Gullibell stated; -
"they arrive on the course with reasonable English, and that improves throughout their training. When they get in the cockpit of a passenger jet operating on International routes their comprehension of English is much better than the older generation Captains, and that makes it a safer crew when they understand what ATC and other occupants of the airspace are saying."
Good Grief!!!!!
You sure about that!!
For what it is worth I've been doing long haul international for more than a quarter of a century and that is NOT what is happening. The standard of english from countries where english is the second or more distant language is deteriorating rapidly. Controllers constantly correcting pilot read backs but still getting incorrect replies. An inordinate amount of time spent by controllers ensuring said pilots read back correctly.
In parts of the world where english is not their first language many incorrect read backs are just ignored by ATC and chaos ensues on a regular basis as aircraft and their pilots do what they would like to think they are cleared for but haven't been actually cleared for. Yet it is so obvious what is happening, I can say to the other crew members 'they didn't read that back correctly and ATC hasn't corrected them", this will cause at best consternation and at worst an incident or accident, and thats exactly what happens.