UHB2422

(Advanced English for Academic Communication)

Activities that Require English Language

at the Workplace

Prepared for Dr.Hanita Hassan

30 MAY 2012

Authors:

SAMBRUCE A/L JOSEPH (AC100027)

MUHAMMAD HAQQIE BIN A.KALIL (AC100022)

MOHAMMAD IRFAN BIN MOHAMMAD SAIDI (AC100020)

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to determine is oral communication in English really important at

the workplace. A total of 15 companies were randomly selected to be the respondents for this

study. A set of questionnaire was designed to gain the primary data from the respondents

about the needs of oral communication in English at workplace. The overall findings of the

study show that the oral communication in English at workplace is very important during

some tasks like oral presentation, group work, discussion, negotiation, briefing, meeting and

etc. In conclusion, we recommend that students need to improve their oral communication in

English to prepare for their future at the workplace.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 4

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ...................................................................... 5

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 7

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................. 9

5 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 13

6 REFERENCES .......................................................................................... 14

7 APPENDIX ............................................................................................... 15

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

English language is an international language where all nations use it as the primary

communication medium among people around the world. In Malaysia, all students have been taught

to speak English since kindergarten, yet there are many Malaysian students who are still unable to

either speak or communicate effectively in English.

Nowadays, English language is very demanded in most companies. That is why we are

conducting this study to know the activities that require English language communication skills in the

workplace so that the Computer Science students could prepare themselves before going for practical

trainings.

We obtain our results by distributing fifteen sets of questionnaires to the Computer Science

students who are undergoing practical training in companies around Johor Bahru. By distributing

these questionnaires, we can identify the important activities that require English in the workplace and

the skills that Computer Science students lack when undergoing practical training at workplace.

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The Importance of English in workplace.

Study that demonstrated the use of English and its patterns of interactions in the work

place was conducted by Briguglio (2003). The researcher examined the use of English as a

global language in two multinational companies in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. It was

found that in the case of Seacargo International in Kuala Lumpur, both spoken and written

English were important, especially for surveyors to perform their work effectively.

According to the survey conducted by JobStreet.com (2009), from 1001 of employers,

a majority 91% of employers said that English is the language of business communication.

Meanwhile, the remaining of 6% and 2% used the Chinese language and Bahasa Malaysia

respectively.

In the same survey, productivity is the most important for every business entity. A

majority of 95% of employers believed that good English would improve the productivity of

employees while the remaining of 5% did not agree. It was not surprising then to find that

66% of employers have disappointed applicants due to a bad command of English while a

further 26% would do so if necessary.

This result shows how important English language is. That is why it is important for a

student to be English literated.

Activities That Require English in Workplace

We know that English communication skills are very important in workplace as there

are many tasks and communication activities such as meeting, phone answering and

presentation which require the usage of English. Speaking skills, for instance requires strong

English as it shows professionalism in employees as they communicate both between other

employees and clients on a daily basis.

Besides that, employees also use English for creating documents like letters, emails,

graphs and reports. This involves the use of English where it is important for the company to

maintain high quality employees. According to Communication Skills in the Workplace

Employers Talk Back (1995), Nancy Martin-Young claims that “Some entry-level

employees, like administrative assistants, may be responsible for compiling or even

composing some parts of a formal report. The smaller the company, the more likely an

administrative assistant may be asked to do such tasks. Some companies also like to "grow

their own" managers by extending such responsibilities to entry-level personnel, encouraging

them to accept the challenge" (3).

Good strong English skills are essential for an employee to get hired by a company as

many activities requires English as a base to communicate effectively.

Oral Communication

Every human needs communication skill to develop them self in sharing information

and technology, Encarta once state that “spoken and written language is means of sharing

messages and meanings. The most common form of daily communication is interpersonal-

that is, face-to-face, at the same time and in the same place” (Encarta, 2005). An Engineering

Curriculum Task Force had make an observations and the findings show that communication

skills were highly valued compared to mathematics, science and technical skills. (Evans,

Beakley, Crouch, & Yamaguchi, 1993).

The usage of English communication today than previous year is completely different

because today many technologies such as computer, the system language is fully English.

Charles of Black Enterprise give a perception that communication is the heart of business

which the most important of all entrepreneurial skills. The quality of your relationship

depends on the destiny of the business. For them to ultimately trust you are your ability to

transmit information that helps both clients and employees (Black Enterprise, Charles, 1998,

pg 116).

The oral communication skill can help the practical student to adapt quickly to the

new workplace. It can help you to work together and more efficiency if there is group

working assignment or group project. USA today had published that “skilled communicators

are able to build rapport with coworkers and business associates, which can help move

projects along more efficiently. They know whose expertise to tap when they need assistance

and are adept at resolving conflicts and building consensus among team members” (USA

Today, 2002).

