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ABSTRACT This thesis was conducted to find the English speaking barriers for employees when communicating with foreign clients of the Customer Care Department at K Hair Import and Export Co , Ltd Cust[.]
ABSTRACT This thesis was conducted to find the English-speaking barriers for employees when communicating with foreign clients of the Customer Care Department at KHair Import and Export Co., Ltd Customer Care Department To suit the target of the present study, the author uses two main research methods respectively questionnaires and interview questions Nearly 30 Customer Care Department staff at K- Hair participated in the questionnaires The data and results were showing that the Customer Care Department staff does recognize the importance of using English in the workplace However, they still face some difficulties in speaking English with their clients Hopefully, this study will become a good source for Customer Care Department staff while using English to speak and negotiate with their foreign clients and use it for further studies i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Working with this thesis has been hard but deserved There are many people who have accompanied and supported me during this time First of all, I owe the deepest thanks to my supervisor My conscientious and thoughtful supervisor Vu Thi Thanh Hoa has encouraged and supported my ideas from beginning to end He has constantly checked all numerous drafts of my work and it has been an amazing chance to learn from his open-mindedness Secondly, I am thankful to all staff and managers in Customer Care Department at K- Hair who have made this study possible Moreover, I would like to acknowledge all the authors of the books, magazines, and other materials listed in the reference part for my ideas that have been reflected and developed in the study I am in my classmate’s debt for their encouragement during my study Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and my close friends who got my back to support and cheer me to successfully complete this thesis Ha Noi, November 24,2022 Giang Le Huong Giang ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research Subjects 1.5 Scope of the study .4 1.6 Research methodology .4 1.7 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of speaking skill 2.2 Characteristics of speaking skill .7 2.3 Types of speaking .8 2.4 Purpose of speaking 2.5 Difficulties in speaking 2.5.1 Difficulty in pronunciation 2.5.2 Difficulty in vocabulary 11 2.5.3 Difficulty in knowledge .11 2.5.4 Other difficulties 12 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH .15 3.1 Research strategy 15 3.2 Research method 15 3.2.1 Participants 15 3.2.2 Questionnaires .15 3.2.3 Interviews 15 3.3 Research approach 16 iii 3.4 Research process 16 3.5 Data collection and tools 17 3.6 Data analysis methods 17 3.7 Results .18 3.7.1 Results from questionnaires .18 3.7.2 Results from interview questions .26 3.8.Discussion 28 3.8.1 Current situation of Customer Care Department staff’s English communicating skill in K- Hair 28 3.8.2 Difficulties in speaking with foreign clients: the case of Customer Care Department staff at K- Hair 28 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS .31 4.1 Recommendations and suggestions 31 4.2 Research limitations .32 CONCLUSION .33 REFERENCES APPENDIX iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Diagram 2.1 Summary from chapter 13 Table 3.7.1: Staff’s working years 18 Table 3.7.2 Years of learning English of staff 19 Table 3.7.3 Staff’s attitude towards the importance of speaking English .19 Table 3.7.4 The ability to speak English of staff 19 Table 3.7.5 The general opinion of staff about difficulty in English speaking 20 Figure 3.7.6 Aspects of difficulties affect speaking with foreign clients of Customer Care Department staff .21 Figure 3.7.7 Difficulties in pronunciation of staff when speaking with foreign clients 22 Figure 3.7.8 Difficulties in vocabulary of staff when speaking with foreign clients .23 Figures 3.7.9 Difficulties in knowledge of staff when speaking with foreign clients 24 Figure 3.7.10 Solutions to improve speaking skills of Customer Care Department staff 25 v CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale of the study English is the dominant business language and it has become a necessity for people who want to enter a global workforce Research from all over the world shows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted in English English is also considered as a means to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries, especially since Vietnam became an official member of WTO Therefore, there has been an increasing number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the latest modern technology in the world In this globalization, all of the companies will hire a candidate who has excellent English skills Speaking English opens up thousands of new opportunities Being able to communicate with foreign clients or business partners will provide you a more challenging position in your career Moreover, being able to use English in your research will give you unlimited access to knowledge Today, English is used in every aspect of life Adopting a global language policy is not easy at all, especially in the business world Many employees may feel at a disadvantage if their English isn’t as good as others, team dynamics and performance also can suffer In order to survive and thrive in a global economy, companies and employees must overcome language barriers and English will always be the common ground, at least for now In Vietnam, there are still many employees who can not speak English properly due to condition, context, workload especially staff in the Customer Care Department at K-Hair Import and Export Co., Ltd when they communicate with foreign customers Customer Care Department staff need to be good at negotiating, networking and dealing with numbers, as well as dealing with other factors such as solving problems that customers face in the process of purchasing, using products or services at the company scarcity, risk management and quality evaluation, and negotiating price Customer Care Department staff frequently speak and negotiate with customers in and outside the country in English However, their communication suffers from complex jobs assigned, and intercultural misunderstandings significantly It slows down productivity and undermines the capacity of employees to develop their skills All of the above reasons have inspired me to the research on “A study on the English speaking barriers for employees of Customer Care Department at K-Hair Import and Export Co., Ltd when communicating with foreign clients” with the hope to make a small contribution to the quality of changing communicating skills of Customer Care Department at K-Hair Import and Export Co., Ltd After reading and watching by many means and aspects of life, I realize