This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 19.
What aviation tactics can teach us about success with corporate English.
Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.
Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.
For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.
Still translating in your head when you speak English?
It's time to change that. The Connected Communicator course from All Ears English helps you train your ear, speak naturally, and finally connect with real people.
In our tailored study plan, you'll hear unscripted interviews from tattoo artists to entrepreneurs from all across America. and you'll use new AI tools to practice speaking anytime you want.
No more stiff, scripted English. Build confidence, fluency, and cultural insight all in one course.
Plus, get real-life speaking experience at our Open Conversation Club every single week and build community with Allers English teachers and students.
Go to allersenglish.com slash connection to save $50 this week only.
Offer ends August 10th. allearsenglish.com slash connection.
Hey, Mark. Welcome to All Ears English. How are you doing?
Thanks for coming on today. I'm good. Thank you.
It's a very good day. All right. It is a nice day.
Yeah. So, Mark, where are you based? Well, I'm based in sunny Spain at the moment, right in the south in Andalusia.
So it's a very sunny day with me. And where are you originally from?
I sense an accent, a pretty cool accent.
I don't know about cool, but it's the British accent, but I'm the Welsh part of Britain.
A lot of people say the British accent, they think England, but no, I'm actually from the other country.
Okay. Interesting. Interesting. How long have you been down in Spain?
And what are you doing there? Just kind of hanging out, taking a vacation or like, are you living there long term?
I'm living here long term. Well, I've got a wife and daughter now, so I'm very much settled.
But yeah, no, just teaching English, you know, through either italki or aviation English or just so many different things.
Yeah. And today we wanted to talk about that.
We want to talk a little bit about aviation English, because when I was looking at your profile on italki, I noticed that you teach that.
And that's very rare. I didn't see any other teachers on italki that teach aviation English.
And, you know, in the last few years, we've had a lot of a few, not a lot, but a few big, big high profile plane crashes, right?
Like the MH370, the Malaysian Airlines plane.
And I think people are realizing how important communication is on board these airlines, these flights.
Isn't that right? Well, actually, miscommunication is probably at least one of the possible biggest reasons for it. crashes because of technology most aircraft can basically land on their own but due to some sort of miscommunication or lack of clarity can actually have you know disastrous effects and especially in aviation i think that's why we kind of know more about it especially in aviation why did you decide to go sorry go ahead we have a delay oh sorry um well sorry i'll answer your question of um well i started coming into aviation industry because of um A friend of mine, he actually wanted me to cover classes, so he asked me to come in one day, and since then I haven't really left.
Very cool. Very cool. And, you know, I'd like to draw a parallel today because not all of our listeners are in the aviation world.
Although if they are, I would definitely encourage them to go over and work with you because you are exactly who they would want to work with for their English classes.
But even if they're not, even if our listeners are just in the business world, I feel like there are a couple of tips that we can get from Aviation English and And apply it to being effective in the general business world.
OK, Mark. So what are they? Let's start with number one.
Like, what do you teach your aviation students and how can we apply that in our business lives?
Well, first of all, I think you need clarity.
You need to know exactly what you want to say and also what you want to hear.
Miscommunication, like I said, is a massive problem in the aviation industry.
It can happen in small businesses or large businesses, but hopefully they're not as fatal.
Okay. You've got to be completely clear what you want to say.
Yeah. And how do you help your students do that?
I mean, how can we do that in the business world, to be clear?
Is it about asking questions to make sure we understand, or is it about the way we deliver our message, or both?
I think it's a bit of... Well, it's a bit of both, but yeah, you have to, the way you say something can have a huge effect.
Yeah. Even just something very simple of just practicing pronunciation.
Okay. You don't want to be kind of mumbling and even though I might sound as if mumbling now, but you have to be as clear as possible.
Okay. Yeah. So it's primarily a pronunciation issue.
So do you do specific pronunciation activities with your students?
I can do. I think one of the biggest ways to actually copy pronunciation or at least to have a good pronunciation is copying.
