FAKULTI PENDIDIKAN

OUMH 2203
ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION
JANUARI 2016

MOHD FAUZI BIN MD RAWI

690101108469001

690101108469

0122210171

fauzi8469@gmail.com

PUSAT PENGAJIAN : SHAH ALAM

Semester Jan 2016

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ISI KANDUNGAN MUKA SURAT

1. INTRODUCTION 3

2. CHALLENGES OR PROBLEMS 4

3. RECOMMENDATIONS 7

4. CONCLUSIONS 9

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY 10

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1.0 Introduction

Many Malaysians have difficulty communicating in English in the workplace,

especially when it comes to business-related matters. I agree with the statement and this
applies to both oral and written communication. It is crucial in a country like Malaysia
which aspires to attain the status of developed nation by 2020, to have people who are
able to communicate effectively in order to compete on the global platform (Gill, 2002).
Therefore, there is a very little doubt that English plays a central role in achieving the
status. Many Malaysian companies deal with language problems at the workplace and
some researchers are trying to determine the main problem faced by the companies.

Nair-Venugopal, 2003 has examined multilingual employees language use in the

private workplace domain. She revealed that language choice of the speakers depended
largely on their status and position held in the organizations, educational background and
language competence. He study found out that English was used when the audience was
from the upper rung of the ladder in the organization. Malaysian English and Bahasa
Malaysia were used as a strategy to accommodate those who has lower proficiency in
English Language. This is supported by previous studies which looked at the use of
English in the Malaysian workplace domain. (Kassim & Ali, 2010; Sundaram & Webster,
2000)

Maros (2000) studied language use in the commercial sector based on the
communicative functions and needs of the firms. The findings stated that language use
was determined by the clients and the type of organizations. Maros believes that the
customer contribution which was largely local, could have affected the patterns of
language use. However, the study also showed that there was bilingual use of Bahasa
Malaysia and English as well as Chinese and English among the higher level of
management in the companies. It cannot be denied that English Language has an impact
in the advancement and growth in Malaysia from certain major developmental areas.

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2.0 Challenges or Problems

As we know, Malaysia is a multiracial country, majority of the workers cited

Bahasa Melayu as their mother tongue, followed by Mandarin while the remaining
selected mostly English or Tamil as their mother tongue. Socio-cultural barriers do affect
their ability to communicate with superiors in their organization or company. This has
affected the workers ability to communicate in face-to-face dealings and they feel
intimidated or faced difficulties to express opinions or ideas. This is possibly attributed to
their ability to use various mode of communication such as emails, short messaging
system, chat box, facebook, weblogs and wikis which enable them to have much freedom
in exchanging ideas and viewpoints.

According to a research done by Subramaniam Kannan (2012), workers in a

strong internal organizational cultural and training did not hinder them from
communicating freely with other people from a different culture or race. The workers can
communicate to people of other races without any difficulty. Most of them have strong
understanding of their organisations mission, vision and common norm in
communication which in turn, has put them at ease to communicate freely without
cultural or racial prejudice. They are able to communicate well with their peers with the
same socio-cultural background especially colleagues understanding and dialect enhance
understanding and promote easier knowledge sharing.

Other challenge faced by the workers is they faced difficulties in using proper
grammar in formal communications such as in writing formal documents or doing
presentations. The correct usage of grammar when communicating is crucial in business
dealings to maintain the delivery quality especially in IT services. Most of the workers in
IT services believed that correct usage of grammar is not a major hindrance as most of
the narratives in an application or online system. Since writing reports and
communicating via emails are unavoidable in an IT personnels work, it will be
interesting to ascertain if they enjoy engaging in formal written communication. From the
survey done by Subramaniam, majority of the workers partially agreed with the statement
that they disliked formal written communication.

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 In April 2000, there was an issue highlighted in the newspapers and television
about the reasons behind the inability of some 39,000 graduates in the country to get job.
The Minister of Education, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad as quoted in The New Strait Times,
said,

employers did not just look at ones qualification but also factors

like personality, potential, English proficiency and experience.

Musas emphasis implies that graduates seeking employment should try to achieve
certain level of mastery of English to help them secure appropriate jobs particularly in the
private sector. There are also general understandings that job interviews for profesional
vacancies in critical fields like Law, Accountancy and Engineering are expected to be
conducted in English.

Not only does English become a contributive factor for employment needs, it is
still necessary for ones profesional career development. A person who demonstrates a
high ability in the use of English, for instance, when dealing and communicating with
customers and visitors faces a brighter future in his career advancement. He would be
looked upon as one who can represent the organization or business and thus would be
considered favorably to hold key positions. This, in turn, can be translated into certain
promotions and more financial rewards. In short, we can say English plays an important
role in the employment perspective in Malaysia.

As known, tourism industry has been developing rapidly especially in the last two
decades in Malaysia. There are many factors contributing to the growth and development
of the industry. Good infrastructures, efficient public transportation systems, better
accommodation facilities, campaign and promotion strategies both at domestic and
international levels as well as effective communication skills have all contributed to the
expansion of the tourism industry. For example, in 1999 Malaysia had launched a mega
campaign on tourism with the aim to attract as many as possible, foreign tourists to come
and visit the country. Thus, 1999 was declared as Visit Malaysia Year.

