FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE (FEL)

SEMESTER JANUARY 2016

OUMH2203
ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION

STUDENTS NAME

PATIMAH BINTI LASIM

MATRIC NO

640901126168

IC NO

64091126168001

TEL NO

0195811008

EMAIL

imah1964@oum.edu.my

LEARNING CENTER

Tawau Learning Centre

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
CONTENT

1.0 INTRODUCTION

PAGE NO

2.0 CONTENT (CAUSES)

2.1 THE EFFECT OF MOTHER TONGUE

6-7

2.2 LACK OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS PROGRAM

8-9

IN SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY

3.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
3.1 ENGLISH FOR OCCUPATIONAL PURPOSES (EOP)

10

3.2 INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

10

4.0 CONCLUSION

11

5.0 REFERENCES

12

1| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
A REPORT ABOUT THE ENGLISH COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS IN THE
WORKPLACE ESPECIALLY IN BUSINESS-RELATED MATTERS AMONG MALAYSIAN

PREPARE FOR
..

BY
PATIMAH BINTI HJ LASIM

11 MARCH 2016

2| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
1.0 INTRODUCTION

I personally agree with the statement Many Malaysians have difficulty communicating
in English in the workplace especially when it comes to business-related matters. When we
look at the scenario in Malaysia, the underemployment of Malaysian University Graduates is
widely reported. In February 2015, Malaysias unemployment rate increased from 0.1% to
3.2% from 3.1% in January last month according to the Statistics Department (S, Z, 2015).
The main reason of this problem is poor command of the English language among graduates.
English language is essential for communication between people in higher institutions and
businesses industry. The industry needs a worker with the ability to communicate effectively
with required clients in business matters. For instance in Malaysia tourism industry, there are
thousands or more tourist from all over the world visited our country every year. Especially
in Sabah with various interesting places to be visited. Travel and Tourism direct contribution
for employment in 2014 supported 724,500 jobs (5.3% of total employment). And this
amount is expected to rise in 2015 (Turner, 2015). We know that government has preparing a
lot of job opportunities for Malaysians to grab. However many Malaysian have no courage to
apply for this job due to lack of proficiency in English language. This applies to both oral and
written communication but more emphasis on oral communication as many business matters
have social interaction between people, also important in work presentation and seminars.
However, written communication skill also required during report writing especially in
management sector.
The importance of communication skills is significant and important as it includes in
several job advertisements such as newspaper and several social media. Poorly, many
Malaysians nowadays are being conservative and still not practicing communicate in English
in the workplace. My personal experienced in school, where I worked, what I can see is that
theres a lack of communication in English between teachers except those of English teacher.
The communication problem occurs to most teachers when it comes to business matter such
as dealing with the book supplier which requires us to deal with various types of company.
Related causes might include the effect of Mother Tongue to the use of English language in
3| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
communication, a lack of communication skills program in school and university for both
oral and written skills in preparing them for future working. All of the causes will be
discussed later includes some of the solutions or recommendations to solve the problem
throughout the report.
In fact, more focus given to English oral communication skills instead of written skills in
the industry especially in management sector. Kassim and Ali (2010) stated that the
expectation of Malaysian employers of their future employees to have required English oral
skill and able to demonstrate them during interview session. Furthermore, employees will
have to participate in meetings and team discussions and in also some presentations about the
project conducted. In a similar vein, the three most frequently used forms of workplace oral
communication had revealed by the study conducted among IT graduates includes; social
interaction, participation in meetings and telephone conversations. (Sarjit and Huas, 2006).
While the uses of written communication skills are widely used in report writings, minutes of
meetings etc. at the workplace when most of the people would not face any difficulties
through it.

4| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
2.0 CONTENT (CAUSES)
2.1 THE EFFECT OF MOTHER TONGUE
The first cause of the problem is the effect of mother tongue. There are several
factors that take place when it comes to the confusion of English communication by
the mother tongue. A new study conducted by Annie Tremblay, an assistant professor
of linguistics at the University of Kansas that had been reported in Language
Magazine (2015), which to explore how a persons native language can actually
influence the way the brain processes auditory words in a second language and
caused misleading information. In the research findings, it is harder for second
language learners to use correct speech cues to identify words when second language
and persons native language share some similarities.
The mother tongue language will disrupts the smoothness of the communication
in English language. The influence is very obvious in the form of incorrect
pronunciation. This may due to that learners encounter problem to transfer or
inference from the mother tongue, whereby the errors made because of the different
sound system and the spelling symbols between the second language and mother
tongue. The learners more likely to adopt mother tongue in their communication. As
for example, the words adapted by mother tongue is like try try see, but in proper
English, we say try it and see.
For instance, the sentence order could be a problem caused by the use of mother
tongue like for example; learners write I tomorrow will go to Kuala Lumpur.
Hence, they should write Tomorrow, I will go to Kuala Lumpur as the correct order
of sentence. This situation occurred in the workplace like school during English
language class.
To help reduce this problem, a school teacher must be a role model for correct
speaking in the class whereby they need to introduce pronunciation of words for
every language class without practicing any mother tongue. Meaning, a hundred
percent proper English are used in the class. Teacher should remind students of the
correct order of words and pronunciation and do continuous practices day to day
interaction. Same situation applied to any other workplaces.

5| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
In addition, some learners are lack of confidence. Therefore they tend to use
mother tongue which a lot more easily than the proper English for communication.
They are more comfortable using this language with the surrounding people who
would also practice the mother tongue for daily lives communication. However when
it comes to business-related matters, they will have problem to deliver in English
language to the clients. Therefore, it is important for us to equipped ourselves
especially the future generation with balanced language education in both oral and
written communication especially English as a second language in Malaysia. In line
with what have been said by Salami, 2002, The quality of spoken and written
language among school children need to be polished because it improving the
communication.

2.2 LACK OF ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS PROGRAM IN SCHOOL AND

UNIVERSITY
The second cause will be the lack of English communication skills program in
both school and university. In many school, teaching English only focused on
achieving good grades in certain important examination such as PMR, SPM etc.
Meaning, teacher will teach topic by topic based on syllabus and focus more on
writing skills in order to pass the exam. Rather than focus to the most important skills

6| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
that must be taken seriously which is oral communication skills. Hence, the students
encounter lack of practice to deliver speech in proper English. Knowing the important
of English oral communication skills for the future, the way of teaching in school
must be improved by most institutions. Recruiting more experienced English teacher
can be one of the ways. In addition, the teacher must encourage their students to join
program that require them to be bravely speaking in English in front of the audience.
For example, debate program and public speaking. These programs are most likely to
improve their English communication skills as well as their motivation. Besides, the
teacher must always guide the students especially in oral communication skills as
well as their pronunciation either in the class or outside program.
While in most of higher institutions, they forgot to create some project on
increasing graduates employability. This is to improve English communication skills
of the graduates to meet the high demand from industry which needs an employer to
be equipped with excellent communication skills especially in English. Before they
complete their study, the institutions must provide some programs involving how to
communicate effectively in English to prepare them for job interview as they go out
to find a required job after graduated in the future. Several programs that can be done
include Interpersonal communication skill courses, workplace communication
program and professional communication skills. All of these programs emphasis more
on oral communication skills and make them well equipped. Moreover, they are more
exposed to the real life of working. The institutions were more concern about the fact
that every year, the rate of unemployment would increase. The main factor that leads
to an increase in unemployment rate among Malaysians graduates is the lack of
English proficiency (Berhanuddin et al., 2007; Phang, 2006). That is why many
Malaysian nowadays have difficulty communicating in English in the workplace
whereby many of them are not proficient especially in English communication since
primary school until higher institution.

7| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]

3.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
3.1 ENGLISH FOR ECUPATIONAL PURPOSES (EOP)
English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) is an English program created especially to
provide required skills to fulfill the needs of local and international workforce. Invention
of this program is in line with the objectives to produce highly skilled and knowledgeable
graduates to meet the demand of current employment scenarios in Malaysia. Therefore, it
8| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
is highly recommended to higher institutions to apply this program in their place as to not
only increase the ability of Malaysians to communicate effectively in English language
but also in many different required skills. In some university in Malaysia like Universiti
Malaysia Sabah (UMS), this program has been implemented in the institution which
should be followed by other universities in the future as it can be seen as a very good
effort. In addition to the purpose of this program, it invented to utilize the method of
teaching English, and to highlight the importance of teaching English as a
communication tool for their future careers.

3.2 INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

Another recommendation is to provide industrial training in higher
institutions. This course usually included in general course outline of some university and
especially for final year students. The purpose of this course as to exposing graduates and
students to the real life of working and would automatically become their working
experienced in the future. The students would either find their own workplace or provide
by the institution to be trained for several months, usually 6 months industrial training.
Therefore, here they can develop not only a good command especially in English
language, but also can create good relationship with other workers. In such a way that
they would have some idea about the demand of the industry especially the one related to
business matters, and more understanding of what criteria needs by some employers
when choosing their worker candidates. Furthermore, the experience to deal with
different background of people and clients especially in Tourism industry would require
them to use English language for main communication. This is due to a reason that they
will meet a lot of people from other country with different language and nation.

4.0 CONCLUSION

9| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
In a nut shell, it can be conclude that English language plays vital roles in our
daily lives as we should be mastering this language in both oral and written
communication skills from lower level education until higher institution. The problem
occurred when some causes disrupts the smoothness of communication in English such as
the effect of mother tongue which bring big influenced to most of Malaysian citizens and
find it difficult to communicate in English especially in the workplace. The lack of
proficiency in English skills was also one of the main factors of having difficulty to
deliver communication in a proper way for Malaysians. Whereas everyone should start
practicing the second important language in Malaysia not only in the workplace but also
in our social lives, like meetings with friends and family and in business relation. In
addition to that, more programs should be held by especially higher institutions as to
equipped Malaysian graduates with effective ways of communication to meet the
demands of the employment industry.
Some recommendations to solve the major problem in English communication
among Malaysians includes the application of English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)
that created in many institutions for better preparation for peoples working life using
English as spoken language. I believed this program would bring huge benefits to the
Malaysian as well as industry. It is in line with the purpose of industrial training to be
held by most institutions. Apart from that, the role of government also takes part in
providing more intensive communication courses despite several of the job opportunities
to support Malaysians to increase their proficiency in English language.

5.0 REFERENCES

Language Magazine: How Does Mother Tongue Affect Second Language Acquisition? (2016).
The Journal of Communication & Education.

10| P a g e

[OUMH2203 ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE

COMMUNICATION]
Abdullah A.M., N. R. (2014). Conceptualizing English Workplace Communication Needs of
Profesional Engineers: The Challenges for English Language Tertiary Educators. .
International Journal of Contemporary Business Management, 1(1):1-9.
Berhanuddin, Mohd Salleh, Othman, Hussain, Esa, Ahmad, Sulaiman, Abdullah & Othman,
Hasyamudin. (2007). Adopting Problem Based-Learning in The Teaching of Engineering
Undergraduates: A Malaysian Experience. The International Conference on Engineering
Education (ICEE) (pp. 3-7). Coimbra Portugal: A Malaysian Experience.
David, A. (2008). The Impact of Mother Tongue on Students' Achievement in English Language
in Junior Secondary Certificate Examination in Junior Secondary Certificate Examination
in Western Nigeria. Department of Guidance & Counselling, University of IbadanIbadan Nigeria, j. soc, sci., 17 (1)41-49.
Kassim, H. &. (2010). English Communicative Events and Skills Needed At the Workplace:
Feedback From The Industry. English For Specific Purposes, 29(3), 168-182.
S., Z. (n.d.). Unemployment Rate Higher in February in Malaysia.
Sarjit, K. &. (2006). Analysing Workplace Oral Communication Needs in English Among IT
Graduates. ESP World, 1(12).
Turner, R. (2015). Economic Impact 2015 Malaysia. World Travel & Tourism Council.

11| P a g e