English for specific purposes for aviation management trainees: Course evaluation and development / Reshminder Kaur Satvindar Singh
A strong aviation management system depends on the efficient communications and coordination skills of aviation management (AVM) personnel. To illustrate this point, the management of air traffic, airport, airline, and cargo requires AVM personnel to demonstrate the ability for professional use o...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15621/1/Reshminder_Kaur.pdf http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15621/2/Reshminder_Kaur.pdf http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15621/ |
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| Summary: | A strong aviation management system depends on the efficient communications and
coordination skills of aviation management (AVM) personnel. To illustrate this point, the
management of air traffic, airport, airline, and cargo requires AVM personnel to
demonstrate the ability for professional use of English when communicating to manage
the operations of local and international air transport system. Notably, AVM personnel
proficiency in English does not only determine the personnel’s competency in this
language, but it also allows skilled communication in this specialised field. This condition
is vital due to the role of English as the lingua franca, which connects the aviation
stakeholders from different regions and parts of the globe with diverse languages, slangs,
and accents. Although English courses are compulsory courses that are included in most
AVM training programmes in Malaysia, whether the courses equip trainees with the
proficiency and required language skills remains questionable. Hence, AVM personnel’s
views and opinions should be investigated to determine the needs for English among the
AVM trainees, including the importance of specialised training and English proficiency
assessment as a measurement to gauge and enhance trainees’ ability to communicate
professionally before joining the aviation industry in the future. Comprehensive TSA and
PSA were initiated to investigate the gaps between the current English courses and the
actual needs of AVM trainees to explore the suitable approach in teaching, materials to
be adopted, and assessment criteria to measure the graduates’ proficiency before
graduating. The research employed an exploratory design due to the importance of
qualitative methods. Besides, the study was the first study that involved aviation
management personnel. The findings obtained from the analysis were triangulated to
develop materials and syllabus for the proposed curriculum, which was validated by
stakeholders of the programme. The final stage involved determining the types of oral
and written assessments, including the minimum acceptable criteria for AVM trainees
based on the findings gathered and aligned with the ICAO English language requirement
set for aviation personnel. It was indicated from the findings that the ELT for AVM
trainees should adopt the ESP approach, with a specific focus on task-based training and
assessment. Similarly, the inclusion of authentic materials is crucial to expose AVM
trainees to the language skills required besides developing the trainees’ ability to use
appropriate aviation language functions and vocabulary. The results of the evaluation and validation of the proposed ESP curriculum suggested that the curriculum designed for the
aviation management trainees should meet the programme learning requirement and be
implemented to replace the current GE course.
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