Lack of Competency in English 1

Lack of Competency in English: A Barrier for E-Business

Fahim Ahmed ID: 081247030

English 105, Section: 8 Maleka Sarwar December 22, 2010

Lack of Competency in English 2 Abstract The objective of this research is to examine the effects of the lack of competency in English on the internet usage of the people in the business sector. A survey was conducted among 30 respondents who are directly or indirectly related to the business sector in Bangladesh. The participants were mainly people employed in a business organization and students from business studies. The respondents had to fill up a questionnaire. Two experts from different fields of business were interviewed. For the secondary source various books, journals, newspaper articles and web documents were used. The analysis revealed that the current level of competency in English among the business graduates in Bangladesh is moderate. Most of the survey respondents are confident about their competency level for the current jobs. People told that they do not find it difficult to compose formal e-mails. Researching on complicated topics is found out to be most difficult activity for the businesspeople when using internet. Employees prefer organizational initiatives for improving their proficiency in English. In short, the current proficiency level in English is adequate for the Bangladeshi employees to conduct their businesses though internet. The issue is relatively new in our country. As the span of this research paper is limited, all the aspects regarding the issue could not be dealt with. So we should encourage further research on the topic.

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Lack of Competency in English: A Barrier for E-Business

Introduction At present, the use of internet in Bangladeshi businesses is increasing day by day. All the multinational corporations, as well as many of the local companies are using internet for various purposes. Almost 95% of the information available in the internet all over the world is published in English. Hence, the importance of competency in English for conducting business in todays technology based world is unquestionable. Historically, the average competency level in English is not very high in Bangladesh. And this lack of proficiency had affected the international business activities even before the emergence of internet in our country. While internet was changing the world business with a storm, Bangladesh was picking up ever slowly due to poor communication skills especially in English. Many local businesses were failing to make a favorable impression in front of the international clients or associates. However, for the past few years, the standard of teaching in Business Communication and English Language courses in local graduate schools has been improving. Although there are still many areas for improvement, the level of competency in English among the business graduates has reached to a moderate level. The current proficiency level in English is adequate for the Bangladeshi employees to conduct their businesses though internet. Background In recent years, Bangladesh has witnessed a phenomenal development in the technology based communication medium, which is Internet. The Internet is revolutionizing every aspect of business throughout the world (Azam, 2007, p.43)

Lack of Competency in English 4 In general, E-business refers to operating business activities through application of technologies. But in this paper, the definition is limited to its simplest form, the conduct of business on the Internet. It is a more generic term than e-Commerce because it refers to not only buying and selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with business partners (eBusiness Definition, n. d.). According to Andam (2003), In e-business, on the other hand, ICT [Information and Communications Technology] is used to enhance ones business. It includes any process that a business organization (either a for-profit, governmental or non-profit entity) conducts over a computer-mediated network (p.7). The secondary sources of this paper include different books, journals, newspapers, web documents etc. Most of them appear as articles, whether they were from a journal, a newspaper or a web document. There are no sources found that is directly related with the topic of this paper. But all of these sources at least have some relevance with the topic. Some of them illustrate the extent of internet use in Bangladesh and the barriers for effective use of internet in business. Some sources analyze technological, psychological, socio-cultural and economic factors in this regard. But most of the sources talks about the importance of learning English as the main language for international business communications while others discuss the prospective measures to develop the current proficiency level in English. Areas of Research The objective of this research was to find out the impact of the lack of English competency on the use of internet in business activities in Bangladesh. In this regard, the research progresses by addressing some basic questions. These questions are given below: What are the businesses that need the use of Internet? To what extent do these businesses need to use internet?

Lack of Competency in English 5 What is the level of competence in English among the businesspeople in Bangladesh? Is their knowledge of English is adequate for the effective use of internet? If not, how do they conduct their business? How much negative impact does the lack of proficiency in English have on their business? What steps can they take to improve their language competence?

