Must be able to read, write, and speak the English language....

Mavmb

Mavmb

Well-Known Member
but not very well! I've got a student that struggles. He's not the best with the airplane first off all and when he talks to the controllers they often respond with "broken, unreadable." Anybody else train any students that speak english as a second language? I know what's going to happen. I'm going to have to tell this guy that his english will have to improve before he soloes. Sometimes saying things in a different way doesn't even help.
 
ke dise amigo???

ich ferstehe nicht...
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wieso kannst du mich nicht verstehen? Weil ich nur Deutsch sprechen kann?
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Eller er det letter å forstå meg, når jeg snakker på norsk?

Ik kan ook een beetje nederlands spreken, maar niet goed.

ég vil læra að tala íslendsku. Men ég hefi ekki tíma.

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I'm right behind you, if you think his english needs improvement, tell him. The regs require you to speak english for a reason.

There are a lot of foreign students at my airport, and some of them can barely speak and understand even less. It can become a huge safety hazard. One of them cut off a Lear 45 on short final one day, the Lear had been making plenty of radio calls, but student just plain couldn't understand. Another one yesterday was doing a first solo (I think), kudos to him for the accomplishment, but his instructor had to speak the students native language over the radio so he would understand another pilot's question (granted that is what it looked like from my perspective, it could have been different, but the timing was damn strange if that wasn't the case).

I've also heard of foreign students using translators on checkrides. Excuse me, but that's BS. If I were a DE, the translator goes, or you fail right now.

I know it's hard for them to live in a different country away from friends with a different language. It's great that they're putting the effort into it, but seriously, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. They have got to speak and understand english.
 
By ICAO convention, English is supposed to be the common language of aviation worldwide, so they need to learn it now. The few foreign students I have had appreciated my efforts to clarify their speech on the radio. All they usually need is to learn how to pronouce a few particular words correctly that they are having difficulty with. Chair fly approaches/flights with them playing the part of ATC, and work on their readbacks. Flightsafety Academy recognized this problem long ago and still has a language lab, where students fly entire mock flights and learn how to pronounce words.
 
I too had a couple of students that didn't speak english so well. I would bite my tongue when ATC would say broken unreadable or make them repeat things. I had one actually go to another instrucotr(I syarted preparing for my airline interview) and the other stayed with me and improved. Before long, its pretty much a repeat of the same words they get used to it.

ie- ground cessna 12345 ready for taxi with Bravo

Tower cessna 12345 holding short 19L ready to go

over and over the same words and sentences, and eventually they begin to pick up on it. That may be a while for some students though.
 
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over and over the same words and sentences, and eventually they begin to pick up on it.

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Exactly.

Ever listen to the traffic that comes into JFK? Some are very hard to understand, and who knows, they probably don't even speak English more than the usual ATC phrases.

Oh yeah, not only JFK but places like LAX, etc, as well. I only referred to JFK since it's pretty much the major international hub which you can listen to online.
 
Well I was born in Brazil so english is my second language. But since I have been here in the US since I was little I can speak the language fluently. You will find that the older you get, the harder it is to learn a new language. Also, sometimes the accent will not go away.
 
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