“Awakening to Intercomprehension at Sea” – a New Training Tool for the Development of Multilingual Comprehension Skills for Maritime Students

Abstract

This paper attempts to showcase the potential of an in-house textbook for practicing Intercomprehension (IC) in a purely maritime context. It encompasses most of the research work conducted by the authors within EU funded grants as well as beyond them. First, reference will be made to the theoretical framework scaffolding this endeavor, namely the definition of such concepts as IC, textbooks, and IC didactics, then the newly devised textbook will be assessed according to several criteria: description of the teaching material, targeted audience, book structure, duration and pace of the teaching/learning process, objectives, types of tasks and internal dynamics. Thus, learners are led to demonstrate comprehension of foreign languages which is facilitated by the presence of different communication channels (written texts, sounds, images, etc). Consequently, in the authors’ vision, this exposure to the concept of IC will certainly facilitate the overcoming of communication and socializing problems that nowadays occur frequently on-board ships manned by multilingual and multicultural crews.