Nowadays, communication becomes more important because people live in the world of

communication. According to Oxford Dictionary of Current English (Moore, 1997),

communication can be defined as the activity or process of expressing ideas and feeling or giving
out the information to others. Communication comes between the individuals and the groups,
between thoughts and feelings and it also involve the feedback process. So, in order to reach the
good communication, listening and speaking is an important part and it needs more knowledge.
Its sounds so easy but its quite difficult for some people to communicate especially in English.
Everybody has their own style of speaking. Some are good in communication which also can
build a good relationship. But, many people have trouble in communication especially in the
workplace and when it comes to business-related matters. So, I totally agree with this statement
because I have seen so many people have this kind of problems. It might not apply to both oral
communication and written communication. Oral communication is more difficult rather than
written communication.
Since English is a foreign language in our country, most of us especially those who are
involve in business or students are not familiar with it (Hetrakul, 1995). According to Hetrakul
(1995), for students, they use English more frequent only inside the class and less practice
outside the class. Oral communication means the ability to talk with others to give and exchange
the informations and ideas. For example, usually we used this oral communication to greet
people and taking messages, reassuring, comforting or persuading and for seeking information
and resolving conflicts.
Communication barriers can be defined as anything that filtres, blocks or distorts the
message or the information during the process of encoding-sending-decoding. The first barrier
that makes people difficult in speaking in English is that the environment that do not support
people to communicate in English frequently. It means that when we are outside or not expose to
the English language environment. People need to practice with other friends to speak in English.
Some of them are lack of confidence to use the English language because they are afraid and
shame when they make the mistake. This English language is also important because it is a way
to communicate with the foreigners. For example, if we are dealing with a client from US, we
must know how to communicate with him/her. Thus, this English communication plays an
important role. If we are too afraid to use English language because worried it can be broken, we

can practice it daily by talking with our best friends or collegues or whoever we can practice
with. Some of them are having a problem because they are not very interested to read English
book. If they are always read English book, they can improve their skill in everything. They
think that reading an English book is very bored and they lose their interest to learn more about
English language.
Other than that, the most element of poor communication in todays workplace is a lack
of information for the proper accomplishment of the tasks necessary within the business. Even in
todays information overload society, employees often lack the information they need to do their
jobs. They may have the data that they require form external supplies but it is the information
that their supervisors and co-workers have. They did not have properly shared and most of them
are remain unsaid. Basically, this poor communication is a result that the people with overload
information are still processing it themselves and havent enough time to discover the problem.
An organization change also becomes a communication failure. For example, when an
organization downsizes or people are laid off, those who remain are taking odd responsibilities
which require them to communicate in ways for which they have neither training nor
experiences. They might need to prepare and do the presentation using Powerpoint slides, which
they never used before. When this happened, it becomes a problem for those who are in-charge.
They need to practice more or attend training for this kind of job. When they are doing a
presentation, they need to have a good and clear communication so that the people who are
listening can understand what is going on. Thus, those people who are having this problem need
more practice and training.
The next barrier that causes poor communication is the managerial philosophy which can
cause the ambiguity. According to Tourish and Robson (2006), the specific attitudes from
managerial to non-managerial staff can direct to organizational problems. They researched that
the problems occurs between the manager and the subordinates which makes the subordinates to
minimize their feedback to upper level. The cause making between these two sides can make
them to communicate less and they will have problem in speaking and listening process. For
example, if a manager in a company did not like one of the subordinates, the manager will treat
him/her badly. They will have difficulty to communicate well.

Besides that, different people communicate differently. When there is no define in a

