We’re delighted to announce that the Department of Linguistics and English Language, in partnership with Latitude Aviation English Services, has been awarded Accelerating Business Collaboration funding to research spoken English for successful flight training.

Led by Prof Tineke Brunfaut and Dr Olena Rossi and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the research will focus on data generated from Latitude’s Checkpoint web-based assessment of English language proficiency for student selection and admission along with analysis of flight training courseware and interviews with flight instructors. Latitude will use the knowledge exchange to support the refinement of the speaking component of Checkpoint to bring enhanced measures of spoken language proficiency to their customers worldwide.

Accelerating Business Collaboration is an ESRC-funded initiative designed to enable postgraduate and early career researchers in the social sciences to successfully collaborate with non-Higher Education partners through research. The Department of Linguistics and English Language is pleased to build on their long-standing relationship with Latitude in the area of language testing to inform good-quality aviation English assessments.