REVIEW OF TWO JOURNAL ARTICLE ON LANGUAGE NEEDS AT

WORKPLACE.

Article 1 : University Graduates’ Workplace Language Needs As Perceived By

Employers.
Article 2 : Exploring English Language Needs According To Undergraduate
Students And Employers In Cambodia.

Introduction of Article 1

In the first journal article which is entitled “University Graduates’ Workplace

Language Needs As Perceived By Employers” by Lehtonen and Karjalainen (2008),
the focus was more on the language needs of university graduates at workplace. This
article explains to us about the background of the workplace language situation back
in Finland. The author of this article had collected the data of 15 Finnish employers in
Finland by using the interview technique. The Language Centre of the University of
Helsinki, Finland provides the students with various opportunities to fulfil their
degree requirements in languages of 11 different faculties. From here, the Finnish
workplace and its language demands are in place. In Finland, the most common
language used in workplace is either Finnish or Swedish and also English which has
become the tertiary language for the employers. The author Lehtonen and Karjalainen,
(2008) also mentioned that the language is the most important tool that is needed in
workplace as it is highly valued and also useful in future. Language for Specific
Purposes (LSP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have its own approach
towards the undergraduates to prepare them for the working environment. It is
because this issue was also pinpointed in a recent international evaluation of teaching
(Horppu and Niskanen, 2004) at the University of Helsinki. The main purpose of this
article is to find out the language needs of university graduates at today’s workplace
according to the views of their employers. (Huhta, 1999) has mentioned that the skills
in English are normally estimated to be relatively good, but knowledge of other
foreign languages seems to be declining.
Introduction of Article 2

Our second journal here entitled “ Exploring English Language Needs According to
Undergraduate Students and Employers in Cambodia” by Seng Sothan (2015) where
he focuses on need of English Language by undergraduates and employers in
Cambodia. It seems that it is necessary for the students to be offered more effective
English language courses since English, a language that is the core element in human
existence has been used in most of the workplace in Cambodia. A total of 166
undergraduates of Life University and 225 employers in Cambodia were the
respondents for the survey done by using questionnaire, which was later categorized
into two forms; where one for undergraduates and another for employers. The benefits
that we can get from learning this language are youths will be given opportunities to
support their basic skills, to develop cross-cultural understanding, and also to prepare
them to enter global market place where English language are widely used. From all
the languages, English has been a dominant language in all kind of aspects such as
international business, trade, finance and banking, science and technology, popular
cultures, and international relations around the world (Rogerson-Revell, 2007; Lazaro
& Medalla, 2004; Igawa, 2008). In addition, it has been recognized that English also
plays an important role in both higher education and the corporate world in
Cambodia. Thus, the main aim of this article is to incorporate English courses into
curriculum to help students improve their English language skill and also to identify
English language needs for the undergraduates and employers. Therefore, through the
questionnaire survey, it is found that English language is often used at the workplace
in Cambodia and the undergraduates and employers are aware with the English
language needs.

Both articles focus on the need and the significance of English language at the
workplace. In Finland, Lehtonen and Karjalainen (2008) considered three languages
for the survey which are Finnish, Swedish and English while in Cambodia, Seng
Sothan (2015) only has focused on English. Both article mentioned that English
language is the most important tool that have to be implant in employers as it is a
basic and significant language.
Methodology of Article 1

In the first journal article by Lehtonen and Karjalainen (2008), University of Helsinki
had launched a project namely Language Needs at the Workplace back in 2003. There
were two parts of this project which are postal survey for the employees and
interviews with the employers. First of all, Horppu (2005) conducted the survey by
using questionnaire on the actual use languages at work. This questionnaire had 1190
respondents form the graduates of the year 1999 from the University of Helsinki. The
respondents also represented from different faculties sucj as science faculty (52%),
Behavioural Science (51%) and Arts (50%). From the analysis of the results, we can
see that the Finish language has the highest percentage that is 90% used in a
workplace, followed by English (37%). the author also highlighted that the English
language is important at a workplace in Finland. The commonly used language in
their workplace are Swedish (5%), followed by German (1%), French (3%), Spanish
(4%), Russian (6%), and Italian (10%). as a result of this data, most employees are
using Finnish and English language at their workplace. Horppu and Lehtonen (2003)
also mentioned that 90% of the graduates from the year 1999 and 2001 had fulfilled
the degree requirement in English.
Methodology of Article 2

