PHÂN TÍCH NHU CẦU VỀ KỸ NĂNG GIAO TIẾP TIẾNG ANH CỦA LẬP TRÌNH VIÊN CNTT NGƯỜI THÁI TẠI MỘT CÔNG TY ĐA QUỐC GIA

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<b>NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAI IT DEVELOPERS IN A </b>

<b>THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN CAREER ENGLISH FOR </b>

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<b>NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAI IT DEVELOPERS IN A </b>

<b>THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN CAREER ENGLISH FOR </b>

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NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAIIT DEVELOPERSIN A MULTINATIONAL CONIIPANY

<small>was approved as partial fulf11lment ofthe requircments for</small>

<small>the degree ofヽ4aster ofArts in Career English for lntemational Colrmunication</small>

<small>on June 10,2020</small>

<small>Member and </small>Advisor

<small>(Associate Professor Sucharat Rimkeeratikul, Ph.D.)</small>

<small>(Monthon </small>_{Kanokpermpoon,} <small>Ph.D.)</small>

<small>fessor Supong Tangkiengsirisin, Ph.D.)</small>

<small>Director</small>

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Independent Study Paper Title NEEDS ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH

COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF THAI IT DEVELOPERS IN A MULTINATIONAL COMPANY

Major Field/Faculty/University Career English for International Communication

The purpose of this study was to investigate the needs on English communication skills and opinions on English training courses of Thai IT developers working in a multinational company. The participants were 30 developers working in the software development department. The data were collected through a questionnaire. The findings revealed that listening and speaking were the most significant English communication skills for the participants and both skills played an important role for those who work as developers. In terms of training courses, most of the participants highly agreed that the company should provide training courses that help improve certain skills and they viewed that training courses are necessary. More specifically, the participants were of the opinion that the company should provide training courses that focus on improving listening and speaking.

<b>Keyword: Multinational company, Needs Analysis, IT Developers, English </b>

Communication Skills

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<b>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS </b>

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Sucharat Rimkeeratikul for her valuable guidance, and I also would like to thank Dr. Monthon Kanokpermpoon for his comments and suggestion. Without support from both professors, it would have been impossible for me to complete this study. In addition, I would like to give my thanks to all the colleagues in my company that helped me with the questionnaire. Please know that I appreciate your support. Lastly, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Sasiwan Netluecha who always supports me.

Mr. Wit Duangpatta

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURES REVIEW

2.1 Background of IT (Software and Application) Developers 6

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2.2.2 Speaking Skills 13

4.1 Demographic Information and English background of Participants 23

4.3 General Opinions on English Training Courses to Develop English

4.3.1 Opinions on English Communication Skills and IT careers 33

4.3.3 Opinions on English Communication Skills Improvement 35 4.3.4 Opinions on Methods to Improve English Communication Skills 36 4.3.5 Opinions on Challenges in English Communication Skills 37

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5.2.1 Demographic Information and English background of

5.2.2 Needs for English Communication Skills at Work 41

5.3.1 Needs of English Communication Skills from Thai Developers 42 5.3.2 English Training Course for Thai Developers 44 5.3.3 Content of an English Training Course for Thai Developers 45

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<b>LIST OF TABLES </b>

Table 9. The self-evaluation of participants’ overall English proficiency 27 Table 10. The self-evaluation of participants’ English listening skills 27 Table 11. The self-evaluation of participants’ English speaking skills 28 Table 12. The self-evaluation of participants’ English reading skills 28 Table 13. The self-evaluation of participants’ English writing skills 29 Table 14. Level of English skills needed to perform their current job 29 Table 15. Participants’ need in using listening skills at work 30 Table 16. Participants’ need in using reading skills at work 31 Table 17. Participants’ need in using speaking skills at work 31 Table 18. Participants’ need in using writing skills at work 32

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<b>LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS </b>

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<b>CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION </b>

<b>1.1 Background </b>

Nowadays, it is difficult to deny that technology has become a part of human life in many different ways and the way that technology evolves from the past until now is far greater than anyone can imagine. In the business world, it is impossible to operate a business without technology since many companies would use it to improve their business in various ways i.e. implementing big data analysis to predict customer behavior; so it is not surprise that the growth rate of IT companies is rising because of this current trend.

