The ICAO Rating Scale

Why is language testing for the ICAO LPRs in such a poor state? One part of the puzzle is at the heart of it all: the ICAO Rating Scale itself.

To be clear, ICAO did a great job in creating a language standard for aeronautical communications. As a result, there is far more awareness of the role of language in the industry and much progress has been made. However, there are a host of well-documented issues with the ICAO Rating Scale which influence aviation language testing and assessment practice. To name three:

It describes language which is undesirable on the radio, for example, grammatical complexity, idiomatic vocabulary and speaking at length. This results in test takers being rewarded for language use we do not wish to see.
It does not adequately describe the features of language use we do wish to see on the radio, for example, precision, brevity and accommodation.
It lacks explicitness. For example, what does ‘transition from rehearsed or formulaic speech to spontaneous interaction’ mean in the context of air-ground communication? Surely ‘transition from standard phraseology to plain language’ would be clearer?

These issues with the scale, among others, have contributed to widespread misinterpretation of the target of the ICAO LPRs which manifests in test instruments and assessment practice which are wide of the mark.

The ICAO Rating Scale is not necessarily a barrier to good testing, but there is room for improvement. Until we have an empirically validated scale which is representative of the target construct or, at the very least, clear ICAO guidance on how to capture the construct in aviation language test design, pilots and controllers will continue taking poorly-constructed tests that fail to address aeronautical radiotelephony communication.

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