communication strategies, those different styles will clash and create a conflict. For example, in a
company, some of them prefer to create a face to face conversation while some of them like to
communicate via electronic like email, messaging, whatsapp and soon. Each of them will feel
that it difficult and it will cause the communication breakdown. Thus, in this situation, each party
needs to have one communication style so that every conversation will easily created.
The next barrier that will cause the difficulty to some Malaysian to communicate in
English is the cultural. In a company, more than one culture they have. Most of them are so
attached with their cultures which cause them very difficult to communicate to each other. For
example, they must have talking and listening only to their race. When different races are given a
task to do a meeting, they need to communicate in a way where everyone can understand clearly.
The most language that everyone understands is English language. So, they need to speak to each
other in English. By hook or by crook, they need to practice it well how to communicate.
Last but not least, most of them are lack of English background. They did not pay full
attention to the English language and they think English is not very important but they are
wrong. For example, during study, they need to focus more to English because when they enter
into the business world, they need all of this. Failure in communicate in English will make the
reputation of the company bad. Some of the company will use full English and they will hire the
one that can speak well in English. If some of Malaysian cannot communicate well in English, it
also might be they are lack of practice. Their family must encourage them to speak in English
daily even only some word. Use the simplest word that can help them to understand and can
convey the message in an easy way.
Listening is the effective way to a good communication but it is not easy. Be a good
listener is always not easy. Distraction always occurs during the conversation that makes it very
difficult to hear and absorb what others are saying. The person who are listening need to limit the
distractions that occurs. For example, turning off the phones or silent it, or closing the door
during the conversation. By doing this small things, we will ensure that the person who are
talking to us will have our full attention. Other than that, it is very important to limit the internal
distraction which means that everything that has in our mind. For example, we have several
topics to discuss during a meeting or conversation that give the ideas that are tempting, but this

will make confusion and will make the other person think that his or her ideas are not important.
Remember that communication is a two-way street. Try to establish the give and take that allows
both sides to have their say.
Other than that, if we have the chances to communicate with our clients, try to receive the
feedback regularly even if we dont receive it in a formal method. This will be goldmine
information about our business. For example, about the products and services that are perceived
by the clients and soon. In order to make it effective, we must change it accordingly by improve
the process of our business, change the strategies and try to discover the problems that our
company have. Try to create a process for collecting the feedback we receive and set a time once
a month to discuss and analyze a plan for implementing and tracking the improvements.
Most of the communication relies on getting information that we need, and this means
that we need to ask the right questions. In every conversation, it must be a clue which question
that we need to ask. We need to listen carefully and be able to figure out the clues that welisten
about the information we need. For example, try to consider the case of an employee who has not
been meeting goals and is generally unhappy at work. If we don't ask the right questions, we may
never get to the root of the issue, which can be anything from personal issues to being underchallenged.
As we all know, the customers are more interested in our capabilities than our
limitations. This means that they are more interested in what we can do rather than what we cant
do. The way that we say to them will influence us and our department. For example, in an IT
department, if someone is having a problem about IT connection, they prefer to hear please log
off so that I can help you instead of hearing I cant help you unless you log off. Thus, we need
to avoid the negative statement so that our communication with our customers will go well.
There are some recommendation for successful communication in English among
Malaysian. For those who are weak in talking in English, they must have a group where they can
practice with each others and discuss among them. Find out what is happen and try to listen well.
One way to have a good response, they can ask the question whether it can be understood clearly
or not.If possible, try to share the information with the employees. Try to communicate well in
English and try to answer by practicing it. Work in a group because different people have

different ideas. Other than that, they can attend a class that can teach them to talk in English. It is
more like a business class for English language that will help those who are very weak in
communicate in English. The company also can give training to them to train and give the
opportunities for them to talk well with each other.
Nowadays, command and control communication approaches are unlikely to generate
positive response in employees (Denning, 2008). Communication in english among Malaysian is
much more complex and will affects the organization improvements. I agree with the statement
that technology communication is more important that the face-to-face communication. It seems
that face-to-face communication remains untouched and continues to be in the top level priority.
The facts still remains that in order for any business whether entrepreneur, partnership or
corporates offices to achieve the success, we have to communicate well with someone voice or
ideas. The communication style for both parties needs to be similar so that they can understand to
each other. But in written communication, it might not difficult compared to oral communication.
Some of the people cannot talk well but they can write well. In whatever situation, practice is a
must because practice makes perfect. Thus, communicate in English are very important since it
can give many benefits to us that can help to gain the succeed of an organization.
(2014 words)

REFERENCES

1. Tourish, Dennis and Robson, Paul (2006) Sensemaking and the Distortion of Critical
Upward Communication in Organizations. The Journal of Management Studies, 43(4), p.
711-730.
2. Retrieved

from

http://sbinformation.about.com/od/businessmanagemen1/a/effective-

communication.htm
3. Retrieved from http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/2005/2005mallett-hamerb.pdf
4. Retrieved from http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/lack-communication-cause-conflictworkplace-9430.html
5. Retrieved from
http://www.ergen.gr/files/WorkplaceCommunicationInformalCommunicationFramework.
pdf
6. Retrieved from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-communicatemore-effectively-with-customers-and-co-workers/.
7. Denning, Stephen (2008) Stories in the Workplace. HR Magazine, September, p. 129132.