Introduction
Background of study
-background of my topic
-what employability is
-malaysia context
-relation of English competency with employability
-cite who was doing research anchoring this study outside Malaysia
-cite () inside Malaysia
In the new landscape of global employment, most business organizations require employees to possess not only industry-specific technical knowledge but also employability skills. Employability skills are attributes other than industry-specific technical knowledge which contribute to effective and successful participation in the workplace. The attributes of employability skills are including communication, critical and problem solving interpersonal, leadership, team work and honesty, dependability and adaptability skills.
As global world are using English language as its language of business, lack of English language proficiency has often been cited as one of the major factors contributing to graduate unemployment. (Sharif, 2005). Jawhar (2002) stated that in the private sector, graduates are becoming unemployable as a result of lack of proficiency in the English language. Various surveys have been carried out on employers in relevant industries to measure whether graduates are meeting industry needs and the recurring theme that emerged from these surveys has been the lack of English language skills among fresh graduates and workers (MoHE, 2008; Sibat, 2005). In generally, these studies implied that the majority of graduates and workers were limited users of English especially in writing and speaking.
Problem statement
As we are living in a competitive world now, we can’t deny the fact that we have to do what it takes to survive. Thus, as students they have to have good communication skills in particular they should be able to communicate well in English since it is an international language. English is used extensively in news and information, business, diplomacy, professions, travel and also entertainment (Kenji Kitao, 2006). One of the criteria needed by companies from their employees is the ability to communicate well especially in English. Based on a research done by Wan Irham, Shafinah & Azhari (2007) on the current needs of the R&D department in the Kedah industrial sectors, they find that the R&D department administrators stated that they look for candidates who have the abilities to generate and express ideas verbally in English (90%), to give presentations using English (90%), to write report in English (60%), to speak English fluently (60%), to have a good command of English language grammar (30%) and to have persuasive skills in English language (30%). The findings show us that it is a need for graduates now to master the language as it is used world-wide. Though there are varies of studies done regarding the issue of importance of employability skills among Malaysian graduates, those studies are not really focusing solely on the significance of English mastery.
Thus, the main objective of this study was to investigate the importance for graduates’ English language competency for employment purposes.
-purpose of this study
-gap-???
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Each job requires the person doing it to possess a range of specialist skills. However, there are also skills that are useful to a wide variety of careers and are therefore transferable between jobs. These are known as employability skills and they are essential for employees to be able to work effectively in a modern workplace. Each of these areas is important and they include:…
- 551 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
With a faster pace of everyday life, employability skills are becoming essential in modern society. The employability essential concepts and skill sets represent universal content. They contribute to outcomes that are valued for individuals and for society; bring benefits in a wide variety of contexts and apply to multiple areas of life; and are of use to all individuals, deemphasizing competencies of use only in a specific trade, occupation or walk of life. In this report, we look deeply into six critical employability skills including communicating skills, management skills, problem solving skills, personal knowledge, work experience and teamwork skills. Each of these skills was studied and analysed to show its importance. All of these employability skills are held to make a focus on an individual 's ability to gain initial employment, maintain employment, move between roles within the same organisation, obtain new employment if required and ideally secure suitable and sufficiently fulfilling work, in other words- their employability, more important than the simple state of being employed. (Hillage and Pollard, 1998)…
- 2192 Words
- 9 Pages
Best Essays -
Employability skills are general skills that are needed to get most jobs, but they also represent the skills that would help a person keep the job and improve their position. For example, an employer would look at skills like experience in similar role; knowledge of products/services; experience of specific industry; effectiveness in meeting personal and team/departmental targets; ability to observe and raise professional standards of production/service delivery. As well as this, having the right qualifications, would have a big impact as if more people are applying for a job; the person with the more qualifications in the area, would be more likely to obtain the job.…
- 569 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) define employability skills as 'the skills almost everyone needs to do almost at any job'. The employability skills term as UKCES defined in 2008 is most often related with the ‘job readiness’ through demonstration of some elements of the personal characteristics such as (time keeping, responsibility, basic social interaction etc.) but less related with creative thinking and problem solving skills. The term ‘employability skills’ is also connected with other backgrounds, especially with Higher Education.…
- 3044 Words
- 13 Pages
Powerful Essays -
The Employability Skills are essential both to find work and to keep it. Herein lies its importance, not only for those who are first inserted into the workplace, but also for those who have some time in the exercise of their profession, facilitating shuttling between different jobs. Developing these skills is invaluable, as these can be learned and perfected over time. It is important to note that the Employability is not just an individual issue, but also for all companies, since for example may help reduce the time taken to adapt to new post. Thus, the Employability can treat individual, company or both as a whole. This time, it will give an individual approach.…
