When an individual begins the journey of receiving their national certification for either crane, rigging, or signalperson, regardless of the language, one of the biggest obstacles to overcome is terminology. Oftentimes, years of experience and exposure to the job-site vocabulary can actually work against them during their initial attempt. Terms such as chokers, “D” ring, and rooster sheave will not be showing up on a national test any time soon as they are not considered proper terms.
English students are not the only victims, many Spanish students have become accustomed to using the English term with an accent and assume it is proper. Furthermore, it has been difficult for many of the certifying bodies to decide which Spanish dialect to use to be more accommodating to more students.
As an instructor or prospective student, the challenge now becomes trying to replace those terms that have become commonplace and assuring that they will be retained long enough to pass the written exam. When you also begin to factor in the time constraints, nervousness along with recall becomes a much greater issue.
In a perfect world all job sites would only use the proper terminology and job site slang would be eliminated. However, most employees, even the most seasoned, do not realize that they are not using the proper wording. They are simply passing on the terms to the next generation as they learned them. It is not uncommon for those with minimal experience to fare better on the written exams than those with years of experience.
Spanish speaking students also face an uphill battle. Not only must they contend with dialect issues and quite frequently limited education, but they also have their own job site slang to overcome. Often referred to as Tex-Mex or Spanglish, many operators/signalpersons have grown up in their industries using a mixture of English terminology stressed with a Spanish accent thinking that these are the proper terms.
Words such as “boom” instead of “pluma” or “jib” instead of “plumín” can be heard regularly on Spanish-speaking job sites and plague the Spanish test takers initially in classes and then once again on test day.
Almost every day on construction sites across the US you will come across a signalperson signaling the crane with a raised fist in an attempt to stop the crane. Unfortunately, for those taking a nationally certified test, the “universally recognized” stop signal will not appear on their test unless it coincides with the signalperson’s other hand in a closed fist making a rotational movement in front of their body to signify the “travel one track” motion.
For those in the testing world, the proper stop signal would consist of the signalperson’s hand, palm down, in front of the body and moving back and forth horizontally. It is little discrepancies like this that can keep an experienced signalperson from passing their test.
Regretfully, as an instructor, some of these habits are very hard to break. Many times, it may be as simple as the student reverting to their known signals when nervous and stopwatch is going, other times it can be someone who is just stubborn and feels their experience should trump the nationally recognized signals.
Regardless of whether we are speaking about crane terminology or crane signals, or even English and Spanish, it is imperative that both the instructor and the student completely buy into the material being presented. Being that the margin of error for testing is so small, even the slightest bit of understanding can be the difference between being a nationally certified crane operator/signalperson and looking for a new job.
You can prepare to earn your certification in one of our certification prep courses. Our team can provide all the resources you need at our facilities, from hands on practice to written test material study and computer testing techniques.