Giving Directions

Minimising Misunderstanding

Minimising Misunderstanding

How should we communicate to avoid or at least reduce misunderstandings? This is the idea behind learning Maritime English and developing and practising skills in continuously receiving and giving instructions. This first lesson will take off in daily work and also bring up some common misconceptions.

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Basic Words and Phrases

Basic Words and Phrases

This lesson will focus on learning important words we use onboard the ship. You need to understand and know how to use many of these words to be able to handle both everyday situations and potential emergencies.

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Communicating Using Maritime English

Communicating Using Maritime English

The purpose of this lesson is to give examples of how to (and how not to) communicate during the daily work onboard.

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Safety Communication

Safety Communication

In this final lesson, the focus is on ships with passengers onboard. We will provide a general picture of escape routines, general announcements, and how to communicate during an emergency.

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2

Step 2 of 21 minute read

Giving Directions

Guests and personnel may need guidance and directions at any time. Giving directions is a typical situation where simplified English (such as Maritime English) is valuable. Disturbances (as described in Lesson 1) of the human element (language differences, stress level, anxiety, intoxication level, etc) make communication in clear messages recommendable.

Use Your Body Language

Use your body language and gestures to enhance your message when giving directions. Body language is easy to understand and an effective way to add strength to verbal messages. Examples:

Seeking Disabled

How to properly give directions may vary depending on the level of knowledge about the ship the person in front of you can be assumed to have. We cannot assume that guests know terms we may take for granted – a passenger or contractor may be uncertain about basic maritime words such as bow, stern, port, and starboard for instance. It is, therefore, useful to add gestures and easy-to-read body language.