NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAI IT DEVELOPERS IN A MULTINATIONAL COMPANY BY MR. WIT DUANPATTRA AN INDEPENDENT STUDY PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN CAREER ENGLISH FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION LANGUAGE INSTITUTE THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC YEAR 2019 COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY Ref. code: 25626121040577SPI NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAI IT DEVELOPERS IN A MULTINATIONAL COMPANY BY MR. WIT DUANPATTRA AN INDEPENDENT STUDY PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN CAREER ENGLISH FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION LANGUAGE INSTITUTE THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC YEAR 2019 COPYRIGHT OF THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY Ref.
code: 25626121040577SPI THAMMASAT UNIVERSITY LANGUAGE INSTITUTE INDEPENDENT STUDY PAPER BY MRo WIT DUANGPATTRA ENTITLED NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAIIT DEVELOPERSIN A MULTINATIONAL CONIIPANY was approved as partial fulf11lment ofthe requircments for the degree ofヽ 4aster ofArts in Career English for lntemational Colrmunication on June 10,2020 Chaillllan (Monthon Kanokpermpoon, Ph.) Member and Advisor 肺 肺市脚 (Associate Professor Sucharat Rimkeeratikul, Ph.) Director fessor Supong Tangkiengsirisin, Ph.) Ref code:25626121040577SPI i Independent Study Paper Title NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAI IT DEVELOPERS IN A MULTINATIONAL COMPANY Author Mr. Wit Duangpattra Degree Master of Arts Major Field/Faculty/University Career English for International Communication Language Institute Thammasat University Independent Study Paper Advisor Associate Professor Sucharat Rimkeeratikul, Ph. Academic Year 2019 ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the needs on English communication skills and opinions on English training courses of Thai IT developers working in a multinational company. The participants were 30 developers working in the software development department.
The data were collected through a questionnaire. The findings revealed that listening and speaking were the most significant English communication skills for the participants and both skills played an important role for those who work as developers. In terms of training courses, most of the participants highly agreed that the company should provide training courses that help improve certain skills and they viewed that training courses are necessary. More specifically, the participants were of the opinion that the company should provide training courses that focus on improving listening and speaking.
Keyword: Multinational company, Needs Analysis, IT Developers, English Communication Skills Ref. code: 25626121040577SPI ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Sucharat Rimkeeratikul for her valuable guidance, and I also would like to thank Dr. Monthon Kanokpermpoon for his comments and suggestion.
Without support from both professors, it would have been impossible for me to complete this study. In addition, I would like to give my thanks to all the colleagues in my company that helped me with the questionnaire. Please know that I appreciate your support. Lastly, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Sasiwan Netluecha who always supports me.
Wit Duangpatta Ref. code: 25626121040577SPI iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.2 Statement of Problem 2 1.5 Definition of Terms 4 1.6 Scope of the study 5 1.7 Significance of the Study 5 1.8 Organization of the Study 5 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURES REVIEW 2.1 Background of IT (Software and Application) Developers 6 2.1 Communication Skills and IT Developers 7 2.2 English Languages and IT Developers 9 2.3 IT Developers Responsibilities 9 2.2 English Communication Skills 12 2.1 Listening Skills 12 Ref. code: 25626121040577SPI iv 2.1 Target Situation Analysis (TSA) 16 2.4 Previous Studies 18 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20 3.4 Data Analysis 22 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS 23 4.1 Demographic Information and English background of Participants 23 4.2 Needs for English Communication Skills at Work 29 4.3 General Opinions on English Training Courses to Develop English Communication Skills 33 4.1 Opinions on English Communication Skills and IT careers 33 4.2 Opinions on English Training Course 34 4.3 Opinions on English Communication Skills Improvement 35 4.4 Opinions on Methods to Improve English Communication Skills 36 4.5 Opinions on Challenges in English Communication Skills 37 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION, DISCUSSION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS 39 5.1 Summary of the Study 39 5.1 Objective of the Study 39 5.2 Participants, Materials and Procedures 39 5.2 Summary of the Findings 40 Ref.1 Demographic Information and English background of a Participant 40 5.2 Needs for English Communication Skills at Work 41 5.1 Needs of English Communication Skills from Thai Developers 42 5.2 English Training Course for Thai Developers 44 5.3 Content of an English Training Course for Thai Developers 45 5.5 Recommendations for Future Research 47 REFERENCES 48 APPENDICES 52 APPENDIX A 53 APPENDIX B 60 APPENDIX C 67 BIOGRAPHY 74 Ref. code: 25626121040577SPI vi LIST OF TABLES Tables Page Table 1.
Educational Level 24 Table 4. Current Work Level 24 Table 5. Year of Experience 25 Table 6. TOEIC Score 25 Table 7.
