Another two sessions, “The English Language Dilemma in Asia” and “Effective Communication: Workplace English” were conducted on 23rd October 2021 under the English Connect Workshop. The speaker invited for these sessions were Jacelyn Tan, the Chief Academic Officer of KLC Education Group and Mr. Dharmalingam Vinasithamby, a mentor of Sacred Heart and Toastmasters Club, and the moderator was Mrs. Nur Shiqah. These two sessions were held on Streamyard platform and broadcasted live on three official Facebook pages; FSSH UTM, Language Academy and KLC English Education Malaysia, which have received over 1300 views till date.
During the session of “The English Language Dilemma in Asia”, the speaker described the dilemma that was happened among parties that contribute to the issues in English communication especially in Malaysia. She then proceeded to clarify the issues and dilemma, including students are afraid to communicate due to lack of fluency in English, and the basic grasp of English language is worrying in school level. Toward the end of the session, she provided some useful suggestions on how to tackle the issues concerning the dilemma. She added, “Building a strong phonemic awareness can help students to feel confident to speak in English with correct pronunciation”. Other than that, she also suggested that reading habits is crucial as it helps students to learn English.
On the other hand, during the session of “Effective Communication: Workplace English”, Mr. Dharmalingam mainly discussed how to nurture effective English skill in the workplace, in which it takes time and effort to polish up the communication skills. The speaker mentioned that the employees should be exposed with the method in improving their communication skills. He suggested to use the simple words rather than the complicated words because the idea of communication is to convey messages and convince people with our ideas. He added “Online communication skill is important now as we are mostly engaging through the Internet”.
A special thanks to CCIN for supporting this project, and the project members of Dana AIMS4STAR “Community and Industry Networking Program” Universiti, who are Dr. Kew Si Na as the project leader, Prof Dr. Zaidatun Tasir, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hanita Hassan, and Dr. Farhan Mohamed as project members as well as Mr. Sean Chia as the project collaborator and their project members such as Nur Shiqah, Wong Pui Yi and Nur Syahira. Not to forget the organizing committees of the workshop; Dr. Nina Diana, Mr. Zaid Shamsuddin, Leong Ting Chee, Sabariha, Nurul Atiqah Johar and Najwa Amanina.
The organizing committees of the workshop