Matching Course Instructional Materials to Requirements of UTM Test of English Communication Skills for Graduating Students (TECS) based on Skills Needed for Employability
The research is based on the urgent need to ensure that graduating students are equipped with relevant communication skills that will enable them to be more employable. Currently, the communication skills courses in English offered by Language Academy have been developed based on the academic skills needed by students as they go through their tertiary education. It is believed that the current ULAB 3162 English for Professional Purposes course can be a significant avenue for Language Academy to assist graduating students to be equipped with the essential communication skills required. it is hoped that the tasks in the course can be those that ‘demand students to devote considerable time and effort to purposeful tasks…require daily decisions that deepen students’ investment in the activity…’ (George Kuh – High-Impact Educational Practices). Essentially, it is hoped that findings from this study will inform the course developer to what extent do the current course content meet the requirements of the UTM TECS assessment, how much exposure and practice are students given in the course, in what ways can the online modules in Ready4work be used more effectively and how much reconstruction/reorganisation of the course is required.
An Investigation into the Relevance of UTM-TECS Oral Interactions Descriptor Based on the Industry’s Perspective and Requirements
The UTM Test of English Communication Skills for Graduating Students (UTM-TECS) as an exit test was developed through the collaboration of Language Academy, UTM and various industries in Malaysia. The main objective of UTM –TECS is to measure university graduates’ readiness to communicate in English at the workplace. The purpose of the assessment is also to provide potential employers with some indication of workplace readiness of the graduates in terms of their communicative ability in English. This latter purpose is also hoped to enhance the graduates’ marketability and employability.
The current UTM-TECS assessment descriptors were based on the findings of a study conducted in 2011 which involved both the language instructors from Language Academy, UTM and human resource personnel from several industry and service sectors. Since its first implementation back in late 2010, the descriptors have not been subjected to any further validation or revalidation by the industry. This is an important task to undertake in order to ensure that the descriptors used for assessment incorporates the latest and up-dated recruitment criteria so that the exit test can be deemed valid, reliable and relevant.
Therefore, the present study is proposed to ascertain the current criteria used by industries to assess new graduates for employment as well as to confirm the already available criteria incorporated in the Oral Interaction UTM-TECS descriptor. With these up-dated and revalidated criteria and refined descriptors, it is hoped that UTM-TECS could be used as a reference for other institutions of higher learning and industries to gauge graduating students’ communicative readiness for the workplace.
Bridging the Gap between Classroom Experience and the Real World: The Case Study Approach
English for Workplace Communication exposes students to both the written and spoken skills expected at any workplaces. The course is taught using workbook and also videos about communication and interaction at the workplace. Since innovation is encouraged at the university, case study has been used in the course to stimulate students’ interests in learning and also to improve learning among students.