Frequency of using English skills in current 26 Table 8. Year of English study 26 Table 9. The self-evaluation of participants’ overall English proficiency 27 Table 10. The self-evaluation of participants’ English listening skills 27 Table 11.
The self-evaluation of participants’ English speaking skills 28 Table 12. The self-evaluation of participants’ English reading skills 28 Table 13. The self-evaluation of participants’ English writing skills 29 Table 14. Level of English skills needed to perform their current job 29 Table 15.
Participants’ need in using listening skills at work 30 Table 16. Participants’ need in using reading skills at work 31 Table 17. Participants’ need in using speaking skills at work 31 Table 18. Participants’ need in using writing skills at work 32 Table 19.
English communication skills and IT careers 33 Table 20. Importance of English communication skills 34 Table 21. English communication skills improvement 35 Table 22. Challenges in English communication skills 38 Ref.
code: 25626121040577SPI vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Symbols/Abbreviation Terms BA Business Analyst CNP Communicative Need Processor ESP English for Specific Purposes TSA Target Situation Analysis LSA Learning Situation Analysis PSA Present Situation Analysis NA Needs Analysis QA Quality Assurance Ref. code: 25626121040577SPI 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Nowadays, it is difficult to deny that technology has become a part of human life in many different ways and the way that technology evolves from the past until now is far greater than anyone can imagine. In the business world, it is impossible to operate a business without technology since many companies would use it to improve their business in various ways i. implementing big data analysis to predict customer behavior; so it is not surprise that the growth rate of IT companies is rising because of this current trend.
The current company that the researcher is working for specializes in IT business providing services to clients that need support from technology to enhance their business. It is also considered a multinational company that currently operates in the APAC region alongside the other branch in Singapore while the main business is IT services provider. In terms of workforce, there are about 400 employees from 24 different nationalities working for the company and most of them were hired for IT positions such as software development, quality assurance and, business analyst. They have been assigned to work in various projects for clients from Thailand and other countries.
In terms of language used in the company, English is a major language used by the employees. For Thai employees, English communication skills play an important role in their career because they need to interact with foreign colleagues and clients that don’t share the same mother tongue. From this scenario, they are required to use all four English communication skills; speaking, writing, reading and listening to deal with the nature of their job when the main communication is not conveyed by their first language. The HR department has also realized the importance of English communication skills among Thai employees as can be observed in job descriptions that an ability to communicate in English is now a mandatory skill required for every position even for the non-IT while in the past this requirement appeared in only some positions.2 Statement of Problem There are several departments in the company; however, one of the most important departments is the IT department since providing IT services is the core business of the company.
The IT department consists of three main divisions, which are software development, business analyst (BA) and project management office (PMO). All divisions need to be involved in using English language while working. However, the extent of using English communication skills varies in each division. For example, Thai employees working in the BA and PMO divisions are extensively using English speaking skill in their career because it is a position that largely requires them to communicate with clients regularly, while employees that work as IT developers in the software development division will focus less in the speaking skill since they are not required to deal with the clients.
The software development is the biggest division in the company and probably the most when compared to the other two divisions since it takes the main responsibility for developing technology that supports requirements from clients such as mobile applications, websites, machine learning, etc. There are approximately 150 Thai developers who work in this division. As regards English communication skills, they are required to use all four main skills both for personal communication and work. On a daily basis, most of them are required to communicate in English since they have to work with many foreigners that belong to their team.
They need to participate in scrum meetings, an activity wherein everybody in the team needs to report their work progress, and it is usually conducted in the English language since most scrum masters are foreigners. This activity requires decent skills in listening and speaking because they need to understand questions from the scrum master and express any ideas or feedback to the team. Many of them also report to a supervisor who is a foreigner, which means that any reports must be conveyed in English and sometimes it might need to be done in face-to-face communication or an email. From time to time, the company will make an announcement to all employees via an email, which requires them to use reading skills to be able to understand the content.
From the mentioned activities, if their English communication skills are not good this can lead to misunderstanding in communication and some unexpected problems that might affect their career. On the other hand, it might provide Ref. code: 25626121040577SPI 3 opportunities in their career if they have the capability to use English communication skills. Getting promoted is one of the best examples in this case.
Participating in an English training course could be a possible method that helps them to achieve these crucial skills. Since 2014, the company has provided an English language training course but most of the time the company never asks the employees to do a survey to measure and analyse their needs in learning English. As a result, the company can only provide a general English course for employees and it doesn’t help much in improving the skills because they cannot apply the knowledge they gained to their actual work. An ineffective training course will not only waste time and money from the company but also create a negative attitude among employees to attend training courses in the future since they can’t see any benefits from the training.
The abovementioned scenario reflects that the organization needs to revamp the way it organizes English training courses for employees by providing a specific English training course rather than a general English training course.