Why Aerospace English?There are perhaps 3 well-known streams of English language teaching: to native speakers through (K12) school, to graduate academics (usually as English literature), and to speakers of other languages. This last category may be referred to as TESOL, ESL and EFL or similar. English as a Second Language (ESL) refers to a person traveling to and studying English in an English-speaking society – sometimes also called ‘full immersion’. ESL is what we teach in Australia to all our foreign visitors. Within ESL we have General English (GE) and English for Special/Specific Purposes (ESP) – contexts such as business, medical, academic, etc. Recently some new contexts have emerged in vocational and professional fields due to companies recruiting overseas to mitigate severe skills shortages in Australia. These emerging ESP fields include engineering, IT, mining, construction and associated trades, and aviation. Aviation English is a hot topic now because of ICAO’s imminent language proficiency requirements for international aircrew. Certainly this will generate a lot of work for English language assessors and tutors. However aviation is itself part of the aerospace industry – a global and multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-lingual industry where English may be the ‘common language’ but is certainly not always the ‘native language’.
In this sense Aerospace English is merely a specific, technical form of Business English. However, it is nevertheless worthy of a focused and adaptive approach because the aircrew/ATC component is itself a highly developed training system. Moreover, aviation is very much a safety-driven industry. All these comments on Aviation English also apply to space-crew, as highlighted decades ago via the USA-Russia joint space ventures. In any case we feel that focusing on Aviation English ignores the necessary symbiosis between the activities of aircrew/ATC and the aerospace companies which build and maintain aviation infrastructure, aircraft and equipment. Although ICAO’s current focus is on the radio chatter between pilots and ATC, it would be fair to say that safety is also affected by a pilot comprehending their checklist, flight manuals, operating procedures, company directives, regulatory documents, etc. In airlines some pilots will become supervisors and managers and so need to communicate effectively with non-aircrew. Effective writing skills and higher level communication such as meetings and presentations also need to be catered for. Eventually as well, as recent events show, commercial space travel will grow and further compel communication between pilots and technical specialists. Aerospace English is the name of our business, but it also embodies our vision. |
