Language training meets crew demand
EAST Asia is increasingly seen as a rich source of crew for an industry reliant on continuous supplies. However, English language difficulties still prove to be a hurdle for many aspiring seafarers from the region.
Responsible ship operators are now loath to employ crews falling short of the required standards. The region's perceived linguistic inadequacy is therefore limiting the opportunities for an otherwise obvious supply solution.
This is where specialised English language training comes in. Tasmania-based Valerie Short, director of International English Services and member of the Association of Maritime Education and Training Institutions in Asia Pacific, told Fairplay: "The need for seafarers to be competent in oral English has been recognised for many years but where English is a second or foreign language, this need has often not been addressed adequately during training, so seafarers, often excellent in every other respect, have gone to sea lacking this vital skill."
She emphasises that in today's competitive crewing market, poor English proficiency cannot be overlooked, particularly when faced with competency levels required by the STCW 95 convention. "These standards of English competence, knowledge and understanding are very explicit in the requirements for watch-keeping officers, both on the ship's bridge and in the engine room."
Short believes that more emphasis should be placed on the importance of upgrading the content of maritime English syllabuses in the region, as well as improving training strategies to encompass the concept of teaching English across the curriculum. She initiated the first Maritime English course for overseas students at the Australian Maritime College in 1991 and went on to introduce teacher training and maritime English programmes at a number of maritime educational facilities in the Asia Pacific region, including Vladivostok, Hong Kong, Dalian and Shanghai.
She told Fairplay that another basic challenge to improving English language proficiency within the industry lay in locating enough technically proficient language trainers. "In maritime education, instructors are usually ex-seafarers with no training in teaching while 'English' teaching staff, mostly women, have backgrounds in literature or linguistics, yet are now being transferred into maritime and technical English without any preparatory training".
IMO's 'Standard Marine Communication Phrases' - expected to be introduced into maritime training centres world-wide, early next year - are comprehensive in providing standardised English used in communication for navigating at sea, in port approaches, waterways, harbours and on board vessels. "But training seafarers to use them appropriately requires considerable imaginative skill, knowledge of ships and their operation, maritime terminology and emergency situations," she adds. "It is understandable then that where trainers are not even teaching oral skills in maritime English, the language in the 'Standard Marine Communication Phrases' presents a considerable challenge."
Last year, Short accepted invitations to set up English teaching improvement programmes at Shanghai Maritime University and Dalian Maritime University in China. The experience alerted her to the absence of teaching oral maritime English to competent levels and an over-reliance on language laboratory aids.
"Listening to and repeating pre-programmed phrases of general English does not equate with the levels of competency required by STCW 95 in understanding and speaking English and 'effective communication in the execution of shipboard duties' as defined in the ISM code," she states.
The training programmes encourage participants to work 'coop-eratively together'. Short notes the new learning strategy generated considerable enthusiasm from the English teaching staff and their colleagues instructing in technical matters, such as navigation, engineering, cargo handling, meteorology, electrical and communications.
"As technical staff educated the English teachers, they, in turn assisted their colleagues in improving pronunciation and fluency; explaining basic principles, such as sonar and radar, required close liaison between the teachers, leading to understanding authentic shipping terminology and the English commonly used aboard ships."
In a crisis, people panic in their own language, so it is essential that seafarers learn to communicate fluently in maritime English before they go to sea, she notes. "It is now vital that other maritime training centres in the Asia Pacific region follow the example of Dalian and Shanghai maritime universities in providing English training across the curriculum for their teaching staff." She emphasises: "Where orders must be given and obeyed in rapid succession, often using radio telephones, checking ship's damage, fighting fires, launching life-boats and equipment or abandoning ship, there is no time for repetition."
