iolanda andrade: The Air Traffic Control abinitio group ...

When I was told that a group of recently selected Cape Verdian candidates would be joining the forthcoming Portuguese Air Traffic Control abinitio course I must confess I was worried about the fact that I might not have time to adjust the course contents to the different English proficiency tests they would be submitted to at the end of their training.

Part of the Cape Verdian group outside the Training Centre

Unlike other colleagues I knew the problem would not necessarily be their background knowledge nor in any way be associated to their learning capability.

Most Portuguese, who have not been to the Cape Verdian islands, nor have any particular interest in finding out how our former African colonies have been doing since we left (or maybe I should say ... were "pushed out") still have a rather "patronising" attitude towards the natives of these countries and some (not to say many) still believe our presence there was fundamental to keep their "educational" level.

If this may, to a certain extent, be true in regards to some of those former colonies, it certainly is not in what concerns Cape Verde.

There are no "ideal" groups ... I have said it several times throughout the years of my teaching experience. Each group is unique and every trainee will bring his/her personal characteristics into the group, which ultimately enriches the whole process of learning.

This is exactly what I believe to have happened to this particular group, which I consider to be very special. Not only are they good individually but especially "very good" as a group, and I don't think this could have happened, had we not brought these two different nationalities together.

Carrying out the difficult task of "assembling" the different "puzzling" pieces of a "live transcript" together, focussed on what each of them was capable of transcribing.

It would be premature to say they will become good Air Traffic Controllers at this particular moment in time, as they strive through the first phase of a long learning process, but as far as the English fluency level is concerned I have to say they have been doing exceptionally well, despite the fact that they do not all have the same level of English knowledge.

They may become the "unknown" faces of the forthcoming generation of Air Traffic Control "handlers" in Portugal and Cape Verde, whose faces will most probably never be "revealed", unless their professional life is "touched" by an outstanding event (hopefully not those degrading media related ones), this being the reason as to why I would like to praise them (in no particular order) ... and let them know the important role they have been playing in my lately tiring routine.