Straight from the cockpit to the classroom: Flight Lieutenant Thongrath, Flight Lieutenant Pisit and Flying Officer Chatree prepare their presentations.

English for specific purposes

Wing 23, the Udon Thani arm of the Royal Thai Air force
has approached the Language Center, Udon Thani Rajabhat University
with a view to providing English language tuition
for pilots and support personnel

Last month saw the start of English language training for Wing 23 and the re-emergence of questions concerning courses such as this. My area of responsibility is for pilots and I share a course with one of my colleagues to provide 60 hours of training over a ten week period.

Who is the final customer? Is it the Commanding Officer of Wing 23 or is it the pilots who are my students? There always seems to be a conflict over what needs to be taught and what is requested by those holding the purse strings.

My directive from my line manager was to provide English language training concerned with military presentations and briefings; however, the pilots were much more interested in conversation skills and being able to fit into their peer groups from overseas. There was even a request for business English.

In my opinion, they both are the final customer. Both parties need to be satisfied from an educational and a business perspective.

The pilots of Wing 23

Pilots of Wing 23 are required to have a sound knowledge of English. They fly German Alpha jets, the operation manuals of which are printed in English. In addition, air traffic control throughout the world is also conducted in English, hence the integral importance of English for the Royal Thai Air force.

The pilots train for five years at the Royal Thai Air force Academy in Bangkok, and they receive English language training for the full term. I was most impressed with the progress of the students compared to when I taught the course nearly six years ago.

In the military, persons who do not excel at teamwork don't usually last very long as it is important to be a team player. This has made group work very easy to administer, and what has impressed me is the sense of humor and the eagerness of the students to complete tasks in the specified timeframe.

In my opinion, in Thailand teacher s and learners of English must have a good sense of humor in order to accept the making of mistakes and the correction of others in their class.

The lessons for these pilots are scheduled for when they have finished their training for the day. I find it interesting to think that once they have landed their jet and have been debriefed, they move en mass to the classroom for English lessons.

Course content and progress

To ensure that course requirements are fulfilled, I spend 70 percent of the lesson on military presentations and briefings and the remaining 30 percent on conversation skills. This ensures that I satisfy both sets of customers as well as my university.

All twenty pilots will participate in decision making and problem solving exercises to gather the information for briefings and presentations. After that, they will give individual presentations and briefings.

The conversation phase has proved very amusing, with many questions being fielded concerning meeting members of the opposite sex and why Americans don't understand football (soccer). The emphasis on Americans is due to the annual military exercises that are performed with the American armed forces. The pilots seemed to have no problems with conversations with their Singaporean counterparts; probably because there are more shared interests.

I believe that more can be done to further English language training for the Royal Thai Armed Forces to help military personnel to integrate with their foreign counterparts and promote Thailand as a country.

To quote one of the pilots who came out with a phrase not too dissimilar from a scene in the movie Stealth, "Hi, I'm James. I fly jets." I believe that this pilot is made of the right stuff.

Steve Graham is an English language teacher at the Language Center, Udon Thani Rajabhat University in northeast Thailand. If there are any comments or areas for debate that you would like to discuss, you can contact Steve at: shed_chelsea@hotmail.co.uk .