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This section discusses the methodology of the research. The main target of the research

is to explore the need of English language for oral communication among Computer Science

students at the workplace. To extract the problems and explore the need of English language

among working Computer Science students, five companies with at least 3 Computer Science

students working in their company was chosen to be the respondents. Respondent from each

company was given a set of questionnaire to be answered. Findings obtained from the

questionnaires were then interpreted to statistical data.

Research Instruments

This research utilized only quantitative research methodology. The instruments used to

collect the data were questionnaires. A set of questionnaire comprising 21 questions was

divided into 2 categories as follow:

i) Biographic Information

ii) Needs of oral communication skills

Various question-types were used in this questionnaire, which includes ranking, closed-

ended, open-ended, scales and selection. The questionnaire was piloted to 3 students at a

company for 5 selected companies.

Respondents of the Study

The respondents for our study involve companies searching for fresh postgraduate

Computer Science student in every kind of their expertise area. There are at least 5 companies

on our surveillance in conducting this research. The survey consist of 20 questions need to be

filled in our survey that targeted companies in Johor Bahru.

Research Procedure

During the actual study, the questionnaires were distributed to the chosen company.

Each company will get the same set of questionnaires. We will give a specific time for them

to answer the questionnaire, and after that we will collect them.

Data Analysis

To analyze the data, sum of variable were taken into consideration, which are type of

activities that use English oral communication skills. Microsoft Excel was used to enter the

data into the computer. The data were transcribed and tabulated in various graphs and tables

that show the level of importance of the activities that require English oral communication

skills.

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

To know the important activities that require English language communication skills at the

workplace, a study was carried out on 15 Computer Science students doing their practical

training at companies around Johor Bahru. The results will be divided into 4 main topics

found namely the importance of skills/tasks for Computer Science trainees, the proficiency of

Science Computer trainees’ oral communication skills in English language, the usage of

English language in the following oral communication events during the practical training of

Science Computer students and problems in oral communication skills in English language

during the practical training.

Table 1: The importance of the following skills/tasks for Science Computer trainees at the

workplace.

Not very

important

Neutral Important Very

Important

a) Giving presentation 2 13.3% 0 0% 7 46.7% 6 40%

b) Speaking on the

telephone

6 40% 0 0% 4 26.7% 5 33.3%

c) Speaking at

meeting and

discussions

2 13.3% 0 0% 6 40% 7 46.7%

d) Speaking at

question/answer

sessions

3 20% 0 0% 6 40% 6 40%

e) Speaking with

workers and

management

4 26.7% 0 0% 6 40% 5 33.3%

f) Speaking at social

setting

1 6.7% 0 0% 8 53.3% 6 40%

Table 1 show that most of the respondents choose Speaking at social setting as the most

important skill/task for the Science Computer tainees. Although some respondents skimmed

and answered the questionnaire, they were aware of the keywords of the options provided.

Overall statistics show a fair distribution among all the skills/tasks provided in the options.

Figure 1: The proficiency of Science Computer trainees’ oral communication skills in

English language

Figure 1 indicates that about half (46.7%) of the English proficiency of Science Computer

trainees in oral communication skills is good. Although 13.3% of the respondents state that it

is not very good, some 40% of respondents state that it is neutral. No respondents stated that

their proficiency is poor or very good

Table 2: Usage of English language in the following oral communication events during the

practical training of Science Computer students.

Never Seldom Sometime

s

Frequently Always

a) Face-to-face

interaction with

supervisors

2 13.3% 3 20% 6 40% 4 26.7

%

0 0%

b) At meetings 1 6.7% 5 33.3% 3 20% 6 40% 0 0%

c) During discussions 2 13.3% 3 20% 8 53.3% 1 6.7

%

1 6.7%

d) During negotiations 1 6.7% 3 20% 7 46.7% 4 26.7

%

0 0%

e) Giving formal

presentations

0 0% 1 6.7% 6 40% 7 46.7

%

1 6.7%

f) On the telephone 3 20% 0 0% 7 46.7% 5 33.3

%

0 0%

g) Others 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0%

46.7%

40%

13.3%

0% 0%

Respondent

Table 2 shows that 46.7% says that, they frequently use English during formal presentation.

53.3 % of respondent says they sometimes use English oral Communication during

discussions. About 20% of the respondent agreed that they never use English oral

communication on the phone. Lastly about 6.7% says they always use English oral

communication during discussion and giving formal presentation.

Table 3: Problems in oral communication skills in English language during the practical

training.

