Annual General Assembly 2006 - Dalian

Project Session 1

Tough Challenges And Real Answers For Maritime English In The 21St Century For Deck & Engine Room Cadets
-Hope for none-native speakers, worldwide

George Meegan

ABSTRACT

"Vision 21" concerned a plan and looking into the future. For this we look back a little and to the president at the time, Dr. Kiyoshi Hara. He laid out a few points in his paper Perspective of Maritime Universities-Challenge of Kobe University of Mercantile Marine. Among the aspects include the target to make to "make a social contribution" and basic education that includes "cross-cultural communication." An aim is also expressed "to play a key role in maritime universities over the world." There is a deep desire "for developing international maritime education network (for example IAMU). As stated "Individual capability with global perspective for instructors, staffs and students É with an international mind and social contribution É We will make every effort so that the new Faculty of Maritime Science will play an important role."[IAMU News' Issue 8, January 2003, pp 84-86] It is the goal of this paper to further the noble aims expressed.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is increasingly asking for Basic International English to be the foundation of Maritime English. It has been my responsibility to find an answer to a problem which has not been successfully dealt with clean across some one hundred years, or so. Indeed, since the founding of our institution. I understand that this may be the case in other non-English speaking, maritime institutions around the world. The question is how to get from here to there? This paper will attempt to give a lead, here.
The maritime world has always led in the globalization of our world. Incidentally, it still does. So, the world maritime establishment is looking to us to find answers. This paper will suggest a radical, new approach which can answer this, the greatest challenge we face in our field: for our students' to gain the competency in the Language of the Sea.

Keywords: maritime English; basic English; peerless maritime education; appeth of tar; Oxford English Dictionary

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