Improving Georgian Maritime Student Listening Comprehension

Abstract

English is the language used in marine sector. Seafarers use Marine English while working in port administrations, shipping industries, etc. Marine English is a special language having its own linguistic features: specialized lexis, limited grammar, writing format. Maritime disasters mainly occur due to breakdown in communication and cooperation. So maritime students should develop their listening and speaking skills from the first years of studying at Maritime Academy. At Batumi State Maritime Academy much attention is devoted to teaching specialized lexis, marine terms, and developing writing, reading and speaking skills. Unfortunately, English language teachers do not pay enough attention to development of listening skills. Proper communication is impossible without understanding Marine English and having no listening abilities.
The objective of this paper is to show the importance of listening activities at English lessons. The present study also aims at investigating the approaches that English language teachers and marine students can follow. It also aims to emphasize development methods to improve listening comprehension English for marine students in Georgia. The paper explains how the teachers should teach required skill to marine students and develop communicative competence among them.
Observation showed that maritime students and sailors have problems in understanding the speech of foreigners. Misunderstanding and miscommunication can be caused by many factors: not knowing standard marine vocabulary (language barrier), not being aware of culture (cultural barrier), not being familiar with the accent, intonation or having difficulties following the speaker’s speech (pace of speech).