Improve your Aviation English Grammar – Sequencing Events

22/11/2010 in Aviation English, English for Aircraft Engineers, English for ATCs, English for Cabin Crew, English for Cadet Pilots, English for Ground Staff, General English
Tags: Aviation English, Aviation English in Hong Kong, CX ICAO English test, grammar, past perfect, past simple, sequencing events

Advice about improving your Aviation English and passing an ICAO English test from Aviation English Asia.

Article written by Michael James Egerton

In this article we are going to look at past tenses, and how they can be used to indicate the sequence of events.  We will then look at an example of how they can be used to report an aviation incident, followed by some Aviation English exercises. Using past tenses correctly (and intelligibly so that people understand what you mean) is very important when working with checklists and when reporting information.  You will also find this exercise to be very useful if you have to report information about a video or recording as part of an ICAO English test.

Learn English as it is used in an aviation context

Take a look at the following sentences:

1. The captain told him to pull out the quick reference handbook and run the checklist.
2. The aircraft had just leveled off at its cruise altitude of 35,000 ft. when the master caution lit up.
3. The first officer did so and the flight proceeded uneventfully.
4. The first officer canceled the warning, scanned the overhead panel, and said, “We have a bleed failure.”

Emergency and abnormal situations such as these occur onboard aircraft every day. They range from life- threatening and highly time-critical to mundane and relatively trivial. Sometimes these situations can be anticipated so pilots have checklists to help them.

Aviation English Exercise 1:

• What tenses are used in each of the sentences?
• What is the correct order of the sentences?
• What clues are in each sentence to help you find the correct order?
• What other “time phrases” are used?

Structure

There are two tenses used in the sentences above – past simple and past perfect. Here is a description of the function of each:

Past simple is used to talk about

• actions that are complete in the past – eg The first officer cancelled the warning
• a specific time in the past (possibly at the same time as another event) – eg The aircraft was at 35,00 ft when the master caution lit up.
• a sequence of events – eg He canceled the warning, scanned the overhead panel, and said, “We have a bleed failure.”

Past perfect is used to talk about

• completed action in the earlier past – eg The aircraft had just levelled off at its cruise altitude of 35,000 ft. when the master caution lit up.
• duration before something in the past

Aviation English Exercise 2:

Think about the procedures you would follow if there was a fire on board the aircraft.  Then consider how such an event could be reported.  Look at the following sentences and reorganise them into the correct order.  The correct answers will be posted on our Facebook Page Discussion Forum.

1. Thick, black smoke billowed everywhere.
2. Despite the reduced visibility in the cockpit and the loss of the displays and systems, the crew completed a successful emergency landing and all passengers were evacuated without injury.
3. The long flight had been uneventful until the aircraft was 240 miles from its destination—then everything seemed to go wrong at once.
4. Electrical systems began to fail and the glass cockpit displays flickered off and on randomly for over two minutes before going completely black.
5. A small fire in the front galley could not be extinguished.

Aviation English Vocabulary

Make sure you are familiar with the following words:

billowed  visibility   evacuated   uneventful   flickered   extinguished

You should be able to guess their meaning from context, but if not you can also find their synonyms on the Facebook Page Discussion Forum.

What to do next

For feedback and more information about Aviation English Asia’s courses please visit http://aviationenglish.com. We can help you improve your English whether you are an experienced pilot, a cadet entry pilot, a controller, aerospace engineer or flight attendant, with custom courses designed specifically for your needs. If you haven’t already please join the Aviation English mailing list for instant access to free demonstration units of the ICAO Aviation English Online course, special offers and details of courses in your area.

Of course, feel free to leave a comment or even a suggestion for a future article. We value all of your feedback.

Understanding past tenses – plain English for pilots and ATCs

10/04/2010 in Aviation English, English for ATCs, English for Cadet Pilots
Tags: Aviation English, Aviation English in Hong Kong, CX ICAO English test, english learning tips, grammar, hypoxia, icao english test, learning advice, listening, past continuous, past perfect, past perfect continuous, past simple, pronunciation

English learning advice from Aviation English Asia.