- 1934 Words
- 8 Pages
Better Essays -
On the topic of employability itself, the subjects agreed on that it is the skills that one acquires that will later being successful on one 's field of employment. Extra languages, good communication skills and the ability to function as a member of a team were the most common…
- 1051 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
English is a language of prominence in professional world. The importance of English begins at the threshold of the professional world. At the reception, precisely. As they say well begun is half done, the person with necessary interpersonal skills and decent communication skills can impress client right at the beginning of any lucrative deal. Learning…
- 6637 Words
- 27 Pages
Good Essays -
The term employability is defined as “Employability can be thought of as ‘…a set of achievements, understandings and personal attributes that make individuals more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations’” (P.sewell, 2005, UCLan.) This is simply showing that there are key traits that an employer is looking for in an employee, for example someone that demonstrates a wide range of skills in that particular field; demonstrates how employable they are. These are known as ‘Employability Skills’ which could include communication skills, numeracy skills, ICT skills, working within a team, time management, researching skills, leadership and planning skills. Transferable Skills, another term for ‘Employability Skills’ are skills that you have developed through a previous occupation or University Course that will help you with your employability. N.Lemmens, 2005 defines Transferable Skills as ““an ability learnt in one environment, which can be utilised in another”.…
- 1175 Words
- 5 Pages
Powerful Essays -
English as an international language has become very important to be learned and understood by many people. It is the only one way to communicate between countries, cultural groups, various companies and organizations, communities and friends all over the world. By mastering English, people can enrich their knowledge and survive in this competitive atmosphere. Because of the importance of English above, now English is introduced earlier to children at a very young age. Children are acquainted with English in kindergarten and elementary school.…
- 818 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In this study, a total of 40 semester one students were selected as the sample of the study. They were 20 lower proficiency students and 20 higher proficiency students of a local semi‐private higher learning institution in Malaysia. The students’ level of proficiency was pre‐determined by an English Placement Test which is a compulsory assessment…
- 2358 Words
- 10 Pages
Better Essays -
A student has to be an excellent communicator in order for them to write a good essay, report or any type of emails that earns respect. When students attend and actively participate in English class, they would learn how to write well. A person who shows that they are educated and have good communication skill proves that they are proficient in English. Knowledge is the key and once you have earned that, there is no one in this world that can take it away from you, other than yourself. English is one of the key for anyone to obtain their successful career. The most important key points that were taught in English class will help a student to build up their magnificent quality of resume that any employer reads it, would never forget reading this specific resume in their life time. English is essentially important to everything what we do everyday in home or school, at any situations that build up our communication…
- 615 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
We live in an international world today where our ability to communicate in English is of great importance. The national syllabus for English in the Swedish compulsory school clearly emphasizes this by stating that English “is the dominant language of communication throughout the world. The…
- 7064 Words
- 29 Pages
Powerful Essays -
In this report, we studied on how important of English nowadays. Thus, we did a research on different categories which areChief Executive Officer (CEO) of different companies, workers with working experiences, lecturer of college and international student. We seek for their opinion and views about how importance of English through interview and survey. Result of interview and survey had analysis and grouping into different categorizations. Of course, there is no exception for Malaysian too. By using this language, everyone can understand what are the others try to express, write or even speak. Besides that, aim of this research is to investigate the proficiency of Malaysian in English. We asked for their opinions and views for their English and Malaysians’ English in communication and expressing. Apart from communication, we not only found out the importance of…
- 340 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
The main objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of graduates’ characteristics on the chance of being employed. A total of 3,025 Malaysian graduates involved in the study and data were analyzed using logistic regression analysis. The results show that the employment prospects of graduates with a good command of English and who possess leadership and technical skills are better when compared to those without these skills. These findings suggest that steps should be taken to improve soft skills among graduates. The results also show that Indian and female graduates in this study were found to have less chance of being employed compared to the Malay and Chinese graduates. However, these findings should be interpreted with caution as some of the respondents were not randomly selected, thus suggesting further research towards identifying the relevant factors is required.…
- 5397 Words
- 22 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Employability skills are the attitudes and behaviours of employees (other than technical competence), that employers see as valuable in the actual work place. These employability skills include reading, basic arithmetic and other basic skills like problem solving, decision making, and other higher-order thinking skills as well as dependability, a positive attitude, cooperativeness, and other human skills that make an employer a contributor to the company and not like an rotten egg in a corner when clients come.…
- 2373 Words
- 10 Pages
Good Essays