TEACHING COLREGS AT MARITIME ENGLISH LESSONS

Abstract

The article substantiates the necessity of teaching the Collision regulations at the Maritime English lessons in higher maritime educational institutions in order to increase nautical students’ knowledge and ability to apply Colregs in required circumstances and as the final result it could help to decrease the number of collisions at sea. The paper demonstrates the sequence of activities for thorough study of the Colregs at the Maritime English lessons. It is recommended that each lesson devoted to Colregs study is organized in accordance with communicative and contentbased approaches and the requirements of IMO Model Course 3.17. The structural parts of the lesson are starter, presentation, practice and production, each of with includes different types of activities for practicing Colregs. The interactive tasks are aimed to engage students emotionally in the material, to activate their knowledge, to practice using the new language accurately, to integrate the new language items in communication activities. The activities are based on authentic documents, real-life scenarios and official maritime accident reports. Internet resources and information technologies should also be implemented in classroom and independent Colregs study in order to increase students’ interest and motivation, and give them opportunity to improve their Colregs knowledge and English skills even while on the voyage. The essential competency which students will be able to demonstrate is to summarise the necessary and appropriate actions of the bridge team members in manoeuvers and collision avoidance situations according to Colregs. The findings of this paper can be used by Maritime English teachers in lessons planning and will aid students in learning and understanding Colregs through language learning in compliance with the STCW requirements and the Model course Maritime English.