LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY TRAINING: THE CHALLENGE FOR PILOTS

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LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY TRAINING THE CHALLENGE FOR
PILOTS
INTERNATIONAL AVIATION ENGLISH CONFERENCE
TRAINING AND TESTING IS THERE A COMMON AIM?

• Profa. Dr. Ana Eliza Pereira Bocorny
• Aeronautical Sciences Research Laboratory
  Microgravity Center
• Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do
  Sul - PUCRS
• Brasilia, November 2012

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TOPICS TO BE COVERED

• MY BACKGROUND
• PAST CHALLENGES
• PRESENT CHALLENGES
• FUTURE CHALLENGES

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MY BACKGROUND

• VARIG 1989/1997 English teacher
• AEROENGLISH 1997/2006 - English teacher/owner
• PUCRS 1994/today Professor at the Languages
  and Aeronautical Sciences Colleges
• Aeronautical Sciences Research Laboratory
  /MICRO-G Researcher and Coordinator

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PAST CHALLENGES

• The history of English training for pilots in
  Brazil starts in 1955 when VARIG obtains the
  license to operate its first regular flight to
  the United States the route Rio de Janeiro New
  York Rio do Janeiro. This flight determines the
  need for teaching Brazilian pilots to speak
  English.

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PAST CHALLENGES

• In this new scenario, besides having to read
  and understand technical publications, the
  Brazilian pilots flying to New York would have to
  be able to communicate with the American air
  traffic controllers (BOCORNY, 2011).

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PAST CHALLENGES

• For almost 40 years after its first flight to New
  York, VARIG maintained a group of English
  teachers in its three main bases (Porto Alegre,
  Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo). These English
  teachers, with the help of the few materials that
  had been published (Airspeak, ROBERTSON English
  for Aircraft, SHAWCROSS), the support of
  maintenance mechanics and more experienced
  pilots, and with the expertise of organizations
  like the English Aviation Association, were
  responsible for most of the English training for
  Brazilian pilots at that time.

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PAST CHALLENGES

• When VARIG went bankrupt the English training
  that was held there was transferred to PUCRS
  (Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande
  do Sul) and started to be part of the syllabus of
  the Aeronautical Sciences Course at that
  institution.

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PAST CHALLENGES

• Both at VARIG and PUCRS the English training for
  pilots focused the specialized professional
  communication situations these professionals
  would have to face in their future careers.

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PAST CHALLENGES

• For this reason, as it is today at PUCRS, pilots
  were trained not only to communicate with Air
  Traffic Controllers (ATC) but also to read and
  understand operations manuals, to write
  discrepancy items, and to communicate with other
  subjects they would have contact while operating
  the aircraft.

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PRESENT CHALLENGES

• In 2004, when ICAO established the need for
  testing the English proficiency of pilots and air
  traffic controllers it was possible to notice in
  Brazil that the few institutions and free-lance
  teachers that worked in this field focused their
  efforts in preparing pilots for the proficiency
  test.

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PRESENT CHALLENGES

• In 2012, I still believe that the training of
  pilots should not be reduced to the preparation
  for the SANTOS DUMONT ENGLISH ASSESSMENT . I
  recognize the importance of such an instrument,
  but I also believe it should depend less on the
  subjectivity of those professionals in charge of
  its delivery.

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PRESENT CHALLENGES

• I also believe that both for the training and for
  the testing, a description of the specialized
  language of aviation is essential. The scientific
  description of this specialized language, which
  could be done with the use of Corpus Linguistics,
  for example, would provide the necessary data for
  the creation of better teaching materials and
  proficiency tests.

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PRESENT CHALLENGES

• I am very glad and proud to say that I see very
  consistent research work being done throughout
  Brazil, at worldwide recognized institutions like
  UNICAMP, USP, UFMG, PUCSP, PUCRS, UNISINOS and
  UFRGS, just to name a few.

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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• I strongly believe that the scientific
  description of the specialized language we want
  to teach and test is the very starting point of
  the whole process of teaching and testing.

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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• This is the challenge that lies ahead of us, a
  challenge that will need OUR ACTIVE CONTRIBUTION
  AND ENGAGEMENT as well as the interest and
  support of government agencies involved with
  civil aviation like ANAC.

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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• HOW ARE WE
• DEALING WITH
• THIS CHALLENGE
• AT PUCRS?