Hypothesis: The hypothesis provides possible answers to these questions and my opinions about those answers. The actual survey findings may differ with the hypothesis. All the multinational corporations conducting business in Bangladesh use internet extensively for communication and other purpose. Many of the local companies, medium and small enterprises are also starting to use internet. At present, we are observing that many business schools are being established all over the country with internet facilities. The main purpose for using the internet is to communicate- both externally and internally. Other purposes include providing information for both internal and external parties through the websites, advertising, sales promotion, employee recruitment, interactive training, research etc. According to my view point, the level of competence in English among the businesspeople in Bangladeshis is very mediocre. The current standard of English competency is not adequate enough to use internet effectively. Since internet is frequently used for communication, the most obvious impact of this lack of proficiency is apparent during communication processes. Most of the businesspeople do not usually face any problems in informal communication in English but they are not very good at formal communication like formal e-mail writing and interactive conferences.

Lack of Competency in English 6 The quality of the Business Communication courses and English Language courses that are taught in Bangladesh is yet substandard in many business schools. According to Mahmud (2010), The teaching materials prepared by teachers with poor English make disastrous effects on the students in the long period (p.153).The first step for improving language competency is to raise the standard of teaching in business schools. There are some English proficiency courses available in Bangladesh offered by some institutions. For example, British council offers courses at different levels to improve communication skills in business context. Some universities offer special courses to develop English skills. Research Methodology The primary research contains both the qualitative and quantitative methods. Primary data was collected data by surveying the target respondents by questionnaire. The target respondents were the people involved in the business sector. In my sample, I included employees working in multinational organizations like Robi, Grameenphone Ltd., Unilever, Standard Chartered Bank and local business organizations like IFIC Bank Ltd., Prime bank Ltd. Etc. The sample also included students from NSU and Dhaka University. For the time constraint, the sample size was restricted to 30. Among them, 17 were employees and 13 were students. The questionnaire consists of 12 closed ended questions and 1 open ended question. An executive from Axiata Group Berhad, Malaysia and a faculty member from the School of Business, North South University were interviewed. For the secondary research, I have gone through different websites. I collected journals from different sources as well. As the topic is a very specific one, most of the secondary sources

Lack of Competency in English 7 come in the form of articles from electronic sources. These articles are mostly written by and written for the Asian region. Survey A research questionnaire was constructed to conduct the survey. The purpose of the survey was to collect data from the people who are involved directly or indirectly in the business sector in order to know how the lack of proficiency in English affects their internet use. In the questionnaire, there were mostly close ended questions. The questions were based on the basic questions given in the section Problem Areas. The target respondents of the questionnaire include undergraduate students and teachers from business studies. The target respondents also have one thing in common; they all have internet access for their work. A significant majority (25 out of 30) of the respondents say that they always use internet for various purposes. The organizations they are from use internet mainly for websites, internal communication, external communication and research (refer to appendix-Table:1). Other activities include advertising, employee recruitment, customer support and others. 12 of the respondents said that they think the telecom companies in Bangladesh use internet most extensively. The answers were expected because most of the employees surveyed were working in telecom companies. Seven people told that they think buying houses needs to use internet most extensively as they involves international trade and communication with foreign parties. And the others think that the multinational banks use internet the most. Since all these people have their own rationales and all of the rationales are pretty strong, we can conclude that all of the above mentioned organizations need to use internet extensively.

Lack of Competency in English 8 Now we come up to an important question, the respondents thoughts about the level of competency among the business graduates in Bangladesh. Majority (60%) of the people think that the proficiency in English among the business graduates is currently at moderate level (see appendix-Figure: 1). In addition to this question, the respondents were asked about the standard of teaching in Business Communication and English Language Courses in the undergraduate business schools in Bangladesh. More than half (60%) of the respondents said that the teaching standard in business schools is moderate. Others think that the standard is already good. These results are similar to a survey conducted by Rahman (2005) among university students from different disciplines. All 20 students in the interview, when asked about English courses at the university, express their satisfaction with the English teaching at the university level. Also, when asked to compare with the courses taught at school and colleges, they deemed the university courses as useful and better taught than that at schools and colleges ( Rahman, 2005, p.21). After that, we come up to probably one the most important questions of the survey-Do you think that modern jobs require a proficiency level in English that is above your current level? The objective of this question was to check the confidence level of the people about their competency level in English. The results reveal that almost all of them (27 out of 30) think that their knowledge in English is adequate for the modern job requirements. Out of the 17 employees, 16 people are satisfied with their competency level in English. Only one of the 17 employees thinks that he needs learn English more. Among the 13 students, 11 are confident

Lack of Competency in English 9 about their level of knowledge in English. This result goes against the hypothesis.

