From 2008~2015 Beat Australia worked diligently to provide Narita International Airport and its Ramp Control staff with a tailor made language program dedicated to the aviation industry.

In the beginning the program was based around a broad range of aviation language topics with an overall focus vocabulary practice and function.

From this humble start the program developed extensively to provide all Ramp Controllers with a more specific language learning environment dedicated to their work functions at Japan’s leading international airport.

Beat Australia structured the program to allow all Ramp Controllers to practice and develop the dominant language functions in Pilot-Controller dialogue with follow up course work to be completed online through the BAELO program.

These functions were practiced in topics, almost exclusively related to aviation to ensure that the vocabulary learnt and practiced would be relevant to the learner broader work context.

Functions included:

Listening skills: Low acoustic quality, regional accents, unexpectedness.

Speaking skills: Concise but not ambiguous, alternate phraseology and plain language, alternate use of English, sensitivity to register.

Cognition skills: Memorization, rapid response, multi-tasking.

Relational skills: Co-operation, problem solving, conflict resolution and negotiation.

In addition the program aimed to develop the learner’s receptive and productive knowledge of general English within the context of aviation and was designed using the following guidelines.

We endevoured to practice the four dominant language functions in air traffic controller and pilot dialogue,

- triggering actions,


- sharing information,


- managing the dialogue,


- and managing the pilot-controller relationship.