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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• NEW RESEARCH STRUCTURE AT PUCRS
• MICROGRAVITY CENTRE (MICRO-G)
• EIGHT RESEARCH LABORATORIES

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Coordenação Geral
Coordenação de Pesquisa, Desenvolvimento e
Inovação
Coordenadores Laboratórios MicroG
Assistente de Pesquisa
Professores colaboradores e consultores nacionais
e internacionais
Estagiários
Bolsistas
Alunos de Extensão (PEGA)
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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• AERONAUTICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH LAB
• Language, aviation and accident prevention in
  complex technological systems
• Human factors and accident prevention in complex
  technological systems
• Air transport management

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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• PROJECTS All projects use specialized corpus
  and rely on the principles of Corpus Linguistics
• Description of the noun clusters in the manuals
  of operations the results obtained in this
  study were included in the handout we use with
  the students (BOCORNY, 2008)
• Description of modal verbs used in the aviation
  manuals - the results obtained in this study were
  included in the handout we use with the students
  (SARMENTO, 2008)

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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• PROJECTS All projects use specialized corpus
  and rely on the principles of Corpus Linguistics
• Description of the language used to write
  discrepancy items the results obtained in this
  study will be included in the handout we use with
  the students (FARRET BOCORNY, 2012 to be
  published)
• Creation of a glossary of safety/security terms
  we are trying a partnership with AZUL (BOCORNY,
  2012 to be published)

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AN EXAMPLE

• This research aims at knowing better the
  language used for writing discrepancy items. In
  order to do so a group of reports was studied
  having in mind the principles of corpus
  linguistics. One of our specific objetives was to
  determine the structure of these items in order
  to see if there was a pattern that is more
  ferquent than others, as well as its strucuture.
  (FARRET, 2012 to be published)

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AN EXAMPLE

• A group of digitalized texts is compilled to
  constitute de aviation specialized corpus or, in
  this case, the discrepancy items corpus
• This corpus is uploaded to a computarized tool
  (corpógrafo, sketch engine, teminus, e-termos)
  that can manage the it so that information about
  the piece of specialized language represented can
  be extracted.

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FUTURE CHALLENGE

• OTHER PROJECTS THAT INTEGRATE LANGUAGE, AVIATION
  AND CORPUS LINGUISTICS
• Malila Prado USP

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SOCIALIZING THE KNOWLEDGE CREATED WITH RESEARCH
AVIATION IN FOCUS Journal of Aeronautical
Sciences Users can register as readers, authors
or reviewers.
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THE FUTURE
CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE January, 30th
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REFERENCES

• 1) BOCORNY, A. E. P. Descrição das unidades
  especializadas poliléxicas nominais no
• âmbito da aviação subsídios para o ensino de
  inglês para fins específicos (ESP).
• 2008. 230 f. Tese (Doutorado em Estudos
  Linguísticos Teorias do Texto e do
• Discurso, Lexicografia e Terminologia Relações
  Textuais) Faculdade de Letras,
• Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto
  Alegre, 2008. Disponível em
• lthttp//www.lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/1
  5548/000678237.pdf?
• sequence1gt. Acesso em 4 out 2012
• 2) BOCORNY, Ana Eliza Pereira. Panorama dos
  estudos sobre a linguagem da aviação. Rev. bras.
  linguist. apl. online. 2011, vol.11, n.4
  cited  2012-11-20, pp. 963-986 . Available
  from lthttp//www.scielo.br/scielo.php?scriptsci_
  arttextpidS1984-63982011000400009lngennrmiso
  gt. ISSN 1984-6398.  http//dx.doi.org/10.1590/S198
  4-63982011000400009.
• 3) SARMENTO, S. O uso dos verbos modais em
  manuais de aviação em inglês um
• estudo baseado em corpus. 2008. 262 f. Tese
  (Doutorado em Estudos
• Linguísticos Teorias do Texto e do Discurso,
  Lexicografia e Terminologia
• Relações Textuais) Faculdade de Letras,
  Universidade Federal do Rio Grande
• do Sul, Porto Alegre, 2008. Disponível em
  lthttp//www.lume.ufrgs.br/
• bitstream/handle/10183/15568/000685529.pdf?sequenc
  e1gt. Acesso em 04
• mar. 2010.

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CONTACT
Ana Eliza Pereira Bocorny ana.bocorny_at_pucrs.br