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Language

First let’s consider that language is a conscious process. For humans this generally means that the first speaker takes a half a second after their brain has come up with what they are going to say, before they actually speak the words. The listener then takes a half a second or more to respond if that is required.  Next we have to understand what kind of response we want from the listener. There are two basic responses, confirmation and experience. By confirmation, we want the listener to follow what we are saying, to confirm our thoughts. This would mean that the listener ‘knows what we are talking about’ or ‘follows the conversation’. By an experience response we are asking our listener to add something new to their knowledge. The experiential response takes longer than the confirmational response. Of course any conversation may be laced with both types of responses. If our goal is to improve the effectiveness of instruction then it might be wise to know when and how best to provoke each type of response from our students.

The overwhelming constraint with flying are the demands on performance when in the red zone situations. To recap, the red zone requires decisions to be made in less than 10 seconds, the concerns are mainly about controlling the aircraft, and the world shrinks into a sphere of about 500 feet. Regardless of how much time we have in other situations, how we learn to cope in the red is the overriding goal of many of our instructional practices. So what has the language we use have to do with this?

For more than just practical conversational purposes, consistent terminology is a cornerstone of instruction.  When instructors and students use the same terminology, conversations are easier to follow and exchanges are shorter. When learning new things, closed tasks in particular, the more concise and consistent we are the better. The words we select for our ‘common’ language are as important. We should use terms that are as universal as is possible. We shouldn’t call ailerons ‘wing flippers’ when we know better. Given the choice between two universal words, we should choose the one that best describes what we mean. For example, many people use the words neutralize and centralize interchangeably.  When talking about a control however, the term centralize is usually the best choice.

Of even more importance from the flight training perspective is the connotation of the words we choose.  Connotation is extra meaning that we give to words. What one person understands by the word ‘shove’ may be quite different from someone else. Usually during instruction we want students to gain their own understanding of what it means when they control the aircraft. We know that this is best related to what they see at the horizon, yet they must move the controls to produce the desired effect. We want an experiential response. If we direct their attention to the horizon and then prompt them to ‘lower’ the nose then we are letting them understand what the control movements mean without introducing any other connotations. Contrast this with what might occur if we asked them to ‘drop’ the nose. In instructing circles the general rule is to use as much ‘neutral’ language as is possible when you want the experiential response. The commonly used terms are move, raise, lower, bank, look, level, and balance. Unless you really mean it the words shove, push, throw, glance, squint, drop, kick, stomp etc. are avoided.

Appropriate to flight instruction, try to use terminology to describe how the aircraft is flown rather than how it works. It is better to ask students to ‘bank the aircraft to the right’ rather than the more cryptic ‘use more right aileron’. From this perspective we are trying to get to a more integrated level where we ask the student to make the aircraft do something with little regard for how controls or control surfaces behave. The language we choose can help make this happen.