This research investigates the influence of non-standard English homophones on airline safety. The English language has more than 6000 homophones and almost two thirds of the world’s 1.5 billion English speakers use English as a Second Language, thereby increasing the list of possible homophones tremendously. Contributions of similar words or word parts to disasters (Tenerife, 1997), accidents (Gimli Glider, 1983) and human suffering (Avianca Flight-052, 1990), and the effect of introducing homophones from non-standard Englishes on safety will be presented (e.g., Charkhi Dadri, 1996) together with examples of how homophones contribute to miscommunications, particularly in stressful emergency situations (e.g., Garuda Flight-152, 1997). Furthermore, examples of dangerous homophone conflicts (e.g., numbers ending in -teen and -ty) derived from aircraft investigations and voice recordings from Thai, Japanese, and Korean participants will be presented. Finally, implications for teaching English for academic and general education will also be discussed.

Over the last two decades, the United States has increased their population of K-12 students for whom English is not their first language. Many educators and administrators have referred to these students as English language learners (ELLs), English as a Second Language Learners (ESL), and/or Limited English proficient students (LEPs). However, based on the terminology, these descriptions are misrepresentations. I argue that students who speak more languages than just English or students who speak their native language but are not yet fluent in English should be referred to by educators as Multilingual Learners (MLs). Using the term ELLs has implied misconceptions of students’ equity and can lead to misrepresentation in the classroom. Through this dialog in this conference, I would like to converse about how other scholars think about K-12 students who speak more than one language and create support for Multilanguage Learners by using the correct terminology globally.