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 Apart from the campaign done at the national level, all states take initiatives to
promote local tourism too. In all the campaigns and promotions, the role of English
becomes evident as the medium of communication to disseminate information regarding
places of interest, travel and flight arrangements, range of facilities offered, hotels and so
on. English as an international language is used in the publication of brochures,
magazines and talks on tourism activities. Due to this aspect, hotel industries is closely
related to the development of tourism industry. An increase in tourism industry will also
stir an increase in hotel industry. The tourists especially the foreigners need proper and
comfortable accommodations to stay and they are also hoping for hospitable treatment
from the hotel staff.

Therefore, front office assistants of hotels, who are in direct contacts with them,
should be able to communicate well and politely. Again, the function of English comes to
the surface. But, the question is that, do the front office assistants have the crucial English
language competency to convincingly deal with foreign tourists? Can they speak in good
English? Mei Yut (1998) did a study on English Language Communication Training
Needs of Front Office Assistants of Hotels in Kuala Lumpur. Her study involved
several four and five-star hotels in the city. Based on the survey and interview, she finds
that the standard of English among the front liners is not up to the level yet and therefore,
language training becomes the necessity for them.

She summarizes that,

hotels in Kuala Lumpur should provide English language

communication to Front Office Assistants (FOA) as a means to enhance their
current job performance as well as a means for self and career development.

In short, the above discussion points that at least are two main conclusions of English in
the domain of tourism industry in Malaysia. It is an essential languageused in campaigns
and promotions to develop the industry. Second, front office assistants need to have a
high competency level in English to communicate better with tourists who may come
from any parts of the world.

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 College and university students require many information in their studies, and
surely the information will be gain from the internet or books. Most of the information
they are looking for ae written in English. The domain of translation indicates that there
is a function for English which should be understood. Translation from one language to
another language is related to or done for transfer of knowledge purposes.

In their book, Advanced English for Translation, Dennis Chamberlain and

Gillian White (1993) explain the need to learn and acquire some fundamental skills for
producing effective and quality translation work. They agree that a translator must have
an acceptable level of competency in English and good writing skill. In Malaysia,
especially in local universities, there are always demands for translation works on various
academic subjects like in the discipline of engineering, medicine, human resource
development, etc. It is true that English in translation perspective does help to improve
the level of language itself, too. Tan Sri Awang Had Salleh , the President of the
Association of Malaysian Education believes that students should develop certain
fundamental skills in simple translation in order to improve their command of English
effectively.

3.0 Recommendations

Due to all the challenges and problems of using English in the workplace, here are
a few recommendations to help rectify and improve the standard and usage of English in
Malaysian community.

Government Policy

The government must become the driving force in creating the interest in the use
of English as a strong second language in Malaysia. The attitude and policy toward
English must be as transparent and as observable as in its implementation. The
government has shown a renewed and greater determination once, in order to inculcate
the use of English language particularly in the teaching of Science and Mathematics as
early as at the primary educational level. Even though crowds are criticizing the policy,

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we as teachers are still doing our best teaching those subjects in English. But in rural and
suburban schools, teachers are teaching their students bilingually. Nevertheless, the
students still got the purpose of learning English using those Science subjects and it
improves their ability to understand English more.

English Teacher Training

Effective and systematic training strategies must be adequately planned, provided

and evaluated to ensure that English instruction can fit well with changing environment.
Thus, sufficient allocations for English training courses should be given priority. The
training courses must be done annually especially for teachers from the rural and
suburban schools. Most of the teachers from these areas are not English teachers. They
are asked by the school to teach the subject because lack of English teachers. This is the
main problem in certain part of our country. Most the competent English teachers are
teaching in the urban areas. Teachers should be trained either orally or written
communication.

Students Attitude

Students at all levels should take the initiative to not only learn the language but
also practice it as frequently as possible. Even the best English teachers could not help
students who do not have interest and refuse to use the language themselves, in particular,
in their daily activities. However, teachers as well as parents should also motivate and
guide the students to improve their level of English.

The Public

Cooperation from the public to increase the use of English in business and social
ordinary life engagements are vital. Clearly, English is the language of progress in many
aspects of life. Thus the negative perceptions such as speaking English will make them
less nationalistic should be responded to.

The Kindergaten

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 Expose children below the age of five to English is good because they can master
the language at early stage. Therefore, kindergarten teachers from various parts of the
country must undergo training courses in the teaching of English at the kindergarten
level. Make sure that it will be implemented throughout the country particularly in the
remote areas, to ensure that children in those places will gain their confidence and ability
to learn English from the early stage.

4.0 Conclusions

We better understand the crucial roles of English in Malaysia from the perspective
of development. However, more understanding on the basic functions of English in
development and communication changes nothing. All parties including the government,
the society, students, English teachers and teachers of other subjects, should realize their
specific parts and potential and together making more efforts towards using English
language as the language of development.

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5.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Alicia Izharuddin, The Use of English In Contemporary Malaysian Feminist

Activism, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

2. Mohd Faisal b. Hanapiah; English Language and The Language of Development:

A Malaysian Perspective, Jurnal Kemanusiaan.

3. Nurul Azita Binti Salleh, Norazah Binti Mohd Nordin, Assoc. Prof, Abdul Khalim
Bin Abdul Rashid, Assoc. Prof; The Language Problem Issue among Foreign
Workers in the Malaysian Construction Industry

4. Subarmaniam Kannan, Sareen Kaur Bhar, Nor Azlah Abu Bakar, Chua Yong Eng,
Language Barriers:Feedback From The It Industry

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