A SURVEY OF PROBLEMS IN ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS WHEN DEALING WITH COLLEAGUES AND ENGLISH SPEAKING CLIENTS: A CASE STUDY OF EMPLOYEES AT VALE MALAYSIA MINERALS SDN BHD

Abstract

Due to the establishment of multinational firms all over the world, people from different countries have more opportunity to work together. The most important skills needed to work in multinational company is oral communication skills. Ironically, employees often face problems in English speaking due to many reasons. Hence, this study aims to find out the attitude of employees towards the usage of English oral communication at workplace as well as to analyse the causes of oral communication problems at workplace with colleagues and English speaking clients. This study focuses on the employees of Vale Malaysia Minerals Sdn Bhd. The factors of problems involved are oral communication skills, intercultural communication, communication apprehension and motivation. In this study, the Statistical Package for Social Science was used to analyse the data. Questionnaires were distributed to 66 employees of Vale Minerals. The results of this study indicate that employees at Vale minerals have positive attitude towards the usage of English at workplace; however, employees often encounter problems when speaking English. The problems are caused by unknown word meaning, lack of ability to adapt to different culture, shyness and seldom usage of English. It is recommended, that the next research should widen its research area based on district.