Some years ago, when I worked with a language tuition agency, I hosted a series of French air traffic controllers on full immersion English courses. English is the official language of aviation, so the French Civil Aviation Authority regularly sent controllers to the UK to refresh and maintain their spoken English skills.
It led to some fascinating discussions about vocabulary and meaning. Aviation English contains highly specialised terminology, but sometimes the challenge comes from ordinary-looking words with surprisingly complex meanings.
Take the word ‘buffet’, for example.
In aviation English, to buffet means to strike repeatedly and violently, particularly in relation to turbulence or strong winds:
‘The aircraft was buffeted by strong crosswinds.’
We can also talk about:
a buffeting wind
an aircraft experiencing buffeting
fifteen degrees of flap induced marked buffet
But this meaning also exists in wider everyday English. We might talk about:
a coastline buffeted by storms
buffeting winds of recession
the company survived several economic buffets
So even outside aviation, the word often suggests repeated force, instability or pressure.
With a completely different pronunciation, ‘buffet’ can also refer to food:
a buffet lunch
a buffet car
a buffet supper
This version of the word entered English from French, originally referring to a sideboard or serving table. The two meanings appear to have different historical origins, despite sharing the same spelling.
Native English speakers rarely use the word ‘buffet’ in everyday conversation in the first sense, although we may encounter it in journalism, literature or weather reports. In aviation English, however, it becomes a common and highly practical term.
These overlaps between specialised and everyday English can sometimes create confusion, but they also lead to some very interesting conversations.
Here’s a peek behind the scenes to see what happens before my student arrives for an intensive, full-immersion English coaching course with me.
One thing that’s very important is the ‘first impression’. I always spend lots of time making sure my home looks sparkling clean and welcoming.
That means quite a lot of physical work of cleaning, scrubbing, polishing, bed making, as well as shopping for food and drink. Most of this has to be done at the last minute otherwise the ‘just been polished’ look starts to fade away.
It’s quite exhausting but worthwhile, because I also like to live in a clean home!
I also have to get my head back into the teaching headspace, especially if I’ve had a break for a couple of months. Sometimes this can feel a little daunting. But as soon as I start the process of teaching and coaching again, I get right back into the swim of things.
My first student of the year arrived on Sunday evening, 7th January 2024. She came for a fortnight of intensive one-to-one English coaching, focusing on her needs and requirements, to improve her confidence in listening and speaking, supporting her future career path while enjoying good food and conversation in Bristol!
This is what she said about her experience with me:
“I had an incredible 15-day experience at Lucy Tilney’s Bristol homestay tuition, where my English skills flourished through daily 4-hour sessions. Lucy’s personalised lessons were instrumental in my improvement. Beyond the language aspect, her exquisite Ottolenghi meals added a delicious touch to each day.”
Noémie has now got herself a new job in Lisbon, where she lives. She has achieved her objective which was to improve her confidence to allow her to apply for jobs where she would need to speak in English.
Benedetta watching Bristol Blue Glass being hand produced
As part of my homestay package, I offer my students two or three afternoon or evening excursions a week. Over the years, I have discovered some great places to visit in this lively city. Often these destinations are free or very inexpensive. Here are some of my favourite places:
Bristol Blue Glass Factory
Blue glass is a special glass that is made by hand in Bristol. It’s interesting to go to the factory, where you can see the glassmakers produce these unusual dark blue glass items. The work room is extremely hot with several huge furnaces burning fiercely. The young people who produce the items are friendly and will explain their blowing and spinning techniques of the molten glass.
This visit is completely free and provides an opportunity to see artisans working and creating blue glass items. There is also a shop, where you can buy the things that you have just seen created.
The Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery
This is another one of my favourite destinations with my students. The building itself is a delight, with an enormous Box Kite bi-plane designed in Bristol in the early 20th century, suspended from the ceiling of the imposing entrance hall. The museum contains several galleries with a range of subjects: Egypt and Assyria; South Western Natural History; Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters; Minerals; a Chinese gallery with the best collection of Chinese glass outside the Forbidden Palace; Pottery and Silver objects and on the top floor, a small Art Gallery of classical and modern art.
This is a free visit with a suggested donation of £5.00.
The Georgian House Museum
This is a fascinating insight into life in a house which was occupied by a wealthy sugar plantation owner and slave owner. The house is furnished as it would have been during that period of history. There is a small section which explains the family history of the owner, John Pinney, and how he profited from slavery on the Caribbean island of Nevis. John Pinney was fond of a cold bath and there is a plunge pool in the bottom of the house. The basement which shows the lives of the servants is the most interesting part of the visit. This visit is free, although they accept donations gratefully.