Do you think that modern jobs require a proficiency level in English that is above you current level?
18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 YES NO Number of Persons

Student Employee

The hypothesis stated that the current competency level in English is not adequate for effective use of internet. The survey was conducted among people who have to use internet very frequently. The results show that an overwhelming majority of the people thinks exactly opposite of the hypothesis. Almost all of the respondents preferred the information provided in English rather than in Bengali on the internet because they are used to working with the familiar English terms used on the internet. All the respondents of the survey strongly agreed that English language proficiency should be one of the main criterions when recruiting people for technology related jobs. This result is akin to opinion of Alam (2010, October 27), Proficiency in English is essential for garnering know-how from IT-based repositories of knowledge and information (para.10). As mentioned before, the main purpose for using the internet is to communicate- both externally and internally. And the most popular means of communication is e-mail. According to Myles (2009), By far, the most common form of written communication mentioned by all my

Lack of Competency in English 10 participants was through e-mailscomputer mediated communication in networked environments"( E-mail Correspondence: Writing in Conversational Form, para. 2). All the people in the survey who are already employed said that they have to write formal e-mails very often. And most of the students said that they have to use formal e-mails sometimes. The main goal of the research was to know how the lack of knowledge affect the internet uses of the people in the business sector. Majority of the (20 out of 30) people find it most difficult researching on complicated topics when using internet. This result again goes against the hypothesis. The hypothesis acknowledged that the lack of proficiency in English is mostly

Which activity do you find most difficult when using internet?

14 12 10 8 6 4 2
0 1 3 2 0 Interactive online Researching on Instant messaging conferences complicated topics Student Employee Others 2 2 8 12

0
Formal e-mail writing

apparent during the formal communication processes. For example, formal e-mail writing or interactive online conferences. But surprisingly only one of the 30 respondents said that he faces difficulties when writing formal e-mails. The reason can be that the employees have learnt the techniques of composing formal e-mails in course of their work. Only 5 of the 30 people told that they find it difficult to communicate during interactive online conferences. However, the survey

Lack of Competency in English 11 results are similar to Mahmuds (2010) findings, It is observed that most of the university students feel difficulties in reading English documents (p. 153). According to Mahmud (2010), there are very few experts who can translate those research materials into their native languages efficiently and effectively. This is a main reason for the students reluctance when using new technology-based education in the least developed countries (p.153). The next question deals with the prospective measures for an existing employee to improve his English competency. Majority (18 out of 30) of the respondents think that participating in interactive sessions is the most effective way for improving English skills while others suggested for reading, writing speaking etc(see appendix-figure: 2). A student gets a lot more opportunities for improving English proficiency than a person who already employed in an organization. More than half (17 out of 30) of the respondents think that training sessions

Which one of the measures for improving English skills would be most suitable for employees who are already working in a business organization?
18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Doing proficiency Individual studying Training sessions The organization courses arranged by the itself sending the individually organization itself employees to do proficiency courses

Number of Persons

Lack of Competency in English 12 arranged by the organization the employee is working in would be the most suitable measure for improving their English skills. 5 of the people think that the organization should send the employees to do proficiency courses to other institutions. The results clearly reveal that significant majority (22) of the employees prefer organizational initiatives over individual initiatives. The reason might be that they cannot manage enough time outside work for themselves to take individual measures. About the Informal Interviews Mr. Farrukh Ahmed, one of the two interviewees, said that, I am currently working in an environment where I always have to work with foreign colleagues. I have a Bengali medium background and I do not face any major difficulties when I am using internet. He also said that subject knowledge is much more important than English proficiency when researching on complicated topics. Currently he is working in the IT department of Robi, one of the subsidiaries of Axiata Group Berhad, Malaysia. The other interviewee, Mr. Mirza M. Ferdous said that as a teacher he has to research and go through the internet very often. My profession naturally requires research. I have worked in abroad and I have never faced any difficulties when using internet. Because I always knew what I was looking for and what I am doing on the internet says Mr. Ferdous. He agreed with the issue that organizational initiatives are most suitable measures for the current employees for improving their English proficiency. Summary of Findings Almost all the business organizations in Bangladesh use internet very frequently. These organization uses internet mainly for their websites, internal communication, external

