Subject: Looking for Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers...Do You Know
Any?


Ordinate and Harcourt Assessment are looking for commercial pilots and
air traffic controllers from all over the world to help develop a new
tool for assessing English language proficiency.  The Versant Aviation
English Test will help airlines assure that pilots and air traffic
controllers are fluent enough in English to understand directions being
given, especially on international flights.

The Versant Aviation English Test is being developed in conjunction with
the FAA, and is designed to measure spoken English ability of non-native
pilots and air traffic controllers using International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) phraseologies and common English.

Pilots and air traffic controllers who have English as a second
language, as well as native speakers of English, are needed to
participate so there will be a diversity of languages represented in the
sample.

If you have friends or family members who are pilots or air traffic
controllers, please ask them to participate.  If you have business
associates in the airline business who might be willing to test a large
number of pilots or air traffic controllers in exchange for free Versant
tests, please let us know.

The test is administered via telephone (via landline phone), and a toll
free number is available in almost two dozen countries outside the
United States. Speech samples are being collected so a baseline can be
established and scoring metrics set for the speech recognition
technology that drives the product.

There will be no individual reports generated from the project.

Pilots and air traffic controllers may register to participate, and
we'll send them a test within 24 hours.  The link to the registration is
as follows:  https://www.surveymk.com/s.asp?u=74673029704

For additional information on the project, please contact Julia Kearney,
sampling coordinator, Harcourt Assessment, 800-233-5686 x 5204,
julia_kearney at harcourt.com.





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