A Case Study of Engineers in AutoParts Company’s Needs for Business Communication in English

Abstract

           This study aims to explore the English language needs of engineers at AutoParts Company in an eastern industrial estate of Chachoengsao. In addition, the study also examined their English language problems and wants. The findings of the study may provide some guidelines for the organization to design an English course to fulfill their needs. This study is comprised of seventy engineers from three departments: Conventional, Quality Assurance, and Engineering. The participants were selected by a purposive sampling technique. Two research tools were used to collect data: questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The data gathered from the questionnaire were categorized and analyzed by using descriptive statistics: percentage, frequency distribution, arithmetic mean, and standard deviation. The data from the semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analyzed to support the results of the questionnaire. As a Result of the research study showed that speaking and listening were most needed of the four skills while reading and writing skills were average as moderate needs, but they still had a high need for some activities such as reading and writing email and reading operation manuals. This is not a surprising finding because these activities are very important for engineers. The results of the English problems from the questionnaire and interviews showed that both speaking and listening skills were the most problematic for their jobs while writing and reading skills were at a moderate level. The implications of this study are that the degree of English language skills that the engineers need to improve is parallel to the degree of problems they had in these skills. Therefore, the main focus of English training for engineers should be on speaking and listening skills while supplementing these with writing and reading skills to help them perform more effectively in their daily tasks.