New Delhi: The police personnel from Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport Unit have been trained for the understanding of various English accents used by foreign nationals particularly from Africa, America, British, European and Middle East countries.
According to police, it was observed in the recent past that due to strong local accent used by foreign nationals as mentioned above, a considerate amount of help was being denied to them without any fault on either side as the personnel posted at helping counters were unable to decipher the problem or statements of these foreign nationals because of their voice and accents during the conversation.
"To cope up the situation, the IGI-Airport staff under the overall supervision of DCP-IGI Airport along with stakeholders of Delhi Airport worked together and started a five days training program aimed to understand the accents of foreign languages and to identify communication gaps and its possible solutions," police said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI) Sanjay Bhatia stated that the training course on voice and accent communication covered different topics based on Sounds, Received-Pronunciation which is 'Standard English' or Queen's English, accents and differences of different countries. Questioning techniques, cultural sensitisation activity, difference in vocabulary have also been imparted in the training.
"Also, the officers were given various tasks and assignments like Country Presentations on countries like Afghanistan, Congo, Nigeria, Somalia to enhance the knowledge and presentation skills of the officers" said DCP Bhatia.
In English speaking countries such as USA and UK have different words for the residence or house.
"In USA it is called 'Apartment' and in UK it is called 'Flat'. Moreover, you are on 'Vacation' in USA and on 'Holiday' in UK," police said.
Active listening through vowel sounds and consonant sounds are another major part of the course. It is good to know that only five vowels in the English language have 20 different sounds.
As many as 50 police personnel from IGI-Airport Unit have been aimed for understanding various accents used in speaking English. These will act as trainers to further train the staff posted at IGI-Airport Unit.
The 'Training of Teachers' (TOT) course was well received and appreciated. Further, such courses would be continued in future also.