Maritime English syllabus for the modern seafarer: Safety-related or comprehensive courses?

Abstract

This article introduces some insights into the nature and features of maritime English and studies the effect of those on the future Maritime English syllabus. In this respect two approaches to the syllabus are highlighted: (a) the minimalist approach oriented to meet the minimum requirements the STCW Convention 1978/1995 (basically ensuring safe communication using appropriate parts of SMCP 2001), and (b) the extended approach within which Maritime English becomes a comprehensive educational subject within the overall Maritime Education and Training (MET) curriculum and ensures the future holder of a maritime academic degree efficient competence in English for conducting both sea and shore-based duties. To this end, the growing role and importance of General English within the Maritime English syllabus is emphasised. In order to be able to study the modern developments in Maritime English, a proposal is made for starting an international project of compiling and maintaining a web-based corpus of Maritime English, i.e. a textual and terminological database to be at the disposal of the students, Maritime English teachers and subject teachers in their research, learning and teaching activities. IntroductionThis article deals with some theoretical and practical aspects of syllabus design for Maritime English based on the nature of Maritime English, needs analysis and their relationship to the Maritime Education and Training (MET) system.Principally, two approaches to the study of the role of Maritime English in the overall syllabus for MET courses are traceable today:• the minimalist (i.e. training-oriented) approach, and • extended, i.e. comprehensive educational approach.In the minimalist approach Maritime English syllabus only covers the unavoidable minimum requirements imposed by the IMO STCW Convention 1978/1995 for seagoing certificates of competence and, partly, by the ISM Code. The knowledge of English and competence in Maritime English for officers of the watch in this category are highly restricted in their scope and contents to the important task of the safety of

Issues Affecting Selection and Evaluation of ESP Teaching Materials

“…A comprehensive course book for Maritime English that would satisfy all above mentioned requirements is not available on the market and considering the complexity of the subject, we must admit that it would be quite impossible to produce one. The main reasons for limitations of available course books are stated by Pritchard (2003) in his articles "Survey of Maritime English Teaching Materials" and "A Databank of Maritime English resources -An invitation for contributions" (Pritchard, 2004:3):…”

‘I See You on My Radar’: Displays of the Confirmatory Form in Maritime Technologically Mediated Interaction

“…Previous maritime studies have investigated maritime navigation and communication (Hutchins, 1990(Hutchins, , 1991(Hutchins, , 1995Strevens and Johnson 1983;Strevens 1984;Weeks et al, 1988;MARCOM Project, 1999;Bøgh Andersen, 2000;Pritchard and Kalogjera 2000;Pritchard, 2003;Johnson, 2002;Bailey et al, 2006;Froholdt, 2008Froholdt, , 2009Froholdt, , 2010Froholdt, , 2011bWeeks, 1992) and ship and land-based 471 C 2015 The Author. The Sociological Review C 2015 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review radio interaction (MARCOM Project, 1999;Bruno and Lutzhoft, 2010;Froholdt, 2008Froholdt, , 2010Froholdt, , 2011aFroholdt, , 2011b.…”

The Language of Seafaring: Standardized Conventions and Discursive Features in Speech Communications

“…It has been estimated that almost 90% of crews having English as their working language are not native speakers of English (Johnson, 1999;Pritchard, 2003a), that more than nine out of ten shipping industry professionals are non-native speakers of English (Trenkner, 2000) and that over 60% (Kahveci & Sampson, 2001) of the world's fleet are manned and operate with mixed crews so that even a dozen (or even more) different nationalities with a dozen different languages may be together aboard ship or at a shore-based station (Kahveci & Sampson, 2001;Short, 2006).…”

“…From the time the SMNV was in force until very recently, different authors have complained about the little use of these phrases in real-life situations and claim further investigation into this particular issue (De la Campa, 2007;De la Campa et al, 2007;Díaz Pérez, 2002Johnson, 1995Johnson, & 1999Olaru, 1996;Pritchard, 2000Pritchard, , 2003aPritchard, & 2003bPritchard & Kalogjera, 2000;Squire, 2006;Trenkner, 2005) at the same time they urge shipping companies and ship owners, rather than training institutions, to bind their crew to such standardized language and procedures. Works like those by De la Campa et al (2007) or Pritchard and Kalogjera (2000), based on corpora of authentic VHF communications recordings, evidence a wide gap between the formal requirements of standardized VHF verbal communications and everyday English as used in real maritime situations.…”

“…Standardized verbal marine communications are depicted as a formal, or even highly formal, register, especially if they concern safety of navigation (Pritchard, 2003a). Standardized messages and phrases show both general and specific discursive features characterized by the use of particular terminology and instances of language use in view of reducing the time of verbal communications and constructing short, clear and precise messages just focused on particular events or relevant information to the seafaring episode.…”