_________________________________________________________________________

OUMH2203
ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION
JANUARY 2016
_________________________________________________________________________
1. INTRODUCTION

English is not only use as an official language in many countries, but has influence on many
different cultures in a large number of countries as it is the central language of communication
around the world (Susanna, 2007). The role of English language is important for communication
between people especially in higher institutions and businesses in Malaysia. According to Clagett
(1997), the most important area in communication is oral communication skills in English
language which all employees should acquire to make sure that they can efficiently be useful at
the workplace. With English being widely used by the business community both in Malaysia and
internationally, it is important for Malaysian employees to master the language because by
having the ability to converse and write adeptly in English, it has become a huge advantage in
today's world, enhancing the importance of mastering English as this has affected Malaysia's
ability to compete in global markets as well as a destination for investment. Nowadays, to be at
the higher of corporate ladder into increasingly upper management levels, the importance of
English proficiency become more important. In fact, English proficiency can be one of the
criteria for job promotions. According to Azian and Mun (2011), a survey conducted by the
Malaysian Employers Federation showed that 68% of employers named communication skills
as being the most needed skill in a job application. In Malaysia, employers expect not only high
levels of knowledge and technical skills, but also the ability to communicate, think, and learn;
ability to work in teams; and the person’s attitude and adaptability.

Mostly all industries in Malaysia whether corporate or businesses use English as the
communication language medium in workplace. However, like other non-native English
speaking countries, Malaysians are facing difficulty communicating in workplace due to a large
number of people have low proficiency in English language .The declining standard of English
among the Malaysians has got to the attention of many stakeholders from employers,
educationists and linguists to parents to voiced their concern about this critical issue. Various
surveys on graduates' employability have found that English is their main weakness where many
cannot speak or write proper English (Higher Education Ministry Survey 2008; World Bank
Report 2005 on Malaysia Firm Competitiveness, Investment Climate and Growth among others).
Many of our fresh graduates despite having good paper qualifications are unable to converse or
write well in English during job interviews. A survey conducted by JobStreet.com to 3,300 senior
human resource personnel, the main reason for the high rate of unemployable graduates was their
“weak English proficiency” (2005). The communication problem among school leavers,
especially in English either in oral communication or writing is the biggest grouse among
employers. Therefore it is crucial for us to look at the factors contributing to this situation and
find ways to improve it.

2. GAP BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL STUDENTS IN ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

There are many reason why many Malaysians have difficulty communicating in English. One of
the underlying problem lies in the social element. English is not the native language for
Malaysians. Malaysians communicate with one another in the language in which they are the
most familiar. This is true especially in rural areas. It is apparent that there is vast discrepancy in
the mastery of English language between urban and rural students still exists.

The initiative to teach Science and Math in English language was initially conceived to improve
Malaysian students’ English proficiency and employability in order to compete globally which
implemented the teaching of science and math in English from 2003 – 2012. Nevertheless, the
Government had found that academic grades in Maths and Science subjects had fallen since
English was introduced. This is partly because the students in rural districts suffered the most
because their English proficiency was low.

Family background has a major influence on their English language as everyday life
communication. Research conducted by Thiyagarajah (2003) found that students in rural schools
did not use English outside the classrooms and adopted very limited learning strategies may be
due to the unawareness of the learners’ different styles of learning. Mother tongue such as Bahasa
Malaysia, Tamil or Chinese has a strong influence over the learning of English. Martin (2005)
in his research says interference of mother tongue language system in some ways contributes to
wrong use of English grammatical rules, morphology and syntax. Speakers tend to refer to their
first language system when writing in English, use direct translation and constantly referred to
English and bilingual dictionaries meanings to comprehend English text (Nambiar, 2007).

3. LACK OF CONFIDENCE

The most common problem that faced by Malaysians is a lack of confidence to communicate in
English. Although they spent eleven years studying English at primary and secondary school,
some of them can't even pronounce an English sentence correctly. The English subject taught in
school has always been viewed as a difficult subject to learn, especially to those students from
small town and rural areas. Most of them are not confident enough to communicate in English
and always refuse to use the language in public. This leads them to have low confidence in using
the language resulting them not to get involved in the discussions during conversation because
they are afraid to talk.

