ICAEA Workshop 2019, Exploring the Aviation

International Civil Aviation English Association Air TrafficTraining

English Needs Of: Ab-Initio Pilots and
Controllers, and Aircraft Maintenance
Personnel

May 9th, 2:10 PM - 3:10 PM

Workshop I: Challenges for English Language Training Providers

in Creating Courses Adapted to Aircraft Maintenance Personnel:
Two Case Studies
Juliette Bodson
Aviation English Private School (Belgium)

Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.erau.edu/icaea-workshop

Scholarly Commons Citation

Bodson, Juliette, "Workshop I: Challenges for English Language Training Providers in Creating Courses
Adapted to Aircraft Maintenance Personnel: Two Case Studies" (2019). International Civil Aviation English
Association. 16.
https://commons.erau.edu/icaea-workshop/2019/day-2/16

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 Challenges for English language training providers
to create courses adapted to aircraft maintenance
personnel: two case studies

ICAEA Conference - Tokyo – May 2019

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 Presented by Juliette Bodson
Aviation English Private School, Belgium

With the collaboration of

Dr. James Minney - University of Southampton, UK, and
Ross Bailey – English Language Competency examiner and Part 147
compliance manager, France

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 Need / demand for training

• Working with English maintenance manuals

• Working globally
• Communication with pilots, owners, other maintenance
organisations
• No specific regulatory requirements for English

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 Organisation 1

• Part 145 maintenance organisation: approximately 50

maintenance personnel
• Business aviation sector working with English manuals
• Initial requirement to provide English training for report
writing

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 Organisation 2

• State owned helicopter search and rescue organisation

• Around 30 helicopters and 200 flight crew
• All documentation currently in French but likely to change to
English due to recurrent translation costs

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 Questions for discussion
1. What are the most significant course design challenges for a
program such as this?
2. How does the course designer decide the learning outcomes
for this sort of a course?
3. How can one ensure that participants are motivated?
4. How can the success of such a course be evaluated?
5. How useful or effective might a blended learning approach
be to this type of course?
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 Consultation and Scoping
• Scoping not always ideal
• English language training is rarely off the shelf
• Little regulatory guidance available today (EASA)
• Mismatch between employer/.employee perceptions of
required training
• Constraints (planning, availability, budgets) need to be
factored in early in the project
• Scoping needs to be a part of the training process
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 Dialogue / student centred
• A dialogue with all stakeholders is central to our approach
• Context in which participants need English
• This dialogue is a continuous process throughout the course
• Continuous feedback from trainees is essential to keep the
course on track
• Encouragement of autonomous work (e.g. using internet
resources)

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 Motivation / confidence
• General lack of confidence
• Poor language learning experiences in the past
• Focus on specific relevant communications and confidence
building
• Effective communication can be achieved without accuracy
• Understanding where accuracy is important to maintaining
effective communications

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 Relevance / authenticity
• “English for mechanics” is not really a thing
• The teacher needs some background knowledge of the
subject and working practices
• Allow the participants to demonstrate their technical
competency

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 Our experience and solutions
• Training centred on maintenance documentation
• Use of role play exercises for skill acquisition and confidence
building
• Trainer competency in both languages on subject matter
• Flexible approach to sessions using varied pedagogical
techniques

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 Answers to the questions for discussion

• 2 workshops held on Thursday May 9th 2019

• 11 groups of 4-5 people
• Different backgrounds: pilots, ATCOs, AE teachers, AE
assessors, regulators
• Answers sorted by number of occurrences in decreasing order

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 1. What are the most significant course design challenges for a program such as this?

• Outside work ship hours – TIME • Practice

• Low English level of the participants • Maintenance proficiency
• Group size/segmentation • Specific curriculum customized to the needs of the
• Technical terms (maintenance manual) customer
• Motivation • Methodology authentic to job
• Different backgrounds of the participants • Constrained environment
• Instructor knowledge • Company commitment related to resources
• Course outcomes not clear / unrealistic • Material (English-French-both?)
• Evaluation • General English vs. Specific?
• Resistance to change
• Promotion
• Course intensity
• Survey/analysis

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 2. How does the course designer decide the learning outcomes for this sort of a course?

HOW Outcomes
• Conduct a need analysis • Simple functional language
• Identify strengths • Basic vocabulary + technical (+ link between
• Priority skills general English – specific)
• Client needs • Basic reading principles (Manual structure and
• Keep realistic outcomes (simple tangible keywords)
objectives) • Basic writing/reporting
• Time frame • Practical outcomes – common dialogues (role play)
• Most relevant content for the majority of groups
• → moving towards autonomous development.

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 3. How can one ensure that participants are motivated?

• Positive feedback
• Different types of rewards (time off, financial, promotion)
• Enjoyable classroom experience / lesson active
• Lots of visual and authentic materials
• Group work / mixture of activities
• Build confidence
• Check list on the road map
• Daily attendance
• Experience the use of learnt in daily tasks and share it with the group
• Invite professionals to show realistic expectations of employment
• Strength-weakness assessments
• Examples of real incidents where maintenance problems led to accidents
• Virtual reality on Ipad

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 4. How can the success of such a course be evaluated?

• Progress test
• Students’ individual feedback of the course
• Evaluate actual tasks and potential improvement
• Employer’s feedback
• Confidence of the participants
• Self check-list
• Role play presentation

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 5. How useful or effective might a blended learning approach be to this type of course?

Online: could help very much with vocabulary, distance (geographic). The student can work at home,
asynchronic, and then discuss in class only those points that were not understood.
Would allow teacher to follow students dedication to studies

In class: Integrate knowledge acquired in online learning.

Blended learning would help as they have to train out of work, students would be willing to participate more in
class as they could manage their own timetable.

It would be effective but there are many factors which may make it harder or stop this approach from working
• type of course
• length
• quality

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 Thank you!

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