The current company that the researcher is working for specializes in IT business providing services to clients that need support from technology to enhance their business. It is also considered a multinational company that currently operates in the APAC region alongside the other branch in Singapore while the main business is IT services provider. In terms of workforce, there are about 400 employees from 24 different nationalities working for the company and most of them were hired for IT positions such as software development, quality assurance and, business analyst. They have been assigned to work in various projects for clients from Thailand and other countries.

In terms of language used in the company, English is a major language used by the employees. For Thai employees, English communication skills play an important role in their career because they need to interact with foreign colleagues and clients that don’t share the same mother tongue. From this scenario, they are required to use all four English communication skills; speaking, writing, reading and listening to deal with the nature of their job when the main communication is not conveyed by their first language.

The HR department has also realized the importance of English communication skills among Thai employees as can be observed in job descriptions that an ability to communicate in English is now a mandatory skill required for every position even for the non-IT while in the past this requirement appeared in only some positions.

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<b>1.2 Statement of Problem </b>

There are several departments in the company; however, one of the most important departments is the IT department since providing IT services is the core business of the company. The IT department consists of three main divisions, which are software development, business analyst (BA) and project management office (PMO). All divisions need to be involved in using English language while working. However, the extent of using English communication skills varies in each division. For example, Thai employees working in the BA and PMO divisions are extensively using English speaking skill in their career because it is a position that largely requires them to communicate with clients regularly, while employees that work as IT developers in the software development division will focus less in the speaking skill since they are not required to deal with the clients.

The software development is the biggest division in the company and probably the most when compared to the other two divisions since it takes the main responsibility for developing technology that supports requirements from clients such as mobile applications, websites, machine learning, etc. There are approximately 150 Thai developers who work in this division. As regards English communication skills, they are required to use all four main skills both for personal communication and work.

On a daily basis, most of them are required to communicate in English since they have to work with many foreigners that belong to their team. They need to participate in scrum meetings, an activity wherein everybody in the team needs to report their work progress, and it is usually conducted in the English language since most scrum masters are foreigners. This activity requires decent skills in listening and speaking because they need to understand questions from the scrum master and express any ideas or feedback to the team. Many of them also report to a supervisor who is a foreigner, which means that any reports must be conveyed in English and sometimes it might need to be done in face-to-face communication or an email. From time to time, the company will make an announcement to all employees via an email, which requires them to use reading skills to be able to understand the content.

From the mentioned activities, if their English communication skills are not good this can lead to misunderstanding in communication and some unexpected problems that might affect their career. On the other hand, it might provide

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opportunities in their career if they have the capability to use English communication skills. Getting promoted is one of the best examples in this case. Participating in an English training course could be a possible method that helps them to achieve these crucial skills.

Since 2014, the company has provided an English language training course but most of the time the company never asks the employees to do a survey to measure and analyse their needs in learning English. As a result, the company can only provide a general English course for employees and it doesn’t help much in improving the skills because they cannot apply the knowledge they gained to their actual work. An ineffective training course will not only waste time and money from the company but also create a negative attitude among employees to attend training courses in the future since they can’t see any benefits from the training.

The abovementioned scenario reflects that the organization needs to revamp the way it organizes English training courses for employees by providing a specific English training course rather than a general English training course. Both parties will gain benefits from a specific training course: for the company, it will be much easier to promote employees from the inside, and the company might find potential developers that can take care of a job that requires certain skills but the opportunity is currently blocked by limited English communication skills; for the developers, they may have a chance to obtain some new skills that will benefit their career path.

To make it happen, a needs analysis process needs to be applied to help the company to identify the Thai developers’ needs and use the findings to develop a specific training course that supports them to achieve the skills that are necessary for their tasks. The main purpose of this study is to present needs in English communication skills of Thai developers in the software development department as this can help the company understand the current problems that are encountered by the developers. At the same time, it will help the company to come up with ideas to provide the most suitable English training course. This method might also be useful in the future for other divisions that seeks to improve English communication skills.

