ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements — Rated Speech Samples

Language Proficiency Rating

General Remarks

The test taker's overall ability is generally characteristic of Level 4. However the cases where his enunciation of individual words or whole phrases interferes with comprehension are so frequent that he can not be given 4 for Pronunciation and as a result he must be considered a Level 3. This is an example of a speaker who could easily reach Level 4 by focusing on this one specific aspect of his language.

Pronunciation

There are many occasions when this test taker's enunciation interferes with ease of understanding, obliterating certain words:

• The cabin, uh, the cabin crew, uh, how/had(?) to deal with this passenger, maybe to uh, to keep it, uh, keep him quiet in a, on a seat uh (02:54 - 03:13)
• Hm, yes, when I was air traffic controller in [deleted] *** (airport) I have to uh, to *** some aircraft uh, with uh, uh very ill uh passengers like a heart break uh, *** aircraft the crew they have an answer. (03:21 - 03:51)
• I have to, to call the, depends on the *** (the fire man or ?) the technician, the the people are working on the runway with a fire coat, or to try to catch the, the dog (03:57 - 04:17)
• No, I don't think it is a good idea because uh, uh if uh there is a gun onboard, uh, the air marshal uh, maybe wants uh use uh, use his gun, and uh, this uh, uh this is really uh, ***, it is very dangerous to have a gun onboard (06:49 - 07:23)

His native language has an effect on his stress patterns in English that does not interfere significantly with ease of understanding:

• photographer, mountains (01:48 - 01:59)

Structure

The test taker is able to self correct:

• I was first a technician and I have to, I had to take and pass uh some professional exams (00:49 - 00:58)

and basic grammatical structures are sometimes well controlled:

• My job as a air traffic controller is to provide a separation between the aircraft and to accelerate, accelerate the traffic (00:03 - 00:11)
• It took me uh 15 uh years to to become uh air traffic controllers. (00:43 - 00:49)
• uh, would like to be a photographer, photographer, uh (01:47 - 01:52)
• Hm, people can communicate uh, with the people *** all over the world, and uh, we can uh, and we can move uh, faster and faster, and its uh much cheaper (08:38 - 08:54)

However, this is not always the case:

• I, am an air traffic controller now, for hm, 15 years (00:59 - 01:07)
• I have to, to look after him uh, or to catch him uh with me to, don't let him crossing the *** (05:06 - 05:11)
• I explain him to, to try to, explain him with uh handles what he, what he wants (05:58 - 06:07)
• No, I don’t think it is a good idea because uh, uh if uh there is a gun onboard, uh the air marshal uh, maybe wants uh use uh, use his gun, and uh, this uh (06:49 - 07:09)
• Uh, yes, of course there is too many planes uh in some uh area, ***, ***, at some harbours, ***, you have to, to regulate and to think about, about (07:32 - 07:50)

though these rarely interfere with meaning.

Vocabulary

Although there are errors when talking about more general topics:

• with uh, uh very ill uh passengers like a heart break (heart attack or heart condition) uh (03:33 - 03:40)
• I have to, to look after him, or to catch (keep) him uh with me to (05:06 - 05:16)
• I explain him to, to try to, explain him with uh handles (my hands) what he, what he wants (05:58 - 06:07)

vocabulary associated with aviation is appropriate:

• divert (02:31 - 02:33)
• technician (04:05 - 04:07)
• holding pattern (04:30 - 04:31)

and the test taker successfully finds a way to explain himself when he cannot find a particular expression. For example, when talking about finding new routes in congested air routes:

• Uh, yes, of course there is too many planes uh in some uh area, ***, ***, at some harbours, ***, you have to, to regulate and to think about, about uh ***, how can I explain this, to, to rethink about uh the route from uh, from place to place, because of some uh routes some are very crowded. So you have to rethink, to think of of new sectorization (07:32 - 08:27)

Fluency

The test taker speaks relatively slowly throughout the tests but at no time does this prevent effective communication. He uses a limited number of discourse markers and the fillers he uses are not distracting.

Comprehension

Comprehension is almost consistently accurate; only on two occasions does he have to ask the interlocutor to repeat a question:

• Interlocutor: You have locked yourself out of your house. What do you do? Test taker: Sorry? (05:17 - 05:22)
• Interlocutor: There has been talk of introducing air marshals onboard flights. Do you think this is a good idea? Test taker: I didn't understand the (question) (06:32 - 06:43)

He manages this successfully each time. However, it is not possible to rate this test taker higher than a Level 4 because of the limitations of the test in respect of testing dialect and/or accent or registers, or being confronted with a linguistic or situational complication or an unexpected turn of events.

Interactions

The test taker's responses are usually immediate, appropriate and informative and for the most part he manages to maintain the topic under discussion. There are also occasions when he successfully asks for clarification (see Comprehension).

Influence of the test format

The test format allows for a very large number of topics and multiple questions to be addressed. It also features face to face communication and communication without eye contact. Nevertheless, it does not provide a range of different accents and as a result does not permit all the aspects of Comprehension on the ICAO Rating Scale to be assessed.