This is a great place to visit to learn about Bristol’s industrial and social history. It’s very interactive and interesting. You can learn about Bristol’s engineering background and why it became the birthplace of the supersonic aircraft, ‘Concorde’, built in collaboration between the UK and France.
It also has a section which explains Bristol’s connection with slavery, through the ‘Triangular Trade’. This was the name given to the route which went from Bristol to the west of Africa, and then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and back to the UK, as part of the slave and sugar trade. Many Bristol families became fabulously wealthy through this shameful business.
This is a free visit but with a suggested donation of about £5.00
Underfall Yard is an area of the Cumberland Basin, part of the Bristol Harbour which you can see from the end of my road. The original hydraulic pumps which used to operate the bridges and sluices of the harbour have been recently restored. These pumps were designed in 1907 and stopped working in the 1970s, and they run the pumps for visitors three times a week. There is also a good café which serves delicious coffee and tasty snacks! After some refreshment, you can walk around the harbour and look at the various different marine businesses and the colourful houses and views of Clifton and the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
Oscar Wilde (Irish wit, poet, and playwright 1854-1900)
Student-centred learning
I want to share how I create really effective and meaningful classes for my student. In this blog, I sing the praises of using a diary to help my student in their English learning journey.
I offer one-to-one, full immersion courses to adults who come and live with me for short but intensive periods. We have lessons in the morning, between three and four hours. After that I make lunch for us, with conversation and correction. In the afternoon or evening, we may have an excursion together, with conversation and correction. Every evening, I cook dinner and we have conversation and correction. This type of teaching is very intensive and challenging, but very rewarding for both the student and the teacher. As you can understand, the only time to prepare is before the lesson in the morning, while I’m eating my breakfast. This is where the beauty of the diary starts.
I ask my student to write a simple account of their day; nothing fancy, just an account. This is to be done as homework and I suggest that they go to a café, where they can observe and listen to people speaking English. For this reason, I suggest that they have a book small enough to put in their bag or to carry with them. On the first day, I ask them to write about their journey to me; what time they left home, who took them to the airport, what the flight was like – on time or delayed; their first impressions of Bristol and their new home; what they learned in their first lesson etc.
I ask them to write on every other line to leave space for corrections. The next morning, we go through the diary together. First I ask them to read the complete diary to me. I listen without interruption and get an idea of their writing level and the errors they are making. Then we go through the diary, sentence by sentence. They choose one colour for grammar/vocabulary corrections and another (red) for pronunciation correction into phonemic – this is something I show them and we start using from the second day of their course. Generally, when we write in another language, we create a sentence in our first language and then ‘drop’ the foreign vocabulary in the order of our own language. This means that the teacher can hear the gaps in the knowledge. This activity is a kind of ‘grammar clinic’, and these issues are presented in an organic way. As each error is noted and corrected, it’s an opportunity to give a mini-lesson on the subject. The student listens and makes the correction. The act of correcting their diary for themselves reinforces the learning in a visual and kinaesthetic way, and provides a record of the correction. With the diary, we can look at word order in English sentences; vocabulary; prepositions; the past simple (diaries are usually written in the past); occasionally present perfect, past perfect, past continuous, present continuous for future arrangements; regular/irregular verbs; adjectives; adverbs, gerunds…
For my lower level students, I ask them to make a simple record of their activities: what time they woke up; what time they got up (good irregular verbs, and phrasal verbs for higher levels); what they ate for breakfast; what they studied in class; where they went in the afternoon and then what they ate for dinner with me – that expands vocabulary for food and drink, which is always useful. At a higher level, I ask my student to write something more ‘literary’ and incorporate more conceptual ideas, such as cultural differences they notice: for example, the importance of ritual politeness in British society.
Once the diary is corrected for grammar, it becomes a pronunciation activity. I ask my student to read it aloud and we record it. We do this during the lesson or sometimes my student will do it as part of their homework, after lesson. Then we listen again, checking for pronunciation errors; often it’s the first time my student has listened to themself speaking in English.
This is a student-centred approach to creating material for the lessons. Furthermore, it’s a natural and organic way to address grammar and pronunciation which arise out of a need to communicate. And the real delight is I can learn a lot about my student; sometimes they reveal quite personal things in their diaries.
For my students, it can also be a record of their visit, which may be the first time they have ever travelled alone to a foreign country. Some students like to collect things like brochures or labels from their drinks or till receipts and stick them in their diary, like a scrapbook. Above you can see a photo from a diary kept by Évelin Morano, a Spanish/Colombian woman who came to me for a course of four weeks in July 2019. As you can see, her diary is a delight! She loved writing the diary and told me that re-reading it recently gave her back some of her best memories!