In the study by Shamsudin and Nesi (2006) revealed that people are often declined to use English
because they are embarrassed about their lack of fluency. According to a survey, (English
language teaching and learning issues in Malaysia) some respondents experience about being
unsure of meaning of certain words which made them reluctant to respond or reply to the
speakers. This is because they always feel worry and shy to make grammatical mistakes and feel
embarrass of their lack of proficiency. They are afraid of the negative physical response, such as
smirk that they received from other more proficient speakers when the speak incorrectly,
therefore they will try to avoid communicating in English in front of others and not fully involved
in conversation. This makes them appear as not as intelligent as they look like.

There are complaints from local employers that when our graduates attend interviews, meetings
or conferences, to negotiate, they cannot convey and put across their ideas in planned and
impromptu situations. These are the reasons they are made to look less smart when they are
comparable to any graduate from the rest of the world. (Ambigapathy & Aniswal, 2005; Ngui,
2005).

Most of people experienced performance anxiety when they need to perform in front of a crowd.
When they have no confident they may hesitate or look uncomfortable and become silent. In
other words, anxious people feel a deep self-consciousness when asked to risk revealing
themselves by speaking the second language in the presence of other people. It can be more
stressful when they are expected to speak in the second language before the fluency is achieved
and this will downgrade their motivation to master English fluently. In Malaysia, people who
came from small towns or rural areas are usually grown up in environment where English is not
a crucial language in their daily life. They are not exposed to the language and have limited
opportunity to use English outside the classrooms. Consequently, those people always express
unwillingness and high anxiety to use English to communicate despite acknowledging that
English is important for their future. There is a lack of support to use English in the home
environment and the community itself in Malaysia where people speaking in English is viewed
as language for elite society and this make them feel not confident when communicating in
English.
Psychologists have tried to define what constitute motivation, which among the various theories,
the self-efficacy theory deserves special attention because it explains the important role that
confidence plays in a person’s language learning (Dornyei, 2001). According to Bandura (1993),
people’s cognitive performance is related to their self-efficacy, which is determined by one’s
previous performance, vicarious learning, verbal encouragement by others, and one’s
psychological reactions (e.g. pleasure or anxiety). In other words, if people lack successful or
pleasant learning experience, they will no longer believe in their own ability to learn and choose
to give up quickly. It is important to improve their self-efficacy, or to boost their confidence,
making them believe in their own ability.

While speaking is a key medium of English communication in business, one also needs to be
proficient at writing. Greater grammatical and spelling accuracy is required when writing than
when speaking because writing is “evidential”. Unlike pronunciation inaccuracies made when
speaking that fade with the memory and the moment, a recipient can easily see spelling errors,
grammatical mistakes and punctuation problems. In business and management, employees are
expected to be proficient in a variety of writing forms that often require a different range of skills.
This make students to preferred to write in Bahasa Malaysia or mixing English with their native
language to replace vocabulary that they do not know.

4. SKILL GAP BETWEEN EXPECTATION OF EMPLOYEES AND EDUCATION

SYLLABUS.

Education institutions in Malaysia is facing a high challenge where there is a lack of holistic and
comprehensive research on current English for Occupational Purposes curriculum practices in
Malaysia especially in higher education institutions. Recently employers has been giving many
negative testimonies on the deterioration of English language proficiency among young
graduates looking for employment. Research by the National Institute of Research in Higher
Education (IPPTN) has discovered that Malaysia is grappling with quality issues in higher
education, which has had an impact on employability figures standing at a 48.5% (IPPTN, 2010).
Yunus (2007) states that employment in Malaysia was set back by an educational and skills
mismatch. This occurred when higher education institutions produced a new workforce that
could not enter the labour market because of the differences in what they perceived was needed
in the market and what was actually needed. The lack of a systematically structured and informed
framework for professional communication skills because different higher education institutions
teach English for Occupation Purpose courses differently according to their own interpretation
of the perceived needs of future employers.

The current soft skills module does not capture the specific needs of communication skills
workforce environment. Furthermore, according to Hayati (2008), the current English textbooks
and course books which are readily available are not suitable for the Malaysian context since
they offer a minimum number of exercises , and some of the low quality materials do not offer
reinforcement of the communication skills needed for the workplace.

