Description
It is an online conference and the theme was "Be Future Ready: Shaping new understandings in the ELT landscape". I was invited as one of the featured speakers. The following is the abstract:Abstract
The pressing need to bridge the gap between workplace communicative needs and curriculum development of business English (BE) courses has been documented in the literature. This study reports findings concerning the spoken and written communicative needs of Chinese professionals in Hong Kong, and what are considered most significant/challenging in workplace communication. Regarding the challenges/difficulties involved, seven factors were included for the participants to rank in the questionnaire: (a) language use; (b) target audience; (c) content; (d) structure; (e) cultural differences; (f) persuasiveness; and (g) non-verbal means of communication. The participants were 163 Chinese professionals from the 4 key industries in Hong Kong. They were invited to fill in a questionnaire and 66 of them joined a subsequent interview. Based on the findings, insights are developed as to what should be emphasized when teaching workplace English to meet the current trends of professional communication.
Keywords: business English courses; spoken communicative needs; written communicative needs; curriculum development
Number of attendees (for events)
not too surePeriod | 23 Jul 2021 → 25 Jul 2021 |
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Event title | Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (MELTA) 29th International Conference |
Event type | Conference |
Location | MalaysiaShow on map |
Degree of Recognition | International |