Article written by Michael Egerton

In this article we are going to explore the use of past tenses in English, by examining an incident that  happened unexpectedly during flight.  Tenses are an essential part of plain English, as you can use tenses to indicate the time and sequence that something happened.  At ICAO level 4 the requirements for structure are that:

Basic grammatical structures and sentence patterns are used creatively and are usually well controlled. Errors may occur, particularly in unusual or unexpected circumstances, but rarely interfere with meaning.

Relevant grammatical structures are determined by language functions appropriate to the task.  This means that you need to be proficient in grammatical structures that are used in flight operations.  It is expected that you will make some grammatical errors eg such errors that could occur in non-routine situations, but the meaning is generally understood.

This article includes short exercises for comprehension, structure, vocabulary and pronunciation.  The tenses examined include:

• Past simple
• Past continuous
• Past perfect
• Past perfect continuous

Activity

Credit: HouieLouy

Watch the above video then answer the following questions.

Comprehension questions

Are the following statements true or false?

1. The incident happened in the USA.
2. There was a problem with the pilot’s microphone.
3. The controller declared an emergency.
4. The pilot was slurring his speech because he was drunk.
5. The pilot requested vectors for Cincinatti.
6. The pilot was suffering from hypoxia
7. The pilot couldn’t control the altitude, speed or heading.
8. The aircraft crashed in Athens, Greece in 2005.

You can email your answers to exercise@aviationenglish.asia and we’ll give you some feedback.  Now let’s take a look at some of the structures used in an account of the incident.

Structure – past simple and past perfect

Past simple is used to talk about complete actions in the past.  Past perfect is used to talk about an earlier past (except when it is part of a logical sequence).  Read the following text and answer the questions.

Flight KFS-66 was enroute at approximately FL320 and had just checked-in with Cleveland’s Air Route Traffic Control Centre, when the controller noticed the microphone of KFS-66 was continuously keyed.

• Which of the above words are verbs, adjectives and adverbs?
• Which of the above phrases describe “short actions”?
• Which of the above phrases describe states or conditions?
• In what order did the above events occur?

Structure – past continuous and past simple

Past continuous is used to talk about a long action at a specific time in the past or an action at a specific time in the past that gets interrupted by something.

While the primary controller was trying (with the aid of a second pilot in another aircraft) to understand what the crew were reporting, his colleague Stephanie Bevins tuned the radio frequency and recognised that the crew were suffering from severe hypoxia.

• Which of the above are long actions and which are short actions?
• Draw a timeline to show the sequence of events.
• What is the difference between using while and when?

Structure – past simple and past perfect continuous

Past perfect continuous is used to talk about (a) something started in the past and continued up until another time in the past, or (b) the cause of something in the past.

The airplane descended to 11000 feet, where the crew of the Learjet recovered and began to respond normally again.  They subsequently confirmed that they had been suffering from hypoxia.  The airplane continued to Detroit’s Willow Run Airport, where it landed safely.

• Are all the events in the above paragraph related in chronological order?
• Why does the paragraph use had been suffering instead of were suffering?

Vocabulary

• report
• suffer
• recover
• descend
• recognise
• key
• confirm
• en route
• check-in
• hypoxia

Which of the above words mean:

• a deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues
• an act of reporting one’s presence
• to return to a normal state
• during the course of a journey
• to state that something said previously is correct
• to move downwards
• to give a spoken or written account of something
• to enter or operate
• to experience something unpleasant
• to acknowledge the existence of something

Pronunciation

How do you say the following verbs in their past simple form?

• report
• suffer
• recover
• descend
• recognise
• key
• confirm
• check-in

What sound do the verbs end in – /d/ /t/ or /id/ ?

What you should do next

For feedback and more information about Aviation English Asia’s courses please visit http://aviationenglish.com. We can help you improve your English whether you are an experienced pilot, a cadet entry pilot, a controller, engineer or flight attendant, with custom courses designed specifically for your needs.  If you haven’t already please join the Aviation English mailing list for instant access to free demonstration units of the ICAO Aviation English Online course, special offers and details of courses in your area.