DID I SAY LEFT? SORRY, I MEANT RIGHT

A colleague of mine once came out of a lesson looking ashen. She had been doing an exercise with a group of Mongolians that involved her reading out a series of simple directions (turn left, go straight ahead, take the second right, etc) whilst the students diligently followed her instructions on a colourful map of a fictional town to get from A to B. Although a couple of the brighter stars in the firmament duly made it to the rendezvous in front of the imaginary school, they were in the minority. One ended up on wasteground behind the library, another was left standing precariously on the railway tracks, three found themselves in the pub car park, with the remaining two having inexplicably managed to return to where they’d started, in front of the local supermarket.

Nothing odd here, we might ponder - such pandemonium is the very stuff of the “Communicative Approach”, the widely accepted and seldom questioned dogma of EFL teaching. There was, however, a sinister footnote to the bedlam – the Mongolians, to a man, were air traffic controllers. I don’t know about my colleagues, but I quickly took Ulan Bator, Choybalsan and Dund-Us off my list of possible TEFL destinations (though I still wouldn’t necessarily rule out Dalandzadgad if I managed to enter overland from China.)

Recent events here in the world’s largest Catholic country have brought to light disturbing similarities with the Mongolian mayhem described above. Two major air disasters in a year have led to some troubling revelations about the state of the air traffic control system, though the truth has been hard to distinguish amid all the mudslinging and buck passing that any political hot potato inevitably encourages.

Firstly, there was the almost inconceivable mid-air collision in September 2006 between a Boeing owned by Brazilian airline Gol and a privately-owned Legacy jet from the USA, in which the latter managed to make an emergency landing whilst the former crashed into dense undergrowth in Mato Grosso state, without leaving survivors. Blame has been variously attributed to air traffic controllers for giving the wrong altitude to the pilots of the Legacy (possibly due to their poor English skills, according to the pilots), the controllers have blamed the pilots of the Legacy for not having their transponder switched on (which would have warned of any aircraft in close proximity), and politicians have rounded upon everyone except themselves. An alarming article in yesterday’s newspaper reported that the Department of Airspace Control, or Decea, estimates that fully six hundred new controllers need to be trained urgently in order to sustain adequate levels of service and safety. Even more worringly, on 09 December (my birthday, incidentally – thanks in advance for the presents) Cindacta 1, the air traffic control hub in Brasilia that controls 80% of Brazilian air traffic, allegedly lost radio contact with all airborne aircraft for five whole minutes.

Unable to hide their disgust at being blamed for the problems enveloping the creaking system, on 30 March disgruntled air traffic controllers went on strike, closing 49 airports, bringing air traffic to a standstill and stranding tens of thousands of air travellers at their points of departure. Even the most daring Dadaist couldn’t have dreamt up the image that circulated in the next morning’s newspapers. The Director the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac), Denise Abreu, the person responsible for the sector, was photographed at the height of the rebellion enjoying a knees-up at a colleague’s son’s wedding reception. Had she been photographed taking a drag on a cigarette, we may have assumed she was, at least, stressed. Even if she had been puffing on a pipe, at least we could have associated her actions with rumination, cogitation – after all, Sherlock Holmes did his best deducing with one. But no. Dona Denise was snapped smoking that very symbol of self-satisfaction, the Cuban cigar – and not some dainty, vaguely ladylike Café Creme-style stogie - the Fidel Castro model, the one Winston Churchill was smoking when he made his “V” for victory, the kind Brigadiers partake of with port when satiated after a heavy meal in the Officer's Mess. This photo came to symbolise all that is smugly rotten in Brazilian institutions. Abreu resigned, but only after limping along for a further five months with her credibility in tatters.

As if this tragedy wasn’t enough, on 17 July an Airbus 320 belonging to Brazilian airline TAM overshot the runway at Congonhas airport in São Paulo and crashed into a warehouse owned by the same company, leaving 199 more victims. President Lula sprang into action and replaced the Defence Minister. With characteristic candour, Lula made a somewhat wayward attempt to calm the nation’s nerves regarding the safety of air travel. As his new choice was unveiled, he confided, “When the plane door closes, I just put my fate in the hands of God.”

Sometimes (quite rarely, admittedly) I’m glad I’m just a humble, landlubber of a TEFL teacher.