Principled Development of Workplace English Communication Part 3: An Integrated Design and Appraisal Framework (original) (raw)
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Special Issue on Meeting the Challenges of Workplace English Communication in the 21st Century
The Journal of Writing Analytics , 2021
Documenting a program of research in nine papers and an afterword, colleagues deliberate on a single, pervasive theme: “Meeting the Challenges of Workplace English Communication in the 21st Century.” From their diverse disciplinary perspectives, authors focus on innovative ways to improve assessments of communication constructs, elucidate the various considerations that must be attended to when developing and using data from prototypes, and discuss the importance of consequences when these assessments are used to support teaching and learning. Contributors specifically focus on foundational design issues and illustrate the types of complexities, challenges, and opportunities arising in the development and use of data from digitally-delivered assessments involving communication constructs. Colleagues worked together from March of 2019 through March of 2021—through the emergence of the COVID-19 global pandemic—to provide foundational research on an under examined area of investigation.
Introduction: Meeting the Challenges of Workplace English Communication in the 21st Century
The journal of writing analytics, 2021
concept of communication as studied in this special issue is the idea that constructs are drawn down-that is, both narrowed and limited by use and context-in a particular study for a particular reason (Mislevy & Elliot, 2020). As such, while it is possible to speak of robust construct representation (researcher use, for example, of an email to better understand knowledge of student sensitivity to organizational hierarchy), it is nevertheless important to remember that communication itself is a complex construct. Indeed, we wonder if it is the case that all constructs, understood in their full span, are complex. If that is the case, then the more robust a construct is represented in a given assessment, the harder it is to evaluate. In the case of communication, construct span is vast (White et al., 2015). And so, while each of our authors establishes ways that the construct under examination is represented in acts of writing, reading, listening, and speaking (that is, a language arts model), it is inaccurate to imagine that there is one universal construct of communication-or that any assessment can do any more than to capture the drawn down construct. Seen in this way, construct underrepresentation is inevitable, and we must do our best to understand the impact of any episodic draw down (Elliot, 2016). Key, then, is for the readers of this special issue to attend to the construct as limited and defined in each article. • Threshold Concept 3: Twenty-first century communication abilities are needed across organizational settings. In an issue of Assessing Writing published just before this special issue, Macqueen et al. (2020) noted the significance of communication in nonacademic settings: "In a hospital context, an inaccurate written handover poses a risk to patient safety. In a business context, an inappropriate tone in an email poses a risk to the client relationship and their future dealings" (p. 1). In cases when these abilities are taught and assessed, it is worth asking if the drawn-down construct results in risk-to organizational applicants who do not have sufficient capabilities and to organizational stakeholders who rely on them. While great effort has been spent to assess written communication (as isolated from reading, listening, and speaking) in academic settings, far less effort has been undertaken to assess organizational communication in its professional and technical forms (Hundleby & Allen, 2010). Additionally, first-year writing in U.S. post-secondary settings is commonly focused on academic genres in which the instructor is the sole audience and knowledge of conventions is the pedagogical target (Isaacs, 2018). In this restrictive environment, it therefore becomes imperative to understand the overwhelming need to shift traditional writing pedagogies to ones that embrace a comprehensive view of communication in organizational settings and to design curricula in which transfer capacity is a focal goal.
Principled Development of Workplace English Communication Part 1: A Sociocognitive Framework
The journal of writing analytics, 2021
• Background: This study advances a sociocognitive approach to modeling complex communication tasks. Using an integrative perspective of linguistic, cultural, and substantive (LCS) patterns, we provide a framework for understanding the nature and acquisition of people's adaptive capabilities in social/cognitive complex adaptive systems. We also illustrate the application of the framework to learning and assessment. As we will show, understanding the connection between measurement models and users' needs is important to increase assessments' educative usefulness. • Questions Addressed: Our framework is designed to address questions regarding the following four areas: the nature of sociocognitive perspectives in educational measurement, the application of LCS patterns to complex communication tasks captured in an extended formative assessment of Workplace English Communication (WEC), the usefulness of psychometric models for instruction and assessment with such complex tasks, and considerations for measurement modeling.
