Khảo sát kỹ năng giao tiếp của sinh viên năm cuối khoa Ngoại ngữ - Trường ĐH Lạc Hồng

Khảo sát kỹ năng giao tiếp của sinh viên năm cuối khoa Ngoại ngữ - Trường ĐH Lạc Hồng

Investigation on Communication Skills

of English Seniors at Lac Hong University

By Tra Thi Kim Ngan *

In the situation of economic open-door policy, especially with the remarkable event of Vietnam joining WTO in 2006, communication skills are highly valued

in multinational companies This demand is more serious for those who work in jobs like interpretation, marketing, public relations, international relations, personnel, reception, etc These are potential jobs for English majors Unfortunately, employers express their disappointment in students for their low level of communication This paper investigates how well English seniors at Lac Hong University self-assess and perform their communication For some reasons like: lack of support from university, lack of self-practice from students, it is revealed that English seniors’ ability fall short of the demand for competent communication of future employers Suggestions are then made in hopes of enhancing students’ level of communication

Communication is a need, an indispensable activity of human life Communication involves interpersonal interaction between people Whoever you are: a head of state, a talented diplomat, an outstanding scientist or a worker working in a factory, a farmer on the field, a soldier at national island boundary, a diligent housewife in a house, a hardworking student in university, etc; you continuously communicate with the world around in order to fulfill your responsibilities As seniors majoring in English at Lac Hong University, students need to be good communicators to work effectively after their graduation Especially, as the country integrates into the world economy, the market has been more and more expanded, competition has become fiercer and fiercer To make a positive impression in recruiter’s eyes, students cannot lack this skill Moreover, after leaving university, they _ English majors _ may do the jobs relating to their major such as teaching, PR, marketing, personnel, interpretation, reception, diplomacy, etc There is no doubt that to do those kinds of job, communication skills are extremely highly important

Although most English seniors at Lac Hong University are aware of the importance of soft skills in general and communication skills in particular based on the survey of the writer, only 13% of them evaluated their communication level as above average while they did understand the significance of communication skills A number of them also said that they do not feel equipped to match the future employers’ demand In addition, the writer herself after three months of intern at Department of International Relations (Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh city) has recognized that

to get a work well done, it requires many skills, especially communication skills However, she finds herself not very good at communication Besides, there is a number of study on students’ communication capacity but no research

on communication competence of English seniors at Lac Hong University Therefore, the researcher decided on this project with the purpose of attempting

to find out:

1 Students’ perception and understanding about communication skills

2 Students’ self-assessment of their own communication ability

3 Students’ real competence on communication

This project also aims to use the data which were collected from the survey on students to make recommendations to students in training themselves and spending time on activities helping upgrade communication capacity as well Furthermore, the researcher also makes recommendations to the Faculty of Foreign Languages on curriculum adjustment The researcher wants to answer the question whether it is necessary for the Faculty of Foreign Languages to design communication subjects for the curriculum and add other useful activities so that students are well prepared to meet requirements from employers

Literature Review

“Communication is building a message, sending it in hopes of receiver will understand its content.”[1]

Effective communication requires many skills like:

• Making first impression

• Verbal communication

• Non-verbal communication

• Empathy

• Questioning skill

• Active listening skill

• Cultural awareness

• Team working

• Writing skill

• Conflict-solving skill

• Public speaking and presentation skill

• Negotiation skill

• Providing leadership [2] Because of limited time, the researcher cannot cover all those kinds of skills This project focuses on the first few in the list above: making first impression, verbal communication, non-verbal communication, empathy, questioning skills, and active listening skill In other words, the primary focus on the research is students’ interpersonal skills or conversational skills They are the most fundamental and basic skills in real life and in any kind of job

The communication abilities of students have become a very big concern of many people including employers, parents, teachers, students and so on, which

is why a number of investigations, surveys, and research on the issue have been

done worldwide in order to upgrade students’ competence of communication

“Overall the skills in which the new graduates employed appear to be most deficient are problem solving skills, oral business communication skills and interpersonal skills with other staff” [3] Moreover, most of practitioners throughout North American stated that “new graduates are well prepared with technical skills, but frequently are deficient in communication and interpersonal skills" [4] when they were asked whether they satisfy with new graduates

Sheila reported that Hindi Medium students’ inadequate communication is consequent from many causes Shukla indicated that “lack of proper guidance, lack of exposure to formal environments, adequate interaction in family, poor family educational background, lack of educational facilities, difficult finance, lack of confidence, and ongoing struggle of these students to translate their thoughts from Hindi into English” [5] result in to their deficiency of communication ability He suggested solutions in terms of the roots of problem