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<b>1.3 Research Questions </b>

1.3.1 What English communication skills do Thai developers need in their careers?

1.3.2 What are Thai developers' opinions on English Language training that is necessary for their careers?

<b>1.4 Research Objectives </b>

1.4.1 To determine the English communication skills that Thai developers need in their careers.

1.4.2 To explore Thai developers' opinions on English Language training that is necessary for their careers.

<b>1.5 Definition of Terms </b>

<b>Thai Developers refer to employees who work in the software development </b>

department that excel in programming through computer languages such as Java, Python, C++, etc.

<b>Information Technology (IT) refers to computing technology, such as </b>

networking, hardware, software, the Internet, or the people that work with these

<b>technologies. </b>

<b>English Communication Skills refers to the skill of using the English language </b>

for communication and the ability to convey information in efficient ways. The four types of skills are speaking, writing, reading, and listening.

<b>Needs refers to English communication skills that Thai developers need to </b>

possess to help them to achieve certain tasks or serve their purposes

<b>Needs Analysis refers to a systematic procedure in analyzing learners’ needs </b>

with the objective to elicit the actual needs through multiple processes and apply any findings in a course or curriculum development.

<b>Multinational Company refers to the company that the researcher belongs to. </b>

It acts as IT services provider company in a multinational context in which English language is mainly using as a lingua franca

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<b>1.6 Scope of the study </b>

The study focuses on English communication skills needed by the Thai developers that belong to the software development division at a multinational company with an attempt to provide a training course that responds to their needs. The data for this study were obtained through a questionnaire.

<b>1.7 Significance of the Study </b>

Since the company has never implemented needs analysis, the findings will provide benefits to the company in many different ways. For instance, it will provide insight into the needs in English communication skills that are necessary for Thai developers. The findings can also be shared with the HR department so that they will have an idea when they need to conduct an English language training for the upcoming year and to get some direction on how they can plan an effective training course that helps to reduce a cost in the company.

In addition, this study might reveal some of useful data for employees who work as developers on how English communication skills can make an impact on their career. Other IT companies may use this study as a guideline to conduct an English training course through need analysis as well.

<b>1.8 Organization of the Study </b>

This study of needs analysis on English communication skills is divided into five chapters as follows:

Chapter One provides the introduction and main purpose of the study. Chapter Two presents a review of the literature relevant to this study. Chapter Three describes the methodology used for the data collection process. It includes the details of the participants, instrument,data collection, and data analysis procedures.

Chapter Four reports the results of the study by presenting the collected data from the research instrument in descriptive statistics.

Chapter Five provides a summary of the entire study, a discussion of the findings, implications of the findings, recommendations for further research, and the conclusion.

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<b>CHAPTER 2 </b>

<b>LITERATURES REVIEW </b>

As this study aims to identify needs in English communication among Thai developers in a multinational IT company, this chapter reviews the literature in four main areas as follows.

2.1 Background of IT (Software and Application) Developers 2.1.1 Communication Skills and Developers

2.1.2 English Languages and Developers

<b>2.1 Background of IT (Software and Application) Developers </b>

In the field of information technology, developers refer to an individual whose role is to build software and applications through the process of writing computer code using a programming language. The Cambridge Dictionary Website provides the meaning of developers in product context as ‘a person or company that creates new products, especially computer products such as software’ (The Cambridge Dictionary Website, 2020).

In the wide field of business and industry, including the academe, this role has various job titles: e.g. software engineers, analyst developers, programmers, etc. However, all these titles describe people whose main responsibility is to code a program for IT companies.

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Developers play a crucial role in the IT industry as they are the key personnel behind all software applications. In general, developers are very knowledgeable in programming language and have the capability of developing software or programs. They also usually act as a bridge between a business and its IT department because of their ability to turn business requirements into a technology that responds to the client’s needs. (Technopedia, 2017).

There are several tasks that developers need to take care of during the software development process such as gathering requirements or resources that are necessary for developing software like software architecture, software documentation, and other related software development processes by working alongside business analysts and project managers. Depending on the main responsibility and type of software that they are currently taking care of, the name of this position may be changed in the varied names. For example, JAVA developer, mobile developer, and web developer.

From the definition and concept of developers, it can be seen that they are valuable resources to the IT industry due to their skills in developing different kinds of technology. The main characteristics of developers can be concluded in three main points as follows.