Never Seldom Sometimes Frequently Always

a) Arguing persuasively 1 6.7% 6 40% 3 20% 4 26.7% 1 6.7%

b) Explain logically 0 0% 3 20% 10 66.7% 2 13.3% 0 0%

c) Speaking fluently 0 0% 6 40% 6 40% 3 20% 0 0%

d) Support opinions 0 0% 2 13.3% 9 60% 3 20% 1 6.7%

e) Asking for clarifications 0 0% 0 0% 10 66.7% 3 20% 2 13.3%

f) Giving clarifications 0 0% 2 13.3% 11 73.3% 1 6.7% 1 6.7%

g) Paraphrasing 1 6.7% 4 26.7% 7 46.7% 2 13.3% 1 6.7%

h) Facilitating discussions/

negotiations

0 0% 3 20% 9 60% 2 13.3% 1 6.7%

i) Organizing ideas during

oral presentations

0 0% 6 40% 6 40% 2 13.3% 1 6.7%

j) Giving an oral

presentations

1 6.7% 6 40% 5 33.3% 2 13.3% 1 6.7%

k) Others 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0%

Table 3 shows the problem in oral communication skills in English language during the

practical training. Based on the result, the respondents were satisfied with the practical

student performance especially in giving clarification (73.3%) while asking for clarification

was found to have the problems the most (13.3%). Overall, the respondents were satisfied

with practical student performance since the average of an activity always have problem were

on 6.7%.

Discussion

Based on the findings and satistics collected, it clearly shows that most of the pratical trainees

agree that the use of English language communication skills is indeed important for almost all

activities at the workplace such as during discussions, meetings and giving presenatations.

Only a handfull of student trainees are on the other side of the fence.

Table 1 show that trainees at workplace need strong English communication skill in

performing many speaking activites such as speaking at meetings and communicating

between workers and the management. This is similar to the study conducted by Briguglio

(2003), where the researcher claims that both spoken and written English were important,

especially for surveyors to perform their work effectively

The statistics on Figure 1 shows that the respondents were neutral on the level of proficiency

of using English language in oral communication. Most of the respondents are confident of

themselves that they use satisfied oral communication skills when using the English language

at their worlplaces. Self-confidence is one of the important factors to improve in English oral

communication skills.

Most of the Computer Science trainees also said that they always use English language

during discussions and giving presentations. This seems to be an elaboration from the study

by (Encarta, 2005) which stated that “spoken and written language is means of sharing

messages and meanings. The most common form of daily communication is interpersonal-

that is, face-to-face, at the same time and in the same place”.

The results also show that most of the practical trainees faced problems when arguing

persuasively and asking for clarifications due to the lack of English oral communication

skills. This was rather expected as it is prone that a person could only argue persuasively if he

or she masters a language strongly. Apart from that, debate style training and excercises are

very rare in early university or high school studies. This eventually leads to a lack in skills to

combat a situation using English language.

5 CONCLUSION

This research was conducted to find out the important activities that require English oral

communication skills at workplace among undergraduate Computer Science students who are

undergoing practical training. Primary data are collected from15 students from companies

around Johor Bahru.

As mentioned earlier, our aim was to determine whether oral communication in English is

really important at the workplace. Based on our findings of our research, the following

conclusions can be drawn:

1. The results show that the most important activities that require English oral

communication skills are speaking at meetings and communicating between workers

and the management.

2. Most of the respondents were neutral on the level of proficiency of using English

language in oral communication.

3. The trainees always use English language mostly during discussions and giving

presentations.

4. Trainees faced problems when arguing persuasively and asking for clarifications in

English.

The overall results indicate that English oral communication skills are needed for almost all

activities in a worplace. However, these results of study are only true for Computer Science

trainees at 5 companies around Johor Bahru and the results may differ when the same

research is conducted with different group respondents.

6 REFERENCES

Lino Briguglio, Gordon Cordina, Nadia Farrugia and Stephanie Vella Economics

Department, University of Malta Economic Vulnerability And Resilience Concepts And

Measurements – Briguglio ; 2003

Malaysia’s job outlook confidence for First Quarter 2009 - JobStreet.com (2009)

Nancy Martin-Young Wake Technical Community College

Communication Skills in the Workplace Employers Talk Back (1995)

Teams in Engineering Education (Evans, Beakley, Crouch, & Yamaguchi, 1993)

USA Today, 2002

7 APPENDIX

QUESTIONNAIRE

Topic: English Language Oral Communication Needs of Computer Science students at the

Workplace.

Dear Respondents,

This questionnaire is prepared to investigate the English language oral communication needs of

Science Computer graduates at the workplace situation. The data that will be obtained from this

questionnaire will be significant value to this study. Your details as well as the input that you give will

be confidential.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Part A

Below are a few questions concerning your profile. Kindly put a tick (V) in the appropriate box that

best describes your personal detail.

