Location

Hotel Neptun - Dubrovnik, Coatia

Presentation Type

Presentation

Start Date

24-4-2017 11:05 AM

End Date

24-4-2017 11:20 AM

Description

In 2008, in response to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Language Proficiency Requirements (LPRs), the flight training organisation Oxford Aviation Academy and the aviation English service provider Emery-Roberts set out to jointly develop the English Test for Aviation (ETA), an English Language Proficiency test for commercial pilots. The ETA was launched in 2010 and was the first test to achieve conditional ICAO endorsement in 2012, though ceased operations in early 2013. Section 1 of this paper describes the development of the ETA and the business plan for test roll-out. Section 2 describes and discusses the regulatory, commercial and practical challenges that the owners of the ETA faced with the development, maintenance and distribution of the ETA which eventually led to the withdrawal of the ETA from the market in 2013. Then, taking the ETA as a case study, section 3 discusses the state-of-the-art of aviation language testing, and presents the case that, in the current climate, weak regulation allows poor testing to thrive and commercial interests to prevail over test quality with the result that validity and reliability remain worryingly absent in aviation language testing today.

Comments

View Henry Emery's Bio Page

Workshop C

Presentation_Henry.pdf (11772 kB)
PowerPoint Presentation

Presentation_Henry_Optimized.pdf (3869 kB)
PowerPoint Presentation, Optimized for faster download

Workshop C_ICAEA_DBV2017_S1_C_Workshop_Commercial-aviation-language-testing-barriers-to-success.pdf (473 kB)
Workshop Presentation

Share

COinS
 
Apr 24th, 11:05 AM Apr 24th, 11:20 AM

Commercial aviation language testing: Barriers to success? A case study

Hotel Neptun - Dubrovnik, Coatia

In 2008, in response to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Language Proficiency Requirements (LPRs), the flight training organisation Oxford Aviation Academy and the aviation English service provider Emery-Roberts set out to jointly develop the English Test for Aviation (ETA), an English Language Proficiency test for commercial pilots. The ETA was launched in 2010 and was the first test to achieve conditional ICAO endorsement in 2012, though ceased operations in early 2013. Section 1 of this paper describes the development of the ETA and the business plan for test roll-out. Section 2 describes and discusses the regulatory, commercial and practical challenges that the owners of the ETA faced with the development, maintenance and distribution of the ETA which eventually led to the withdrawal of the ETA from the market in 2013. Then, taking the ETA as a case study, section 3 discusses the state-of-the-art of aviation language testing, and presents the case that, in the current climate, weak regulation allows poor testing to thrive and commercial interests to prevail over test quality with the result that validity and reliability remain worryingly absent in aviation language testing today.

 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.