1. Excel in a programming language such as Python, C++, Java, Net, SQL, etc. 2. Writing code is their primary task

3. Need to interact with the members of the software development team and clients to achieve certain tasks.

In today’s business, developers have become one of the highest-paid, most-in demand job positions in many companies and this can be explained by the trend in using information technology to develop a business and to ensure a competitive advantage. In Thailand, it has been revealed that IT ranked third among the top five in-demand jobs of 2019 (Addeco, 2019).

<b>2.1.1 Communication Skills and IT Developers </b>

While it is not a surprise that knowledge in programming languages is a crucial skill for developers, they sometimes lack some crucial soft skills such as verbal and written communication skills. These soft skills play important roles in any company

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and can be considered as one of the factors that determine whether a company succeeds or fails in its industry.

These are important competencies regarding how two or more people communicate complicated ideas and exchange concepts with each other. Strong communication skills enable software developers to collaborate with members of the project team such as business analysts and project managers.

Communication skills are considered important for software developers because of the increase in job demand of developers that required an ability to explain complicated topics to a large group of people and this is one of the requirements as important as hard skills that they should have (Mayuko, 2019).

This position often requires collaboration with a team, which means team members should be able to receive and give instructions to their colleagues in English. Hence, developers who seek to improve in their careers by having good communication skills could lead them to have good opportunities for their work rather than focusing on improving only technical skills. This is supported by several studies by both experts in the IT industry and the academe.

According to Sykes (2018), the workplace with good communication can provide various benefits to employees. It develops stronger teams, ensure that cross-company departments have the same understanding, increases productivity, and can enhance both employee and customer satisfaction.

Some experienced developers argue that it might be incorrect to think that a software developer does not need to be a skilled communicator. While maintaining hard technical skills is critical in career advancement, developers should focus on developing soft skills like communication as well. It is suggested that a software developer is required to have strong interpersonal and communication skills since this position often involves collaboration with a team and they must be able to concisely communicate instructions to others. (Cunningham 2015; Doyle 2019).

Flood (2015) highlights that software engineers that expect to achieve in their career are required to have great communication skills since this position often require collaborating with many parts of the company and communicating with other people. He also points out that companies should invest in developing communication skills to

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promote an environment that makes them realize communication skills as a key attribute that they should possess.

In summary, communication is a skill that should not be overlooked for those who work as an IT developer since these skills can provide many benefits for their work. The outstanding point is that since collaboration is the main key to success in their work and if they can effectively communicate with people that they are working with, this will create a big advantage during the software development process.

<b>2.1.2 English Languages and IT Developers </b>

English communication skills might be perceived as a non-essential skill due to the nature of the IT profession that requires a strong command of hard skills such as programming, analyzing, understanding a complicated structure in applications or software that they need to develop. However, it is undeniable that this soft skill will help developers accomplish more tasks, thus improving productivity when English language tasks and procedures are involved.

According to Hanselman (2008) in his article ‘Do you have to know English to be a Programmer?’, he raises many interesting points regarding why English language shouldn’t be neglected by those who work as a developer. Articles and books that are related to the field of information technology are usually published in English. As a result, reading skills and comprehension skills are required, at least on a basic level to understand the sources.

Furthermore, most programming languages are developed by English speaking specialists, and English words are used as operators and keywords. Developers who can understand English have access to more information about programming languages and, more opportunities to get help from other programmers around the world through online communities.

<b>2.1.3 IT Developers Responsibilities </b>

To identify the need for communication skills for developers, the researcher looked through job descriptions for this position from companies that are currently hiring developers such as Agoda, Thompson Reuters, and Robert Walters. All job descriptions that were found were used as a guideline for the researcher to understand

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their responsibilities related to English communication skills and this information was also used to develop a question in the questionnaire.

Table 1 shows some requirements that are considered as mandatory skills and are often found in most of the job descriptions for a developer. These requirements are categorized under the four main communication skills which are necessary for carrying out these responsibilities.

