Listen to “01 – Advanced Aviation English by Emilia Barska” on Spreaker.
Hello, I’m Emilia Barska, and this is the Revise Before Flight podcast. I’m a general English teacher and aviation English specialist. My aim is to help you climb and maintain ICAO Level 5 Extended or Level 6 Expert.
Hello, dear Aviators! Welcome to the first episode of Aviation English by Revise Before Flight.
Who am I?
My name is Emilia Barska, and I’m a general English teacher and an aviation English specialist. I really believe that the higher you aim, the more you achieve. My website, revisebeforeflight.com, and this podcast will be devoted to learning advanced aviation English. I believe that my professional experience, teaching skills, and expert knowledge, combined with your regular effort, can contribute to safer skies. Who am I, and how did I become an aviation English specialist and a General English teacher?
As I mentioned earlier, my name is Emilia Barska. I’ve been teaching English since 2007, when I was asked to help my teenage friend prepare for his school-leaving English examination.
As I’m a very ambitious person, I started learning myself how to teach effectively, and my first student got very good grades from his written and oral school-leaving exams. His success was my first stimulus to think over my aims and vocation. As a result, in 2009, I started studying English Philology at the University of Warsaw, and I graduated in 2012. I had an opportunity to teach in a nursery, kindergartens, primary schools, lower secondary schools, and high schools. Currently, I work as a full-time English teacher.
How did I become an aviation English specialist?
When I was born, my beloved dad had already been working for LOT Polish Airlines for five years. Warsaw Chopin Airport—its arrival and departure halls, the open-space panorama terrace, all the crew-dedicated restricted areas—they were undoubtedly my favorite places to spend time with my younger sister. As toddlers and teenagers, we were flying mainly to visit our granny at the seaside, which is 400 km north of Warsaw.
I remember flying firstly with a Tupolev 134 or 154, Antonov 24, and Ilyushin 18. At the beginning of the nineties, the domestic fleet was changed to ATR 42 and ATR 72 and Boeing 737 Classic series. Daddy started his Boeing training in Seattle, and at the age of ten, my dad as a First Officer in command, my sister, and I had the pleasure to fly on our first long-haul journey from Warsaw to Beijing in China.
And I have no idea, to be honest, how many times I traveled from Warsaw to Edmonton, Toronto, or New York. I didn’t count how many times I had the pleasure to spend a landing or a take-off in a cockpit, because sometimes I traveled on domestic flights, and sometimes on long-haul flights. So I don’t know, I didn’t count, but everything that I’ve just described gave me a wonderful spectrum of memories that I recall with a tear in my eye because I know that it’s over, a long, long time ago. And I really miss the time that I had a chance to rush into the cockpit as a crazy young teen and scream, “Hi, Dad, what are you doing now?”
And I remember we were flying… I think it was Edmonton, but I’m not sure. When I was sleeping in the business class, my dad came to me and woke me up, and he told me, “Take a look at the window. Please take a look, what’s going on there?” And I didn’t know what was going on because I was so sleepy, but I opened my eyes and I looked through the window, and I saw the northern lights. They were green. They were so beautiful, like green ghosts dancing on the other side of the fuselage, and the night was so dark and the contrasting green colors dancing in front of my eyes. One of those memories that will stay with me forever.
Listen to “01 – Advanced Aviation English by Emilia Barska” on Spreaker.
My Aviation English Adventure
Just like the other, in 2009, I had the pleasure to fly on a long-haul flight with my dad, and I can perfectly recall a moment when he talked to an ATC on a radio, and I, as an English Philology student on a C1/C2 level at that time, was astonished to hear what they were saying, and I couldn’t understand most of the messages. At that particular moment, I jump-started my thoughts. I knew I wanted to learn aviation English. I was determined to know the phraseology and to work in the future as an aviation English teacher. So in 2010, I finished the intensive course for teachers of aviation English in Plymouth, England. It laid the groundwork for my professional experience as an aviation English teacher.
I remember March the 5th in 2011. It was a deadline for the full implementation of English Language Proficiency, known formally as ICAO Level 4 Operational. Since then, the pilots and air traffic controllers were obliged by international law to pass an ICAO exam to demonstrate upper-intermediate skills to prevent miscommunication-related accidents and incidents. I started gaining my first experience in teaching pilots and air traffic controllers in one-to-one tuition.
ReviseBeforeFlight.com Webstie
In 2012, I devoted my Bachelor of Arts thesis to the analysis of the importance of aviation English. I was ready to take off as a specialist in this area. In 2016, I launched revisebeforeflight.com, which firstly was a place where I wanted my students to get some learning resources that would help them in their self-preparation for an ICAO exam. I know that written blog posts are not the best way of learning for some of my students. I want to give you the same highest quality of sharing my expert knowledge, so if you are interested, hit the subscribe button or let me know by leaving a comment below. Or you can write to me at emilia@revisebeforeflight.com.
I will appreciate your feedback and feel free to suggest your topics for the upcoming podcasts. And an interesting fact as the last thing for today is that the intro to this podcast is my own private audio, in which my dad and his friend are on take-off in a Boeing 767, so it is my own personal contribution to this podcast.
Thank you very much for listening to me. It is my first ever podcasting experience, and I hope everything works well from the technical point of view.
Thank you very much.
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