In another research, it was said that “majority of the students have high communication apprehension (fear) and around 60 percent of them lack communication skills” [6] They highly evaluated the active role of teachers as

a diagnostician, counselor, communication specialist, soft skills trainer in help students overcome their fear and thus develop their communication ability In addition, lack of knowledge of intercultural communication, cultural shock and differences in nonverbal communication and politeness strategies result in

many difficulties for students to interact with students from other countries

Most of these above researchers looked at the communication level of

students, reasons of their poor communication and solutions Some of them were interested in communication skills in general Some others focused on only one aspect separately of communication skills like public speaking, making presentation, intercultural communication, etc In the present research, the writer tried to answer three questions The first one is how students perceive the importance of communication skills in current recruitment setting; second, how do students assess their own communication ability, and, finally, how well students perform their communication via a communication skills assessment test

Methodology

To carry out this project, 10-item questionnaires and 16-item tests were distributed to 90 senior students of Faculty of Foreign Languages The questionnaire included personal information and rating part and an assessment

of communication ability part In the question part consisting of 10 questions, the writer used different kinds of question like ranking, rating, frequency, open-ended Its design was very friendly user with attempts made to avoid academic terms so that students have no confusion In order to assess students’ level of communication, the writer also included 16-item tests on conversational communication designed by Robin Jacobs, Portland Community College The

test mainly focuses on interpersonal or conversational skills_ most fundamental skills After all, quantitative method was employed to analyze the collected data

Findings from the questionnaire

Students’ Self-assessment towards their Communication Skills

Surprisingly, nearly 2/3 of students rated their communication level as only average In addition, 1/4 of students stated that they were weak and very weak

on communication skills, and very few evaluate themselves as above average

Chart 5: Students' Self-assessment towards their Communication Ability

6

17

64

11

2 0

20

40

60

80

100

Students’ Self-assessment towards their Communication Skills in Detail

Students were asked to rate their specific communication skills, using a scale of

6.4

6.2 6.0 6.0

5.8 5.7 5.7 5.6 5.5 5.4

5.1 5.1 5.0

0

2

4

6

8

10

Skills

Empathy

Teamwork

Verbal communication

Active listening skill

Questioning skill

Making first impression

Cultural awareness

Writing skill

Public speaking and presentaion

Conflict-solving skill

Providing leadership

Non verbal communication Negotiation skill

1 to 10 with 1 equal very weak skills and 10 equal their best skills None if the items received high average rankings, with conversational skills like empathy, verbal communication, active listening, questioning, making first impression rated slightly higher than more advanced skills like cultural awareness, public speaking and presentation, conflict-solving skill, or providing leadership, etc

In general, their skills ratings vacillated from 5 to 6 on a scale of 10

Students’ Perception towards Communication Skills Training Program

In this question, the writer asked students whether they are frequently trained in communication skills with classes or activities No one said that the university holds classes and activities very usually Chart 6 indicates the inattention of the

university to communication training

Chart 7: Frequency of Holding Classes as well as Activities Relating to Communication Improvement at Lac hong University

0

13

52

29

6 0

20

40

60

80

100

Because of lack of communication training program in the university, many students expressed their dissatisfaction Only 17% of them indicated satisfaction with the communication training program

Chart 8: Students' Satisfaction from Communication Skills Training Program

3

14

45

20

8

0

20

40

60

80

100

disagree

On the other hand, nearly a half of them evaluated the program as average whereas other 28% of them denied that they are satisfied with the current curriculum

Students’ Perception towards their Self-practice

Although there is no doubt that university plays an important part in enhancing students’ communication skills, to become a good communicator, students’ practice is also a must, as a saying goes “Practice makes perfect” However, only slightly less than half of the students said that that usually take part in activities relating to communication This indicates that despite of students’

high perception towards the issue; they do not invest much in it

Chart 9: Students' Communicating Self-practice

40

8

3 0

20

40

60

80

100

disagree

Findings from the Communication Tests

For the purpose of evaluating students’ actual level of communication skills, the writer asked them to do a small test on conversational communication

Chart 10: Students' Communication Performance

52

44

0 20 40 60 80 100

Fir st

im pr ess ion

No n-v erb al

Co mm

un ica tio n

Ve rb

al Co

mm nic ati on

Ac tiv

e L ist

en ing

Qu est

ion ing

Em pa thy

There are 16 questions on most familiar and basic skills such as making first impression, listening, questioning, eye-contact, feedback, group, etc and students were asked to choose the best among a set of four options for appropriate communication behavior