<b>Table 1. Developers’ Job and Communication Skills Requirements </b>

<b>Primary IT Developers Responsibilities ^{Possible Communication}Skills Requirements </b>

<small>Analyze user requirements and convert ideas into </small>

<small>Attend meetings and briefings with clients and colleagues Listening, Speaking, Writing Communicate effectively in a professional manner in all </small>

<small>forms of communication with clients. </small> ^{Speaking, Writing} <small>Consult with project managers or clients to obtain </small>

<small>information regarding constraint on a project </small> ^{Listening, Speaking} <small>Discuss with teams or clients on project status and </small>

<small>Regularly update technical knowledge and skills by participating in training courses, reading information from various sources. </small>

<small>Reading </small>

<small>Create technical documentation for reference and reporting Writing Arrange reports on responsible projects, activities, or </small>

<small>Support and provide feedback to project managers, </small>

<small>development, testing and stakeholders in the business </small> ^{Speaking, Writing} <small>Communicate complex procedures and explain technical </small>

<small>Communicate with developers involved in the project to </small>

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From the table above, it reveals that all communication skills are very important for the developer. Writing skills seem to be the most prominent skill among the other skills while reading is a less required skill. However, in a corporate setting, all communication skills are needed to fulfill the given tasks.

Besides, there is another field usually found alongside a job description which is the list of qualifications. To emphasize the necessity of having communication skills the developers, the researcher has gathered the qualifications linked to the skills. The following is a summary of why developers need to have these qualifications.

First of all, it is a common misconception that those who work as developers only write computer code and will engage in a conversation only when it is necessary for them. The fact is that developers need to spend most of their time discussing their daily tasks with their colleagues since it is a regular way of working in an IT company where people of various positions are required to work together until a project is completed. Strong written and verbal communication can help to ensure that they can convey their ideas to another person with less technical knowledge and still be able to understand the message.

Secondly, since collaboration is the core element of work in the IT-field, it is necessary for developers who need to understand or have experience with Agile development methodologies. This is an approach that is commonly used for project management in software development that allows clients and all team members to collaborate during the development process; meanwhile, Scrum refers to one of the development methods from Agile, which concentrates specifically on how to manage tasks within a team-based development environment (Muslihat, 2018).

In a scrum meeting, there will be an opportunity for all team members to share their thoughts, progress, ideas or suggestions with other members while the scrum master will collect all information to use as a reference for the next development process. Misunderstanding due to poor communication skills might lead to several critical issues, such as the failure to develop programs or features that respond to the actual needs of clients.

Lastly, a business analyst needs to communicate with clients by default. However, sometimes developers are required to contact clients by themselves because some highly technical matter can only be explained by those who possess strong and

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wide IT knowledge, such as IT developers. Then, IT developers must also possess good communication skills.

<b>2.2 English Communication Skills </b>

Communication has been defined by many scholars. Based on Hamilton (2008), it is the process that people share thoughts and ideas with others. From another perspective, it can be referred to as the process of persons responding to the symbolic behavior of the others (Adler & Rodman, 2003).

According to Ross (2006), communication is the ability of a human to share or deliver the intended message together with the need to be responsive and become successful delivers and receivers. It is also a crucial activity for people to share information with another person by applying the process of sending and receiving a message together (Pearson and Nelson, 1997).

When communicating, a person who conveys a message needs to be clear to avoid any misunderstanding or misinterpretation of communication as it might cause an issue that leads to unexpected consequences. A circumstance when both the sender and receiver share the same meaning of the intended message is the outcome from effective communication (Ross, 2006). As explained by Campbell (1989), effective communication is the successful performance of the interpersonal interaction of communicators.

In summary, communication is the process that helps people to express their thought, ideas, or messages that a sender expects the receiver to understand. There are four essential skills involved in the communication process and both the sender and the receiver need to understand the role of each skill. Definitions of the four communication skills are discussed in the following section.

<b>2.2.1 Listening Skills </b>

A general definition of listening has been given by various scholars. It is a process that involves recognizing, interpreting, and memorizing received messages before responding to the given information from others (Purdy, 1997).

Another similar definition of listening by Rost (2002) is that this is a process of constructing, responding, and representing meaning with a speaker. It can also refer to

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the activity of heeding and trying to understand what they pick up from other (Underwood, 1989).

