Developing a model on improving maritime English training for maritime transportation safety

Abstract

Maritime services form an integral part of what regulatory agencies requires for the safe navigation and operation of vessels. Therefore, the maritime industry’s compliance with governmental regulations and international protocols has been essential for maritime safety management. As a basis to this aspect, the preparation of maritime students as the forthcoming maritime officers in the future has been a crucial point by the maritime educators in terms of maritime safety. Although English was adopted as the official language of the maritime industries by the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW Convention) in 1978, many difficulties remain in the teaching and assessing of Maritime English at maritime schools. Some research has examined these difficulties; however, no successful models for improving. Maritime English have been adopted Parallel to the teaching and assessing problems, there have also been many difficulties in reaching a training and testing proficiency in English communication that meets the international standards of the STCW requirements in the maritime industry. This paper concentrates upon the difficulties of teaching and assessing the outcomes of the teaching of Maritime Transportation English at the member schools of the International Association of Maritime Universities (IAMU) from all over the world. As a first step in the methodology of this study, a survey of techniques used at member schools of the IAMU is conducted to solve some difficulties in assessing the teaching of Maritime English. Then a positioning model is developed to identify and measure the positions of the IAMU member schools in comparison to one another by using a multidimensional scaling technique to analyse the multivariate data received through questionnaires. This information provides the foundation upon which the model of this research is built. Consequently, some strategies based upon the results of the analysis are developed to reduce the problems and difficulties in this context.

Keywords:

• Maritime English
• Maritime training
• Maritime transportation
• Maritime safety
• Multidimensional scaling technique
• Multivariate data analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the kind cooperation of the IAMU member schools and their administrators for providing their valuable data in the questionnaire survey of this study. These member schools are the Australian Maritime College (AMC), Australia; Constanza Maritime University (CMU), Romania; Dalian Maritime University (DMU), China; Dokuz Eylul University School of Maritime Business and Management (DEU), Turkey; Gdynia Maritime Academy (GMA), Poland; Kiev State Maritime Academy (KSMA), Ukraine; Kobe University of Mercantile Marine (KUMM), Japan; Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), UK; Maine Maritime Academy (MMA), USA, Mokpo National Maritime University (MNMU), Korea; Odessa Maritime Training Center (OMTC), Ukraine; Rijeka College of Maritime Studies (RCMS), Croatia; Polytechnical University of Catalonia (PUC), Spain; National School of Merchant Marine of Marseille (SMMM), France; The California Maritime Academy (CMA), USA. Additional acknowledgement is given for the generous funding of the Nippon Foundation in providing the true coalition of the member maritime schools during the IAMU conferences. Also, the great help of Professor Malek Pourzanjani in the collection of data from the IAMU member schools and kind contribution of Professors Susan Loomis at Maine Maritime Academy and Thomas Moore also at Maine Maritime Academy, currently on leave at Koc School in Turkey, are also highly appreciated. Final acknowledgement is made to the MDS(X) series and computer program originators of the multidimensional scaling technique developers, Professors Carroll and Chang, Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, USA, and Professor Coxon, formerly at the University of Edinburgh and currently at the University of Essex, UK.

Notes

The Transportation English working group at Maine Maritime Academy has included many professors; currently the group includes: Professors Donna G. Fricke (MMA), Susan K. Loomis (MMA), Thomas Moore (MMA, on leave at Koc School, Turkey), Laurie C. Stone (MMA) and Funda Yercan (Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey on leave at MMA during the academic year 2001/02).