ALIS & ESPIS Webinar: Investigating Target Tasks, Task Phases, and Indigenous Criteria for Military

Webinar hosted by the TESOL Applied Linguistics and English for Specific Purposes Interest Sections.
In response to growing concerns over aviation safety stemming from the limited command of aviation English by non-native English-speaking practitioners, ongoing efforts have been made to design and implement more appropriate aviation English tests in the civil aviation contexts. However, contrary to civil aviation contexts, relatively little research has been conducted on the military aviation contexts. As the first fundamental step towards the creation and ongoing development of a prototype of military aviation English tasks, this study investigates target aviation English tasks and task topics, which are the key aspects of the target language use situation in the military aviation context and provide outcomes from the task design analysis (TDA). Primary data include task-based needs analysis survey responses from 81 military air traffic controllers. The results reveal 40 target aviation English tasks over the four language skills, 14 task topics, task-centered rating criteria, and TDA outcomes - a task shell and a final blueprint for task-based military aviation English assessment. It is hoped that the demonstration of target task identification and design for aviation English assessment will contribute to the development of Language / English for Specific Purpose (LSP/ESP) testing.