English Language Proficiency

[Awful_Charlie]

Folks

This is mainly addressed to those pilots who have an EASA licence. I have the attention of a man in the European Commission who I am having a dialogue with regarding the English Language Proficiency (ELP) qualification. If you have a couple of minutes, I would be most interested in hearing from you (PM or e-mail if you don't want to post it here) with your answers/views about this.

Specifically:

1. What is the state/organisation of your licence issuer (eg France/DGAC or Germany/LBA)
2. Do you have an ELP statement on your licence?
3. If yes, what level, and what did it involve to get? (I'm talking about the admin/exams, not how you learnt English, eg travel 4 hours to exam centre, take 2 hour exam, overnight accomodation, days off work)
4. If no, what reasons do you have for not having it? (eg my English isn't good enough, too difficult to get to an exam centre, too expensive for the number of times I will use it)

We are looking at trying to remove some of the pain for getting the qualification, not to remove the requirement or the knowledge required, so your experience and thoughts would be most useful - numbers are good too, so think of travel time and costs, as well as the organisation problems of getting a qualified person, scheduling time off work and so on

Thanks in advance

Ben

[ncdmtb]

Hi Ben,

In addition to my FAA ticket I received my EASA PPL from Germany/LBA (did not convert my CPL or IR though.) I have level 6 on my license. I was awarded this based on a verbal "test"/conversation, in addition to supplying them with my transcripts from US universities proving that I completed undergrad and grad work in English. Keep in mind I am also a US citizen.

 

Good luck!

 

-Nick

[Piloto]

I found that speaking fluent English does not guarantee communication in English into small airports in foreign countries, specially in Latin America. Like in many countries the language most spoken over the radio is the native language. Even though they will reply to you in English other conversation may be in a different language. This could be a limitation because the other pilots may be reporting weather conditions (turbulence, ceiling, etc.) that you are unable to understand. In Spanish many of the terms used are maritime terms such as "proa" (bow) for airplane nose. It sounds funny to say  nose because it implies the one on your face. Also "Faro" (lighthouse) is used for VOR or NDB. "Apunte proa a faro de San Fernando" means fly direct to San Fernando NDB. Even in the continent not every country uses the same phrases.

https://foxhugh.com/spanish/232-spanish-aeronauticsaviation-terminology/

Buen Viaje

José

[MV Aviation]

Hi again Ben,

1. I'm holding a standalone EASA PPL IR issued by LBA based on a FAA PPL IR.
2. I do have German level 6 and English level 4 on my license.
3. I did the level 4 during the conversion process of my license from FAA to EASA. Therefore there was no extra effort except the initial level 4 test (1h total, listening to audio tracks, answering questions and a brief conversation with the examiner) for about 100 something €. So no extra travel, ...
4. Despite the fact that I've done all my training in the US (PPL and IR), I was doing research at VT for half a year. Thus, one could imagine that I'm capable of at least level 4. However, they (LBA) don't accept that in order to give me L4 automatically. I haven't done the L6 exam yet, mostly due to lack of time. My L4 is valid until 2018. But I'll do the L6 for sure next time. I personally think it's ridiculous to force people to do L4 exams with examiners who often are less capable of English than I am. And 300-350€ for a L6 is way too much as well in my opinion.

Best,

Marco

[Jerry 5TJ]

If you want to see a perfect and tragic example of an ATC 'tower of Babel' read the voice recorder transcript of Polish AF 101 crash from 2010.  The various on-air conversations were in Russian, Polish, English and a bit of Ukrainian.   There was a fair amount of "what did he say?" taking place.

[Awful_Charlie]

Thanks for the responses so far - they all help, particularly Marco's experience.

We are well aware of the controller problem, and this also exists in commercial cockpits too, so anything we do to make the examination/test more accessible will be limited to PPL level until there is some experience. What we are looking to address is time, money and the hassle factor for recreational flyers, which I hear exists, but have a lack of concrete real world cases for.

AF101 is unfortunately not an isolated case, so there is no way a drop in the level or requirement will be accepted by the lawmakers, but if it was as easy as getting your SEP renewed/revalidated then I suspect we can make GA more useful as a travel tool, and if that increases aircraft and airport utilisation, then everybody (apart for the anti flight brigade) benefits

[Guest]

On June 2, 2016 at 3:25 PM, Hyett6420 said:

Personally i think it starts at school and i dont mean flight school.   Take Holland and Scandanavia, every child is taught english to conversational level, EVERY SINGLE ONE.  While i cannot speak for Latin America, I think in Europe we need to make sure that every child is taught English the way it is in Holland and Scandanavia, so that every child can enter Aviation or any other industry (medicine, science etc) where English is used as the 'de-facto' language with out any barriers in the way.  

In the UK we are taught French, one or two lessons a week,totally useless, while in Holland it is two lessons a day etc.  I dont know any Dutch childmwho cannot speak English.  Soon they will probably speak Cantonese.

Once we get that cracked at low level then we wont be worrying about fixing it at high level.  

Andrew

We have vacationed in Curaçao many times, there all elementary children are fluent in 4 languages.  If small Caribbean countries can do it, what's holding us back?

Clarence

[RLCarter]

I agree with Piloto, I am on the Mexican/Texas border, there are several dialects depending where in Mex and then there is TexMex (half and half) spoken on the border. I've heard a stressed out Mexican pilot that spoke fluent English earlier go straight to Spanish as things got worse, ATC spoke no Spanish so a local pilot (US) fluent in both got things calmed down enough that the Mex Pilots English came back and they were able to get him to the airport and on the ground. 

[ArtVandelay]

It's tough to learn a language in school, you need to be immersed by having those around you speaking the language, those in multilingual environment have an advantage

[terbang]

I'm holding a CPL/IR issued by LBA (Germany) with LP6 English and German. It took me the following steps to get it:

1. PPL (in 2006): according to German regulations you need a radio operator certificate. You need to pass an exam to get it. There are three flavours: VFR German only (BZF I), VFR English/German (BZF II)  and IFR (AZF) which is English only. With the PPL I took the VFR English/German exam.

2. When the European requirement that the LP has to be specified in the license came into effect, proof of the passed exam was enough to get English LP 4. 

3. Start of IFR training (in 2008): I took the exam for the IFR radio operator certificate.

4. In 2009 I took a test that was organized by AOPA Germany in Egelsbach to get LP 6 in English. I didn't prepare for the exam and at that time I was flying out of Egelsbach, so it was not much effort.

5. At some point LBA decided that German nationals who self-declare that they do speak German (just short of an affidavit) will get German LP 6 written in their license.