that there are three main difficulties almost every employee or learner faces when speaking English The first one is the fear of committing mistakes Most staff or workers hesitate to speak English because of what others may think if they find a mistake They can laugh or insult them, they prefer to keep quiet or speak as little as possible The second one is the non-availability of words to express feelings A nonnative speaker of English wants to say something but doesn’t get words to express them in English The third is the difference in syntax The arrangement of words in the mother tongue is different from the syntax of English People can’t translate a sentence from their mother tongue to English in the same manner 1.2 Previous studies There are many studies about the difficulty in speaking English Lawtie’s study pointed out that emotional states affect learners' English speaking skills These emotions are unconfident, shy, nervous Emotions become an important factor when speaking with other people While Hinkel (2005) stated that problems occur when communication is possible because they not understand the meaning of a word or can not express their meaning This also prevents communication between people from being successful Several causes of difficulty in practicing speaking skills such as pronunciation, semantic errors, lack of vocabulary, lack of interest or lack of environment for practice have been shown in Mustafa Mubarak Pathan’s (2014) research studies In Samira Al Hosni (2014) research, she lists three main difficulties when speaking English, they are linguistic difficulties, mother tongue, and inhibition Staff have an inadequate vocabulary and weak sentence building skills The findings also showed that the main factors that contributed to the existence of these difficulties are teacher’s perceptions and tacit belief of teaching speaking, teaching strategies and assessment regulations Besides studies on English speaking which were done by foreigners, there were also a number of studies of researchers in Vietnam about the speaking ability Cao Dinh Duc (2018) “A study on some problems in using spoken language at the workplace of fourth-year students in the English Department, Thuongmai University and suggested solutions” The results indicated that oral communication is important and the Customer Care Department at the company most used forms of it are persuading customers, informal work-related discussion These studies above have pointed out the English speaking barriers of communicating skills of staff They are typical subjects who regularly use English This is a comparative study that covers neither universities nor high schools or even employees This study also takes place in a company where I was doing an internship within a month It explores old problems – English speaking skills, but with a new subject – the Customer Care Department at a company, based on the literature reviews from the related previous studies and data analysis 1.3 Aims of the study Based on the reality in how many staff at Customer Care Department use and what their English speaking barriers they have to face while using English, this study is conducted with the aim to identify common English speaking barriers when communicating with foreign clients of Customer Care Department staff at K- Hair 1.4 Research Subjects This research is designed with the participation of 30 staff including four staff and managers at the Customer Care Department at K- Hair All of the staff are different in English speaking levels, they are willing to complete questionnaires Moreover, the director also feels comfortable to share information and takes part in the interview questions This research is carried out by answering three following research question: Could you tell me some specific situations/examples which you have difficult in such as pronunciation, vocabulary, knowledge or other difficulties when speaking English with foreign clients at K- Hair? What did you to solve the problem of speaking? What should the company to improve speaking skills of Customer Care Department staff? 1.5 Scope of the study Due to the limitation of time and knowledge, this thesis only focuses on analyzing and emphasizing the main English speaking barriers in communicating with foreign clients, the case in Customer Care Department staff at K- Hair This thesis is also expected to be a helpful reference to people who are weak in communicating and motivate them to confidently speak when communicating with others I hope that this study will be a useful document for readers or employees to find out the biggest challenges while speaking English at the workplace 1.6 Research methodology A questionnaire was designed based on what Customer Care Department staff need to while speaking with foreign clients in K- Hair and to discover problems they encountered The questionnaire was sent to 30 Customer Care Department staff They were requested to provide samples of the English speaking barriers while communicating with foreign clients for a study A contribution of 30 samples in English was thus collected It was decided that 30 samples of respondents should be classified and analyzed Apart from the questionnaire, also 30 staff (concluded managers) representing the main Customer Care Department were selected to provide further information in interview questions to gather more details on certain issues derived from the questionnaires 1.7 Organization of the study My graduation paper is divided into five main chapters as follow: Chapter 1: Overview of the study This chapter provides an introduction which includes the reason for conducting the study, the aims, the subject research, scope of the study and research methodology Chapter 2: Literature review This presents a review of the literature with theoretical and fundamental principles Chapter 3: Data analysis and research findings It explains in detail about the research strategy, research methods, research approach, research process, data collections and data analysis It is the main part of the study, based on the results of research and investigation Point out the collected data after applying the research method to the investigation Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions The final chapter provides some implications, limitations and recommendations for further research ... study on the English speaking barriers for employees of Customer Care Department at K- Hair Import and Export Co. , Ltd when communicating with foreign clients? ?? with the hope to make a small contribution... contribution to the quality of changing communicating skills of Customer Care Department at K- Hair Import and Export Co. , Ltd After reading and watching by many means and aspects of life, I realize that... Types of speaking There are three main types of speaking: demonstrative speaking, informative speaking and persuasive speaking according to “Clella Jaffe''s Public Speaking: Concepts and Skills for