PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH ORAL COMMUNICATION NEEDS FOR THAI FOOD ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Abstract

The current research examined the importance of professional English oral communication (PEOC) skills for Food Engineering (FE) students, FE stakeholders’ perceptions on food engineering graduates’ readiness of using PEOC skills, and needed PEOC skills for FE students who study English as a foreign language in Thailand. In order to identify PEOC skills used for designing PEOC courses for food engineering students, two research instruments for needs analysis consisting of 1) an interview protocol and 2) a needs analysis questionnaire were used. The interviews were conducted with 20 FE stakeholders in order to elicit information related to English oral communication (EOC) skills used by food engineers in their workplaces and to investigate FE graduates’ problems when using EOC skills at work. The needs analysis questionnaire was constructed based on the results from the interviews with 20 FE stakeholders and was completed by 160 fourth-year FE students from four public universities in order to gain the students’ perspectives on their readiness for using PEOC skills, their self-assessment on PEOC skills and their wants in developing PEOC skills. However, in order to provide the comprehensive data on PEOC skills needed for FE students, this research article presents only the qualitative results of the interviews with FE stakeholders, which could be followed by the quantitative results in the next research article. Based on the results of the needs analysis process, three PEOC courses for FE students were proposed to bridge the gap between students’ current and expected PEOC skills. This article also responds to the increasing demand for designing and implementing PEOC courses for FE students.