Who is Latitude? For most of its seven-year life, Latitude has been three men dotted around the globe meeting and working virtually. The first time the directors met together physically was last year in Paris! We have different talents and backgrounds which we have tried to use synergistically.
First, I must introduce the Managing Director and my friend, Henry. Henry has worked in the field of aviation English language training and testing since 2003. In this time, he has:
Managed the development, launch and administration of the English Test for Aviation, the first language test for flight crew in the world to receive an approval from the UK CAA and an endorsement from ICAO.
Working with the International Civil Aviation English Association (ICAEA), he managed the creation of the ICAO Rated Speech Samples Training Aid, launched in 2012, to promote international aviation language rater standardisation.
Co-authored two of the leading internationally published course books designed to meet the ICAO language proficiency requirements - the British Council award winning Aviation English (Macmillan, 2008) and Check Your Aviation English (Macmillan, 2010).
Along with business development and management responsibilities at Latitude, Henry is an ICAEA board member and is an instructor trainer, rater trainer and test and materials developer.
Next, Pete, the Director of Finance, brains of the outfit, and a friend too. Pete has worked in many areas including finance, engineering, educational testing, statistical analysis and business consulting. He has a Ph.D in the psychology of human reasoning and has lectured in cognitive psychology, critical thinking, reasoning, statistics, experimental design and research methods. Research areas include biases in reasoning in judgements of quality and computer generation and difficulty analysis of analytical reasoning items for the Educational Testing Service.
Alongside these two, I feel a minnow. Known as “D”, I bring 35 years of flying experience starting with open cockpit gliders, moving onto vintage tailwheel and aerial survey work then joining the airlines. I flew the Fokker 50 turboprop, the F-70, the F-100, ending my career as an airline Captain on a glass cockpit airliner, the E-190. I have had an intimate experience of the demands of airline training and the broader aviation industry. Working in a multicultural cockpit for several years also gave me an insight into and awareness of the importance of good crew resource management, an essential part of which is effective cockpit communication. I have seen several instances where poor communication between native English speakers has exacerbated a problem, others where effective communication between non-native English speakers has resolved an issue safely. This experience gives me the task of ensuring the technical and linguistic integrity of our training content. As both an instructor and participant in flying training over many years, I am committed to developing engaging and relevant training programmes.
We have added two very talented people to the management team to help us to manage a growing business.
We have Aaron as Operations manager. Aaron joined us in 2015 and is responsible for all aspects of the day-to-day running of the e-learning and virtual instructor led training, as well as many other company administrative tasks. Aaron has a background of quality management and service policy development in the insurance industry; and English teaching and exam provision in the education industry.
Completing the management team we have Andrea, a former commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force. Andrea worked as an air traffic controller, qualifying as a supervisor, where she was involved in training ATC personnel in addition to overseeing the daily operations in the tower. With an honours degree in law, Andrea lectured in criminal law and worked as a researcher before moving into the area of linguistics. She holds an MA with distinction in language testing and test construction. Her research interests include language attrition in non-native English speaking pilots and perceptions of the current aviation language testing policy in Europe. She works as both a language trainer and rater, and is responsible for pedagogy and instructor support at Latitude.
What does Latitude do with this team? Latitude is a small, UK-based company dedicated to the design, development and delivery of quality aviation English language training and testing solutions. We are aviation language specialists: We don’t deal with business English or give courses for the hospitality sector. We don’t prepare students for university degrees in the humanities or give preparation for IELTS. We are dedicated to the aviation sector from head to toe, wingtip to wingtip. We established Latitude in 2013 with a single mission in mind: to build a stable business that is the best in its field. Since then, with the support of a team of brilliant freelance instructors and assessors, we have trained hundreds of people working with regulators, airlines, air navigation service providers, aviation training organisations, colleges and universities all over the world. In doing so, we have carefully nurtured a reputation for honesty, integrity and professionalism. We are committed to helping our customers achieve:
Training efficiency: We do this by preparing students with the language skills they need for successful English-medium aviation training;
Enhanced safety: We do this by training the critical work-related language required of licensed operations personnel; and
Enhanced resilience: We do this by giving learners training to develop language strategies to check, confirm, clarify and repair misunderstandings in order to reduce the impact of error.
We aim to set the standard in aviation English by developing innovative training and testing solutions. Our flexible services can be delivered virtually or in the classroom at our customers’ preferred locations in the UK or worldwide.