Students on average correctly identified only 60% of the best answers This number reflects students’ descriptions of their actual communication habits The data do not show that the students are confident in themselves or able to answer correctly a significant proportion of a communication behavior test Some of the individual item responses are interesting Students were particularly likely to get wrong in the question asking about their reaction to others’ weight gain Instead of responding that saying nothing about it would

be the best option, around three fourths of students tended to tell their friends the sensitive truth Likewise, when asked about habits of disagreement, most students tended to say nothing or quickly point out the person is wrong and why Another item which students answered incorrectly is starting a conversation skill It seems too difficult to most students to “warm-up” a conversation with a small talk However, they did a better job responding to items about giving negative feedback, making first impression, showing agreement or concentration in listening

According to the findings from the questionnaire and from the communication test, it is revealed that English language students at Lac Hong University do perceive the role of communication skills in recruitment and in success of work

as well as very important However, despite this perception, many students self-assess their own communication ability as average or below Students identified the roots of problem in deficiency of communication training program and activities in curriculum and students’ absence of self practice

Conclusion

In brief, this study examined the perception and the self-assessment of English language seniors towards communication skills Furthermore, it also aimed to assess whether their competence good or not

The findings suggest that most seniors at Faculty of foreign Languages do know the significance of communication skills in recruitment and progress in such a severe competitive setting Nevertheless, in spite of this awareness, students revealed that they are deficient in ability to communicate well

The writer has also found out the reasons of the phenomenon Deficiency of communication training program and activities in curriculum is a considerable mistake which leads to poor communication Moreover, we cannot help denying the role of students themselves in training and stimulating their skills They seem to neglect efforts to enhance their communication skills In the researcher’s outlook, this is not a very positive sign for students as well as for the Faculty of Foreign Languages Therefore, only if both the Faculty of Foreign Languages and students cooperate well and harmoniously is the communication level of students improved

Recommendations

Recommendation for the Teachers and the Faculty of Foreign Languages

Students should be equipped well with communication skills to be ready for their future jobs Therefore, it is an urgent need for the Faculty of Foreign Languages to put more emphasis on communication The curriculum should include subjects of communication skills Besides, it is very vital for the Faculty of Foreign Languages to coordinate with other Faculties from the same and different university, and organizations in holding exchange activities, events and competitions which help improve students’ confidence, communication skills and other skills Many kinds of club like English Speaking Club, Dancing Club, Literature Club, Sport Club, etc should be stimulated and invested to work in order to help students be involved in active activities It would be a great idea to let students design and prepare some of those activities on their own Also, workshops and speeches on communication skills particularly and soft skills generally should be held with the attendance of specialists in order to equip and answer students’ questions towards communication The writer believes that with such interesting activities, students would throw their apprehension away and gain many skills required

To the teachers of English language, the writer recommends that they should

do best to involve their students into activities inside and outside classroom as well The teachers not only play a role as a teacher but an active role as a communication specialist, active diagnostician, counselor, soft skills trainer and friend

Recommendation for the Students

The writer did mention the important role of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and the English language teachers in enhancing students’ level of communication above However, it does not work effectively without efforts from students Only if there is a tight cooperation between both sides is improvement of students positive Therefore, the writer has only one word to say to the students “PRACTICE” as the saying goes “Practice makes perfect” Throw away your passivity and go out to join activities, make friends and find how interesting and wonderful it is Nothing is better to make full use of the support from the Faculty and the teachers to join events and workshop Never miss any chances to improve yourself Finally, remember that you are young and dynamic people who can do many things well Just prove it!

Recommendation for further Study

Because of limited time, knowledge, sources of data and skills, the writer cannot cover all aspects of communication skills Therefore, she would like to recommend further research on other fields of the problem

References

[1] Phuong, V T & Huy, D Q (n.d.) Business Communication ( p.9) In Van, D T H & Dat, K N (2006) Communication in Business and in Real

Life Hanoi: Statistics (p 3)

[2]Albert, P & Ramakrishna, T S (2008) Developing Engineering Students’ Communication Skills by Reducing their Communication Apprehension

English for Specific Purposes World, 4(20), Vol 7

[3] ACNielsen Research Service (2000) Employer Satisfaction with Graduate

Skills Commonwealth of Australia (p 22)

[4] R., L R (1994) Preparing Veterinary Students with the Interactive Skills

to Effectively Work with Clients and Staff Journal of Veterinary Medical

Education, 21(2)

[5] Shukla, H (2004) Communication in English: Problems Faced by Hindi

Medium Students in Technical Institutions Language in India: Strength for

Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow, 4(6)

[6] Luisa, C & Danielle, C (2005) Communication for IT, (2nd Ed.) Australia: McGraw Hill.

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* Tra Thi Kim Ngan, a student of class 05AV3, graduated from Lac Hong University in 2009