The current course books are more geared towards examinations, as opposed to preparing
graduates for working life. This raise concerns on Professional communication skills in the
syllabus and the content of current English for Occupational Purpose courses, and whether the
courses are taught for the students to pass their final year examinations or to help in upskilling
and polishing students’ workplace skills. There is a mismatch between, or inconsistency of
standards by universities and industries, as well as the lack of a valid and reliable mechanism to
assess graduates’ English competency for entry-level employment. Malaysian employers have
highlighted the discrepancy between graduates’ English competency based on their English
language scores in the SPM, MUET or university language courses and their actual performance
during job interviews where an excellent score in SPM and/or MUET does not readily translate
into an excellent performance in English during the recruitment exercise (IPPTN, 2010).
According to research done by the Malaysian National Higher Education Research Institute
(IPPTN, 2010) has showed that industries have had to develop their own in-house assessments
and training programmes for appraising graduates’ English language competency since they
were unsatisfied with present English language assessment results as it does not tally to the
performance of the employees skill.

5. RECCOMENDATION

Having good communication skills is the way to success and that are seen as fundamental and
an great advantage in workplace. Job seekers who are proficient in English will have better
chances to be employed by multinational companies. The employers do not simply look at their
excellent academic results but also their proficiency in the second language. The mastery of any
language requires frequent and prolonged practice. Therefore it is not enough just to learn
English during English period at school. Moreover, it is important to apply a language in our
everyday lives by practising speaking and writing the language to help the continuous learning
process. An extensive use of English must be emphasised across the entire community in order
for the learners to achieve mastery of the language, by providing them with more opportunities
to use the language formally or informally. It is crucial for all Malaysians to change their mind-
set and perception towards English language as a communication language because the world
has changed rapidly and we need to cope with the progress in order to be competitive globally.

The government have an important role in transformation of higher education and restructuring
of the educational system in terms of its effectiveness in producing employable graduates to meet
the demand of the job market and to compete in the international environment. (Uda Nagu, 2006).
As a result, Malaysian institutions of higher learning are not only need to intensify their efforts
to enhance students’ English competency, but also to ensure that graduates’ English competency
are compatible with the needs of the industry by developing plans to improve their programmes
and services, particularly with respect to the balance between theory and practice and to match
educational content to industrial needs and English language competencies.

(2,295 word)

REFERENCE
Susanna, A. (2007). The weak language learner: a study of ways of taking weak language
learners into consideration in class. Sweden: Vaxjo University,School of Humanities English,
GIX115.

Ngui, C. (2005). Getting to the root of graduate unemployment. Malaysian Business, Business
Network.

Clagett, A. (1997) Workforce needed by today’s Employers. Market Analysis. Largo, MD:
Prince George Community College, Office of Institutional Research and Analysis.

Hadley, O. A. (1992), “Teaching Language in Context”, Heinle & Heinle. Boston.

Radha M. K. Nambiar. (2007) Enhancing academic literacy among tertiary learners: A

Malaysian experience. 3L The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies.

Azian, H., & Mun, L. Y. (2011, April 10). English work: top jobs only for those who know the
language well. The Star.

Ambigapathy, P. and Aniswal, A.G (2005) University Curriculum: An Evaluation on Preparing

Graduates for Employment, University Sains Malaysia: National Higher Education Research
Institute).

Uda Nagu, S. (2006, August 10) Final touches. (New Straits Times), p. 2. Retrieved 25 January,
2016 www.nst.com

Hariati Azizan and Lee Yen Mun (2010) Minding your language. Retrieved 27 January, 2016
from http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2011/04/10/minding-our-language/

Dornyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation. Essex, England: Pearson Education.

Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning.

Educational Psychology.
Moslehifara, M.A., Ibrahim, N. A. (2012). English Language Oral Communication Needs at the
Workplace: Feedback from Human Resource Development (HRD) Trainees.

Ahmad Tajuddin, Azza Jauhar (2015). A Malaysian professional communication skills in

English framework for English for occupational purposes courses. PhD thesis, University of
Nottingham. Retrieved from http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28747/1/AJAT%202015.pdf

IPPTN, N. H. E. R. I. (2010). University Curriculum and Employability Needs (p. 8).

doi:378.0720595