Yeah. Yeah. We hear somebody and we like to copy them.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so a lot of people with their favorite TV shows, they might copy their favorite characters, which sometimes is a good idea.
Sometimes it isn't. Right. Are you learning Spanish, Mark, yourself down there?
Yeah, I am. Well, I'm trying to, but because I live in Andalusia, it's a different accent altogether here.
Oh, yeah. Andalusia. I've heard it. It is a little bit different.
Do they speak faster than the rest of the country?
I think so. I think the other problem is they don't really pronounce every single part of a word or they can have a full long sentence, but they cut it down so short that you almost don't know what they're saying.
Yeah. You're in a really hot part of the country, a warm climate.
Wow. Okay. Well, all right. Anyways, we're getting a little off topic.
That's okay. So clarity is number one, Mark.
I like that. That is so important in the business world to be clear and to make sure that people know exactly what we're saying.
There's no room for being indirect or for hoping that people get the point.
We got to really say, and I think that's especially true.
I know in American culture, we do appreciate very kind of direct communication, right?
I mean, there are certain cultures that require more indirect communication, and that's great.
But at least in the U.S., I can say that for sure.
In many workplaces, direct communication really kind of wins the job or wins the day.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. This episode is brought to you by Indeed.
When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again.
You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs?
Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast.
And even better, you only pay for results.
There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast.
Terms and conditions apply. Yeah. Okay, Mark.
So what's number two then? How can we be effective in the business world?
What can we learn from aviation? Well, she actually leads me on to my next point.
You've got to give your information very quickly and it has to be to the point.
Like you said, in America and also in Britain, we like to get to the point as soon as possible.
We want to know what your objectives, what your goals are.
Whereas in a country such as Spain – You know, I do absolutely love living in Spain, but sometimes if you ask for directions, you will get information about where their family live, how long they've lived here, all this kind of information.
But I just want to know where the bank is.
But that's why in the aviation industry, they only give very short, simple answers or communication.
They will just say exactly what they want to say and then finish.
And then everyone is clear about what is needed.
Oh my God. That's so important when literally as a pilot, I mean, your people's lives are in your hands.
That's, it's so much pressure. I've always thought I could never be a pilot or I could never be like an ER doctor because both, you know, both require taking people's lives into your hands and it's nerve wracking, but having that very quick to the point communication style is important.
And is this as equally important in writing?
Yeah, absolutely. Um, Some people do switch off with writing.
I know I do with myself. And especially in this modern world, we have Twitter, Facebook.
Information is so quick, so easy to access that sometimes a title is enough for people to read.
They read the title and then, yeah, I have all of my information.
Why do I need to read more? Oh, yeah. It's almost like we don't even read anymore.
We just kind of skim things, right? We kind of skim headlines, get the gist, and then we move on to the next article.
There's so much information coming at us.
So we have to be able to understand the point really quickly of that passage or that article.
So, okay. So number two, being quick to the point, what would be number three, Mark?
I'd say clarification. This actually is the biggest air disaster that's ever happened, which is in Tenerife, again in Spain. where a pilot actually, he thought he actually had clearance or he was told that he can take off.
But because he didn't actually have any clarification or he didn't clarify with the air traffic control, he decided to take off and caused 583 people to die.
Of course, this is aviation industry. And one small mistake is a huge, huge issue.
But in business, this can be exactly the same thing.
Yeah, you missed the point. So did he kind of jump to conclusions and assume that the message that he was getting was that he should take off, but it wasn't?
Yeah, in those days, it was in the 70s, I think it was, 1977.
I'm not completely sure. But yeah, in those days, you can have lots of clearance.
So you are clear, but it can be you are clear just to move to a certain part or you can go to the runway.
Whereas now they've actually controlled the language that you use.
But yeah, so he just presumed You were clear for takeoff.
So he just went, whereas there was another aircraft already on the runway.
And so that's how they collided. No, I see.
I see. I see how that could be confusing.
All of the indications start with the same.
You're cleared for takeoff or for getting on the runway or whatever it is.
