I was surprised many years ago when it dawned on me that in actual fact, the majority of pilots and controllers in the world do not speak English (or any variant thereof) as a first language, seconds after, the surprised wore off, and I actually realised that tha should have been obvious for much longer.
For the people that are on this thread that genuinely care about this subject, one of the best document to point you towards is this
http://caa.gateway.bg/upload/docs/9835_1_ed.pdf
Doc 9835 Manual on the
Implementation of ICAO
Language Proficiency
Requirements
This document was aimed at national bodies, training organisations, test centres and training departments within airlines, and it really is rather thorough.
By now, I have already used the word Centre and said "really is rather" so, no points for guesing where I am from! But, having lived out of the country for 3 years now, and working privately in the field of English for aviation, not just owning my own specialist school, but having also written on the subject in aviation magazines here (not in the letters page, but commissioned pieces), using my second language, Brazilian Portuguese, I feel that I can and should talk about the subject matter.
In the most part, the failing appears to be in instructing how to use English with second language speakers, many native speakers (of all languages) tend to assume that the second language speaker understands everything being said, because the first language speaker dominates the language. It is not true. As a part of a good language course, some time should be given to teaching some amount of cultural awareness and differences not only in accents, but in rythmn. These differences are not generally taught to pilots from the UK or from The States, I know that some specialist training is given to ATCOs and by some larger carriers. I teach in tamdem with an American teacher (from NC) (he has no aviation background, I am a pilot) it is important that our students have access to both forms of the language (many of my pilots operate weekly in and out of The States, my partner is invaluable to the process) However, when working on accents, and sound production we tend to push our students towards a more British way of speaking, this is due to no particular personal preference, but purely in a linguistic sense we agreed that many British English pronunciations make the Phonological awareness of the language for the student much easier to comprehend.
An 'old chesnut'
betty got a bit of butter v beddy go' bi' o' budder in the unlikely event of having to use that on the radio, the British accent is going to be better heard. It was not unommon to hear my pilot friends in the UK mimmicking the Continental pilots in jest when we drank in bars, flight clubs etc, Connenalwonofreewiffya .... With a small amount of training offered to the native speakers of such airines, it could be reinforced to the pilots the importance of some of the "lost" sounds on the airwaves.
An interesting point made by several ICAO docs with regards to ICAO assessment levels is that being a native speaker does not ensure that you would get level 6 in the test, some heavy regional accents from the UK, the states, Africa amd the carribean would only achieve a 5 or in some extreme cases a level 4.
The reason that this conversation appears to be going nowhere is the fact that both "sides" are not truely able to evaluate the system and seem to be stuck a little bit behind some false sense of national pride.
The sheer size of the USA and the relative volume of national traffic, has allowed for American RT to become more relaxed, in Europe, pilots are crossing borders every hour and meeting new accents, and dialects and as such, European pilots have a much more pressing need to follow the ICAO SARS than those domiciled in The USA. It is primarily the responsibility of ICAO and the FAA to address this, and to mandate the assessment of the individual airlines, and thus pilots communication skills, beyond what is neccesary to get an RT licence.
I hope that my script is coming accross fairly, and that neither nation feels picked upon here.
In keeping up with my objective approach, I am objectively pointing you to this famous video as a discussion point and not as a criticism of a specific nations controller
to what degree has the controller failed here? does his tone help an already flustered pilot? How could the controller have avoided this situation? There is a 2 way communication problem here, the pilot appears to have a poor comprehension of what is being asked, sure. Too what degree does tiredness, or dare I say fatigue also play a part here? I am fluent in Portuguese, but sometimes, first thing in the morning, I have some real comprehension problems, when I am pushed to answer something that I am still processing, I can give some bizarre responses too. My gut feeling is that if the controller took a breath, and repeated the question again, trying a second or third time in Standard Phraseology that the incident would have been over in 30 seconds and not in 106..........
It's getting late here, and it sounds like I have a nappy to change. I am very willing to discuss this subject more if anybody is interested in what I have to offer. If you have any questions or observations....... Please let me know
Thanks