English communicative events and skills needed at the workplace: Feedback from the industry
The constant and continuous need for the university to work towards producing graduates who meet and exceed the requirements of their chosen industry has prompted the effort to gather feedback from those industries. The effort by researchers of an engineering-based university in the East Coast Region of Malaysia to collect information on the important communication skills and communicative events frequently faced and utilized by engineers has assisted in the design of an English communication syllabus and module for engineering students. Self-developed questionnaires were administered to engineers of 10 multinational chemical companies all around Malaysia. The results depict that emphasis should be put on oral, rather than written, communication skills. Moreover, findings also indicate that the communicative events considered important for engineers are: teleconferencing, networking for contacts and advice, and presenting new ideas and alternative strategies. Fluency in the English language is seen as an opportunity in the engineering field to advance towards becoming a global engineer. The pedagogical implications of the findings indicate that module design and development should take into consideration the incorporation of workplace scenarios as the basis for activities.
Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 2021
This paper reports a systematic literature review that was conducted to explore the areas of research pertaining to English language workplace communication needs in order to design courses in English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) that can better meet the demands of the industry. Articles from Scopus, ScienceDirect and Emerald Insight were extracted following the five-step method of conducting a systematic literature review. In total, 133 articles were analysed. From the analysis, it was found that most studies focused on examining the needs of the learners, or the needs of the industry; very few studies triangulated the findings between different stakeholders to obtain a better picture of the needs, wants, and gaps between the target situation and the present situation. Additionally, most studies focused on language tasks required and did not pay due emphasis on the competencies required to perform the tasks well. Thus, the outcome of this review is a proposed theoretical model to develop professional communication competence among new graduates that is intended to be used in a future study to address the gaps found in this review. Practically, the review also sheds light on gaps that exist in current research that can be addressed in future research, especially for higher education institutions (HEIs) that are working to design and develop courses in EOP to improve English language communication skills for employability.
2014
Mastery of English oral communication skills is an advantage to employees in their workplaces. In the engineering industry, professional engineers possessing English oral communication skills are at an advantage; either for executing daily tasks or for promotion and career advancement. This paper aims to conceptualize and highlight the communicative events whereby engineers need to have a set of appropriate English communication skills in order to function well in their workplaces. At the same time, this poses great challenges for English language educators in the Malaysian Higher institutions whereby they must train and equip engineering undergraduates with adequate English communication skills in order for them to function effectively in their future engineering workplaces and to tackle the issue of graduate unemployment as a result of lack of English communication skills.
Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2021
The ever-changing demands of the workforce due to current trends have led to the need for universities to equip their graduates with the necessary soft skills to increase their employability. As a result, the implementation of CEFR in language curricula was emphasised to address this matter. However, research on how CEFR could be implemented into a university''s workplace communication course is severely lacking. Moreover, there is room to further enhance existing CEFR frameworks for workplace communication. Thus, this preliminary study was conducted to investigate students’ perceptions of the use and importance of language productive skills (LPS) at the workplace towards developing a CEFR framework for workplace communication. The study adopted the quantitative approach through questionnaires to gauge students’ perceptions of the use and importance of LPS at the workplace. A total of 354 students from various faculties under the clusters of science and technology, business ...
Communicative competence plays important role for engineers to perform workplace jobs efficiently in this wide spread business environment of organizations. The respondents of the study who participated in oral presentations were six engineers from 2 engineering workplace of Pakistan. Purposive sampling method was used for data collection purpose. Oral presentations were video recorded to capture communication strategies employed by engineers to overcome communication deficiencies during oral presentations. The data were analyzed qualitatively using strategic competence framework proposed by . In addition, Dornyei and Scott's (1995) compiled Inventory of Strategic Language Devices was used to investigate types of communication strategies used by engineers to overcome their communication deficiencies during oral presentations. Open coding ) was used to code the oral presentation data. The results of the study indicated that engineers employed four communication strategies namely message abandonment, code switching, self repetition and use of fillers. The findings of the study can be used as a guideline to add communication strategies in engineering curriculum to prepare productive engineers for modern industry.
Creation and Criticism Blog, July 23, 2017
Noida: Oxford University Press India organized a successful workshop on ‘Emerging Trends for English Language and Communication Skills – A Practical Approach’ on July 22, 2017. The two-fold objective of the workshop was to experience best practices in teaching-learning communication skills to students of 21st century and a focused group discussion to identify gap areas in teaching-learning communication skills which act as deterrents in students being employable. Thereby, it comes up with a proposal on how change can be brought about at the content, assessment, and delivery level to UG, PG and research scholars of English language. READ MORE: http://www.creationandcriticism.com/\_blog/2017/07/23/105-OUP-Workshop-on-%E2%80%98Emerging-Trends-for-English-Language-and-Communication-Skills-%E2%80%93-A-Practical-Approach%E2%80%99/