ISCA Archive SLaTE 2009
ISCA Archive SLaTE 2009

CLIMB LEVEL 4 - teaching English for aviation safety

Maxine Eskenazi, Gary Pelton

Many aviation accidents and near misses have been caused by mis-communications between pilots and air traffic controllers. As part of their efforts to remediate this situation, the international air safety organization, ICAO, has mandated that all pilots and air traffic controllers pass English fluency tests by the end of 2011. Due to the nomadic nature of their job, pilots need non-classroom English training to pass these tests. Carnegie Speech Company has released, in cooperation with Mayflower College of England, a product called Climb Level 4 (www.climb-level4.com) that trains pilots and air traffic controllers to be more fluent English speakers.