1) Age : □ below 25 □ 25-29 □ 30-34 □ 35-39

□ 40-44 □ 45-49 □ 50 and above

2) Gender : □ Female □ Male

3) Your first language : □ Malay □ Chinese □ Tamil □ English

□ Other_____________

4) Highest level of qualification obtained :

□ PhD □ Master □ Diploma □ Degree □Certificate

5) Working experience :

□ 1-3 years □ 4-6 years □ 7 years and above

6) Current working company’s name : ____________________________________

7) Working experience with the organization :

□ 1-3 years □ 4-6 years □ 7 years and above

8) English language experience before work (may tick more than one)

□ I studied English in school □ I attended Malay-medium school

□ I attended Chinese-medium school □ I attended English courses

□ I attended English-medium school □ I attended Tamil-medium school

9) Present position

□ Information system manager □ Network administrator □ Programmer

□ IT consultant □ Web designer

□ Other (please specify) : ________________________

10) Department

□ Administration □ Marketing □ Reinforcement □ Human Resource

□ Compensation and training □ Public relation □ Information Technology

□ Other (please specify)__________

11) Type of company:

a) Local company □ Government sector □ Private Sector

b) Multinational company □ Government sector □ Private Sector

12) Type of industry:

□ Electrical □ Computer □ Chemical □ Civil □ Marine

□ Service for people and council □ Industrial □ Medical □ Insurance

□ Education □ Employment agency □ Management and development

□ Others (please specify)__________________________

Part B

Below are some questions concerning the importance and the needs of oral communication skills

among Science Computer trainees during the practical training course. Kindly put a tick (V) in the

appropriate box that best describes your opinion about Science Computer trainees.

13) Please rate the importance of the oral communication skills in English for Science Computer

trainees at this workplace.

□ Not very important □ Neutral □ Important □ Very Important

14) In your opinion, how important is the role of oral communication skills in English language in

below aspects?

a) For promotion purpose

□ Not very important □ Neutral □ Important □ Very Important

b) On career development

□ Not very important □ Neutral □ Important □ Very Important

15) Please indicate the importance of the following activities in English language to Science

Computer trainees.

1 = Not very important 2 = Neutral 3 = Important 4 = Very Important

1 2 3 4

a) Discussion of projects, proposal, plans, design, etc

b) Reporting problem

c) Making formal oral presentation on projects, proposal, plans, design, etc

d) Making and arguing for an issue before superiors or colleagues

e) Giving face to face instruction to subordinates

f) Speaking on the telephone with colleagues about job related matters

g) Speaking on the telephone with clients about job related matters

h) Establishing social relationship with colleagues (including subordinates

and superior)

i) Establishing social relationships with clients

j) Providing training through discussions, workshops, etc

k) others (please specify)

_______________________________

16) How would you rate the importance of the following skills/tasks for Science Computer trainees at

the workplace?

1 = Not very important 2 = Neutral 3 = Important 4 = Very Important

1 2 3 4

a) Giving presentation

b) Speaking on the telephone

c) Speaking at meeting and discussions

d) Speaking at question/answer sessions

e) Speaking with workers and management

f) Speaking at social setting

17) How would you rate generally the proficiency of Science Computer trainees’ oral communication

skills in English language?

□ Poor □ Not very good □ Neutral □ Good □ Very good

18) Please rate the proficiency of Science Computer trainees in specific below terms of English oral

communication skills during their practical training experience.

1= Poor 2 = Not very good 3 = Neutral 4 = Good 5 = Very good

1 2 3 4 5

a) Face-to-face interaction

b) Argue persuasively/ explain logically/speak fluently during

meetings, discussions, or negotiations

c) Speak effectively in front of audience during formal presentations

d) On the telephone

e) Other (please specify and rate)

______________________________________

19) How often Science Computer trainees use English language in the following oral communication

events during their practical training?

1= Never 2 = Seldom (once or twice every 3 to 6 months)

3 = Sometimes (once or twice a month) 4 = Frequently (once a week)

5 = Always (almost everyday)

1 2 3 4 5

a) Face-to-face interaction with supervisors

b) At meetings

c) During discussions

d) During negotiations

e) Giving formal presentations

f) On the telephone

g) Other (please specify and rate)

______________________________________

20) How often Science Computer trainees encounter the following problems in oral communication

skills in English language during the practical training?

1= Never 2 = Seldom (once or twice every 2 to 4 months)

3 = Sometimes (once or twice a month) 4 = Frequently (once a week)

5 = Always (almost everyday)

1 2 3 4 5

a) Arguing persuasively

b) Explain logically

c) Speaking fluently

d) Support opinions

e) Asking for clarifications

f) Giving clarifications

g) Paraphrasing

h) Facilitating discussions/ negotiations

i) Organizing ideas during oral presentations

j) Giving an oral presentations

k) Other (please specify and rate)

______________________________________

21) Which of these oral communication skills in English should be given emphasis for the future

Science Computer trainees?

Strong

emphasis

Minor

emphasis

Omit

a) Oral presentation skills

b) Discussion skills

c) Negotiation skills

d) Briefing skills

e) Meetings

f) Telephone skills

g) Conversation skills

h) Pronunciations