Lack of Competency in English 13 communication and research. The current level of competency in English among the business graduates in Bangladesh is moderate. Most of the survey respondents are confident about their competency level for the current jobs. They prefer the information to be provided in English in the internet. Their impression about the standard of teaching in undergraduate business schools is good. The respondents face more difficulties when researching rather than formal writing. Most of the people told that they do not find it difficult to compose formal e-mails. Researching on complicated topics is found out to be most difficult activity for the businesspeople when using internet. Most of the employees who are already working in a business organization prefer training sessions organized by the corporation itself for improving their English skills. They cannot manage enough time for individual studying or doing proficiency courses independently. Suggestions For the students, my suggestion would be to study individually for improving their competency in English. They can do proficiency courses offered by different institutions like British Council or different universities. For the existing employees, as the survey revealed, the organization itself should take the initiative to train its employees. Sultana (2008, December 4) agrees with fact, the corporate management often outsources the training programmes for their employees. In Bangladesh, often these training programmes are conducted by hired trainers or by organizations like the British Council and other organizations having high language teaching credentials( para.8). But Sultana (2008, December 4) also emphasizes,

Lack of Competency in English 14 A company may appoint a full time English trainer, who will assess the quality, carry out the need analysis and carry on helping the employees to enhance the quality of their English on a need-basis. Here, it has to be noticed that an English trainer is not a person to teach the corporate graduates the lessons they have already learnt in their previous academic lives, but s/he is there for their confidence building. (para.9) Conclusion In short, we can say that the current proficiency level in English is adequate for the Bangladeshi employees to conduct their businesses though internet. The findings of this research prove my hypothesis wrong. This is a relatively new issue in our country, so we should take necessary initiative so that we can adapt to the changes coming in the near future. And to do this successfully we should encourage further research on a broader scale on this topic.

Lack of Competency in English 15 References Alam, M. (2010, October 27). Bangladesh Next. The Financial Express. Retrieved December 10, 2010, from http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=115787 Andam, Z. R., (2003). e-Commerce and e-Business. Bangkok: e-ASEAN Task Force and the UNDP Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP). Retrieved December 13, 2010, from http://www.apdip.net/publications/iespprimers/eprimerecom.pdf Azam, M. S., (2007). Internet Adoption and Usage in Bangladesh, Japanese Journal of Administrative Science, 20(1), 43. Retrieved December 8, 2010, from http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jaas2/doc/pdf/journal/20_1_04.pdf eBusiness Definition. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2010, from http://www.mariosalexandrou.com/definition/ebusiness.asp Mahmud, K. (2010). E-learning for Tertiary Level Education in Least Developed Countries: Implementation Obstacles and Ways Out for Bangladesh, International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, 2(2), 153. Retrieved December 9, 2010, from http://www.ijcte.org/papers/132-G266.pdf Myles, J. (2009). Oral Competency of ESL Technical Students in Workplace Internships, The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language, 13(1). Retrieved December 10, 2010, from http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume13/ej49/ej49a2/ Rahman, S. (2005). Orientations and Motivation in English Language Learning: A Study of Bangladeshi Students at Undergraduate Level, Asian EFL Journal, 7(1), 21. Retrieved December 9, 2010, from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/March_05_sr.pdf

Lack of Competency in English 16 Sultana, R. (2008, December 4). English competence in corporate world. The Financial Express. Retrieved December 10, 2010, from http://www.thefinancialexpress bd.com/more.php?news_id=52460

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