Evidence-based Approaches to ESP Learning and Training: A Collaborative Approach in Aviation English

Technological advances in neurolinguistic methodologies (e.g. eye-tracking and brain imaging) are becoming increasingly accessible, creating more opportunities for effective research collaborations on ESP (English for Specific Purposes) teaching and training. In this talk, we will showcase new data from a collaborative research project on standardized Aviation phraseology (Aviation English) employing some of these technologies.

We present results from a novel series of sentence processing tasks combined with electrophysiological measurements of brainwave activity (EEG). These tasks were designed together by an Aviation English expert and a neurolinguist with the aim of eliciting hard data that shows how violations to standardized phraseology affect linguistic processing. During language processing, as a spoken sentence unfolds, the listener is not only processing individual words but also forming predictions about what comes next- this is based on specific cues in the utterance. One type of brain response to a linguistic violation is the N400, a response that reflects a violation of semantic expectations. In our tasks, we presented pilots with legal (1a, standard phraseology) and illegal (1b, nonstandard phraseology) utterances and measured responses to these uttterances:

1a) Climb and MAINTAIN four thousand feet.

1b) Climb and *STAY AT four thousand feet.

In trial behavioural testing, we found that utterances containing violations to standardized language (as the type in 1b) elicited the same inhibiting effect on processing as conditions involving an additional memory load. This provides evidence that hearing non-standard phraseology hampers linguistic processing and task proficiency, lending support to the reasoning for using standard phraseology in the normal operational aviation environment. We argue that such quantitative evidence can not only inform how ESPs are handled during linguistic processing but can also ultimately lead to faster advancements in the language teaching and training industry.