In this second journal article by Seng Sothan (2015), things that have been discussed
were about exploring English Language needs according to undergraduates and
employers in Cambodia. Thus, to carry out the studies about this, a survey was done
among 166 current students of Life University, located in Sihanoukville, Cambodia
and to have a better result, 225 voluntary employees from 15 banks and microfinance
institutions, 180 commercial companies, 7 factories, and 23 NGOs were selected to
answer the questionnaire. Undergraduates were selected randomly from different
majors except for those, who are major in English while employers were purposively
selected to know on how much importance they give to the use of English in their
respective organization. This survey questionnaire was designed based on the
objectives and also has been categorized into two forms where one for undergraduates
and another for employers. It was mentioned in the journal that the questionnaire were
prepared based on findings of previous studies (Basturkmen, 1998; Balint, 2004;
Akyel & Ozek, 2010). The questionnaire for the undergraduates consists of 30 items
which were 26 six-point Likert scale items and 4 four-point Likert scale items while
the questionnaire for employers had 36 items, which comprised 35 six-point Likert
scale items and 1 tallied item.

It is found that both articles share the same method of survey which is by distributing
the questionnaire. However, there is a difference in the aspect of respondents, where
in the first article, only employees are selected to answer the questionnaire. On the
other side of coin, undergraduates and employees are the respondents for the survey.
Findings of Article 1

The skills of language is more important for the graduates when entering the working
environment because the employer need people who are excellent in language and
also have a good communication skill. The overall responses that were received from
the employers was that the language skills are very important in profession requiring
university education. As a result, the author of this article had separated some points
such as English, the national languages of the country, other languages and also level
of knowledge. Based on the first point, English was considered to be important in all
sectors. Eurobarometer (European Commissions, 2006) also states that English is the
most widely-spoken foreign language at workplace in Europe. In Finland, the
pharmaceutical industry gave some feedback about English language. English
language was used when meeting a person who does not know Swedish. Furthermore,
a private company commented that good language skilled people are able to take the
floor in English without being nervous. In addition too that, knowing English very
well indicates that the employee knows how to use it in negotiations, so the demands
are higher. There are different industry who gives good reviews about English
language. Therefore, English language can be understood by everyone easily and can
be used anywhere. The second point highlights that the national language of the
country is Finnish and also Swedish. The language Finnish is the one which are
widely used at workplace. Last but not least, as for the level of knowledge, the
employer must have certain qualities such as good communication and presentation
skills, confidence to use a foreign language, and the ability to interact and adapt to
various linguistic and cultural conditions.
Findings of Article 2

The proficiency of English Language is an important in a working field. The two-sub-

skills, speaking and reading, is perceived to be the most useful skill for improving the
overall English Language skills. The difference between students’ perception is
significant which means there is enough evidence to show that speaking and reading
are the skills that the students’ intend to get in order to improve their overall English
ability in the future. Next, the mean score of vocational or work-related English is the
highest, where students are most likely to have an attempt to take courses that would
prepare them for the workplace in the future. Majority of the students perceived all
the language skills to be important to a great extent, but the level of their attention to
each skill was confirmed to be different since the mean scores higher than 4.0.
Students are most likely interested in learning speaking and academic reading skills as
in the findings speaking informally in English with foreigners and reading textbooks
or lecture notes in English, got the highest mean scores. English plays an important
role and is used to a great extent in daily communications for many business
organizations in Cambodia. It is found to be significant at the 1 percent level (p <
0.01) that English was used for organizational tasks as perceived by employers.
Majority of employers perceived all the language skills to be important to the greatest
extent, but the level of their attention to each item was confirmed to be different since
the mean scores are less than 5.0. The frequent use of English for writing business
letters, memos, and emails in various organizations in Cambodia are proved as the
mean score for it is 5.08. In conclusion, speaking and reading skills are the most
important skills ones that need to be improved for the overall English language, but
employers rated writing to be the most dominant skill at workplace.
The similarity in both findings is the proficiency of English language and its use are
given the most importance since English language is an international language where
it is spoke by everyone in the world. Both journals have mentioned that, either Finnish
or English, graduates need to have a good language skills in the workplace. However
there are differences to be found in both the article. The difference is that the first
article uses two method to collect the data which are interview and questionnaires,
however, the second article uses only questionnaires. This affects the results to be
more precise for the second article.