ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements — Rated Speech Samples

Language Proficiency Rating

General Remarks

The test taker is a generally effective and incisive speaker. His proficiency in enunciation and stress and his ability to interact naturally and idiomatically with the interlocutor are at ICAO Level 5. However, he does not possess the same level of proficiency in his other language proficiency skills which limit his discourse at times.

Pronunciation

The test taker is able to use English sounds, stress and intonation accurately:

• Well, I like this job, as I said before, and I like to, to, to do my job. I think this is the main thing, why I am in air traffic, air traffic control now. (02:11 - 02:23)

There are a few instances of misplaced word stress, unclear enunciation and mumbling:

• I like to uh, I like to work with a computer, now, may may be my mind is uh, you know, it's technical, not uh humanitarian. (06:55 - 07:09)

but these rarely interfere with communication and though influenced by his first language, on the whole the test taker's pronunciation is clear.

He is able to mimic the surprise of the hotel receptionist:

• the person uh on reception in my hotel was very surprised "Oh, is this, this is possible to do this?!" (06:03 - 06:10)

And use stress for emphasis:

• At school. First of all at school, and and 19, 1996 I spent a month in the [deleted]. And also I read a lot, I write in English a lot, using Internet, email. (02:27 - 02:44)

Structure

There are a number of recurring errors:

• I like uh, to feel myself, uh, to be responsible for the air, air traffic (00:41 - 00:47)
• give an advice (05:07 - 05:11)

and occasional problems with tenses:

• if unsuccessful, I call to to somebody (03:33 - 03:36)
• I give uhm some very useful uh advice uh on reception of my hotel, how they can find my baggage and they did and fortunately I get my baggage in airport. They find it. (04:34 - 04:55)
• I work with computers for the last uh 13 years. (06:44 - 06:50)
• so I think uh, in the short future, a lot of small company dies (07:16 - 07:24)

However, the test taker uses some very natural expressions:

• as I said before (00:37 - 00:39)
• what should I say (01:23 - 01:24)

and in general his meaning is understood.

Vocabulary

Despite the occasional error:

• so I think uh, in the short future (near future) (07:16 - 07:21)

the test taker's vocabulary range and accuracy are usually sufficient to communicate effectively and he can often paraphrase successfully when lacking vocabulary:

• smashed (01:43 - 01:44)
• unsuccessful (03:33 - 03:34)
• fix (04:23 - 04:24)
• hobby (06:41 - 06:42)

Fluency

Although the test taker is fairly hesitant, he does produce stretches of language at an appropriate tempo, e.g. when talking about:

• when he started to learn English (02:27 - 02:44)
• the problem of the lost skis (03:50 - 06:15)

His use of discourse markers is effective:

• In this case (03:05 - 03:06)

Fillers are not distracting.

Comprehension

Comprehension is consistently accurate. However, it is not possible to rate this test taker higher than 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, though not always immediate, are appropriate and very informative. He checks for understanding:

• Interlocutor: What is more important to you, a cell phone, or a computer? Test taker: Hm, more important for me? (06:15 - 06:28)

and manages the speaker/listener relationship well throughout the test.

Influence of the test format

The interlocutor's questions allow quite a few different subjects and registers to be addressed. However, the test format does not provide an opportunity to expose the test taker to a range of different accents and speech registers and so does not permit all the aspects of Comprehension on the ICAO Rating Scale to be assessed.