Yeah, that's. That's dangerous. So in the business world, for our listeners who are not in aviation, I mean, how can we make sure that we, I mean, do we need to learn, I guess we need to learn specific phrases.
Do you have any great English phrases to ask for clarification if we're confused?
Well, I think it's more the fact that you have to generally ask for clarification.
You can't just assume. There's an expression I heard in Korean.
I can't actually say the Korean, but it's even monkeys fall from trees.
Which kind of, it makes me think of, you know, even if you're amazing at your job, you think you know everything.
You can still fall from a tree. You can still not get it correct.
So make sure that everything is correct.
So every time you get information, check it.
Yeah. So it's kind of making sure that we avoid that false sense of confidence, that overconfidence.
I think things get dangerous when we're overconfident, right?
Because we're not careful anymore. We stop looking for those little details.
Yeah, completely. Yeah. I think I love the problems that people have is being in the job for too long and hear this expression quite often that they just assume things.
That's the way they've done it for years and But technology moves on and business moves on and attitudes move on.
So, yeah, you've got to grow. Yeah. In that sense, it's almost safer being kind of a newbie, right?
Being like the intern rather than the expert at the business office because you would pay more attention to details and you'd be more aware.
Yeah. Yeah, completely. Yeah. You see some people and Especially, you know, the freshman university and it's like, oh, this is what I learned in university.
And on their first day on the job, they're told, well, I'm very sorry, but this is not how we do it here.
And it's kind of, it's not that great then because then the business is not moving on.
It's not getting the new thought process that has been, you know, the young fresh blood is actually growing. trying to provide into the company.
To shake it up. Yeah, we need to shake things up.
And so a way to do that is to always ask for clarification in the business world.
So, Mark, I would imagine that if some of our listeners like these ideas and think that these ideas could really help them kind of sharpen their business skills, maybe get that promotion they're looking for, could they book a lesson with you online?
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm raring to go and hoping to teach as many people as possible.
Okay, that's good to know. And this is such a cool angle that you take on things.
And I think just the fact that you do teach aviation English, even if our listeners are not in aviation, again, they can benefit from your style of being direct, of really teaching what's needed and not kind of wasting their time.
I'm assuming that's the way that you run your classes.
Very cool. So, Mark, all right. So let's show our listeners how to go over and work with you.
So guys... I would recommend that you go over and work with Mark and grab a lesson in his schedule before it fills up.
And to get to Mark's profile, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash M-A-R-K.
So, Mark, what kind of space do you have in your schedule these days?
Well, at the moment, because I live in Spain…
And I have a daughter who's just crazy in the evenings.
I'm free most mornings, but of course, it depends on what students I have.
I have a few regulars, so that's quite good.
Okay, great. So especially if our students are in Europe, you could be on the same time zone, and that could be really good.
And the cool thing that I like about working over there and italki with students is that you can be flexible.
Students can create a lesson at the time that they want, and they don't need to attend this kind of large group class.
I really like that. So Mark, I really appreciate your coming on the show today to talk about aviation English.
I mean, it's really important what you're doing.
Do you think you'll continue in the future in this area of English teaching?
Yeah, I hope so. I hope to do as many different things as possible.
But yeah, I really enjoy aviation English and just English in general is kind of cool.
It's kind of cool. All right. Well, it's been it's been great hearing from you today, Mark.
And we'll wrap it up with that. But we hope to see you on the show again soon.
Okay, yeah, I hope so. Thank you very much.
Thanks so much, Mark. Take care. Okay, bye.
Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
Want more from All Ears English? Don't miss our biggest and best podcast with 8 million monthly downloads.
Just search for the All Ears English podcast and hit follow to get four new episodes per week on fluency, American culture, grammar, and so much more.
Or tap the link in the show notes. Remember, we believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Follow the All Ears English podcast now.
First Bell is almost here. Shop like-new, on-budget looks at Plato's Closet.
Plus, get paid when you sell your gently used stuff.
It's the planet-friendly way to shop denim, athleisure, accessories, and more.
What will be in your haul? Find it at Plato's Closet, your back-to-school go-to.
We'll be right back.
