is not clear whether this aspect of the communications has any significance related to the cause of the accident, but from the perspective of standard phraseology “number” does not belong in this call.

What if we taught ‘aviation [English]’ as if it were a language? Firstly, what is a “language”? The definition of a language is? “A system of communication used by a particular country or community”. Aviation is a community, in fact a global community, and indeed, the phrases used to communicate over radios are very systematic. So much so, that the community has (a) agreed on a common base for the system (English) and (b) defined what words and phrases should be used based on the situation (phase of flight, etc), which is standard phraseology as defined by the ICAO. So, in my book ‘aviation’ qualifies as a language. How would presenting aviation English as a language help? My opinion - and remember I am wholly unqualified in a formal way, but have listened to thousands of hours of aviation communications - is that we currently do a poor job teaching ‘aviation’. For native English speakers there is an assumption that formal teaching is perhaps optional and that assimilation by exposure is all that’s needed, or, at best, presenting a book of phraseology with examples is enough. This would certainly explain some of the examples I have heard over the years! For non-native speakers, presenting “aviation” as a language would make it much clearer that ICAO Level 4 is not the end of the story, which is what is often implicated. I have heard countless examples of students being sent to flight schools (often in a native English speaking country) with a new ICAO Level 4 certificate in their pocket, and abjectly failing to be able to push the PTT and make even the most basic radio transmission. The resolution at this point often seems to be to send the student to language remediation more appropriate to help them order a hamburger at the local fast-food restaurant or similar. In more than one case I was told “we send our students to local host families for a few months, but it doesn’t always help…”. It’s not surprising is it? The language (“aviation”) they need to speak isn’t spoken by the host family.

One example where this issue has been recognized and addressed, is at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, with their Preflight Immersion Lab, utilizing both the ASTi language-training focused products, the Pilot Phraseology Trainer and SERA, our Simulated ATC environment. All students destined for the flight line spend 4 weeks using? a combination of part-task and immersive training devices that build communications skills focused on speaking “aviation” before they set foot in any conventional flight simulator or aircraft. The result is a significant reduction in the time from entering the Embry-Riddle flight program to the students first solo flight by 30-50%. But more importantly, the students are confident in their radio skills, and speak consistent “aviation”.

To close, formalizing “aviation” as a language would provide a much better focus on this issue. Better English isn’t the magic bullet here; it is the framework, upon which spoken ‘aviation’ is built. But, speaking better “aviation” would be a significant safety benefit across our industry.