Communication Skills Used by English Major Graduates in the Workplace: A Case Study

Abstract

This study aims to explore English communication skills used by English major graduates in the workplace. The respondents consist of 65 English major graduates who obtained bachelor’s degree in English at a university Thailand in the academic year 2012. The data were collected from the questionnaire with open-ended questions. Based on the results, it is apparent that all types of workplace communication skills are performed by the participants in their current jobs and positions. In this regard, the most top three skills used according to the collected data are general English conversation, telephone and business writing (e.g. emails, faxes, memos, and letters). From these, it can be implied that the designs of the relevant courses’ contents (e.g. business English, business communication, business correspondence, presentation and discussion), assignments, classroom and extracurricular activities provided for the current students at the certain university should be focused more on practicing both oral and written communication skills particularly on specific tasks as recommended by the informants.