Some scholars highlight the reasons why listening plays an important role in communication. According to Mendelsohn (1994), regarding the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%, speaking 25-30%, reading, 11-16% and 9% for writing; moreover, Law and Gorla (1996) argue that listening is probably the most important communication skill as it concerns about the precise reception and interpretation of communication.

In this study, the researcher asserts that Thai developers must have a good command of listening skills since they need to work with non-Thai colleagues and clients with different accents and pronunciation.

<b>2.2.2 Speaking Skills</b>

Speaking is defined as the synergetic process of forming meaning by constructing, obtaining, and processing messages. The meaning depends on the context, the purposes of speaking, and the participators (Burns & Joyce, 1997).

This is similar to Quianthy (1990), who defines speaking as the way of delivering information verbally in different scenarios. Besides, it is the process of constructing and sharing meaning using both verbal and nonverbal signs in varied contexts (Chaney, 1998).

According to Mclaren (2006), speaking is reckoned the most challenging language skill for learners and the most important language skill in English. Even if the learners have learned the language for so many years, they find it difficult to speak in real-time situations when it is demanded.

Speaking might not be a required communication skill that Thai developers need to master since they spend most of the time writing code. However, it is still a skill they need to use daily because of the activities they participate in such as scrum meetings, software demonstrations, and discussion in their team.

<b>2.2.3 Reading Skills</b>

According to William (1984), reading skills can be defined as a scenario when persons look at what has been written and try to understand the meanings, while Smith

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(1973) states that it is a process of communication to which information is transferred from a speaker to an interlocutor.

Reading skills can be considered as skills with a complicated procedure. As claimed by Stallfter (as cited in Anitha, 2018) “readers read to get information from printed pages. They should be able to pronounce and understand the printed words, signs, letters, and symbols by assigning meaning to them” (p. 134).

To understand any written content, readers need to have a decent level in reading comprehension. Moreover, critical reading skills allow readers to be able to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what is read.

Reading skill seems to be a common skill that Thai developers need to use in their work routine since they need to engage in activities such as reading emails which is the main communication channel in the company, and reading comments from peers or clients in the JIRA software, the software mainly used as the standard software to track the progression of projects.

<b>2.2.4 Writing Skills</b>

According to Rivers (1981), writing is transmitting information of ideas in language and it is a complex activity since it required a person to combine meaningful segments of language: words, sentences, and grammar into written forms. The writing process consists of two steps which are assessing the meaning and putting it into a language (Brown, 2001).

From all the four main skills, writing seems to be the most difficult skill because the process requires much awareness of segments of languages. In general, the process can be done through two stages: discovering ideas and processing the ideas into legible texts.

As for Thai developers, writing skills are necessary when they are writing code. For example, they might need someone in the team to check if the code is run properly or if any bugs need to be fixed. This requires them to submit a ticket to the technical support system by describing issues or requests to those who need to read the support request.

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<b>2.3 Needs Analysis (NA) </b>

The term needs analysis has been defined by many experts since this is a topic that has been studied widely. The definitions from the experts are based on their point of view and relevant area of their studies.

In accordance with Nunan (1988), needs analysis is a useful process that can specify the parameters of a course of study. The parameters included are course length, course content, methodology, intensity, and duration. It can also refer to the use of a survey to determine specific problems experienced by a target group. This can be done by comparing what exists with what would be preferred, and potential solutions to those problems (Lawrence, 1991).

Some researchers define needs analysis as a systematic procedure carried out to identify the needs of learners in learning a foreign language through various information such as identity, current knowledge, or capability to use the target language and their expectations. Information obtained through this method needs to be interpreted and then used to create curriculums or courses that match the needs of learners. The process is usually involved when English for Specific Purpose (ESP) needs to be developed (Bachman and Palmer, 1996).

According to Richard (1985), the main objective of needs analysis is to gather the requirements from learners from various resources. For instance, data about learners, materials, etc. It is also the most important phase in curriculum planning since the information can help determine the particular skills that the learners expect to achieve. Furthermore, Richterich (1972) emphasizes that the learning activities which respond to learners’ needs can become needs analysis if the feedback and consultation is built into the learning cycle.

Dudley-Evan and St. John (1988) claim that needs analysis plays a significant role in designing a course for learners in a particular field. Moreover, needs analysis can also support course design related to careers such as English for hotel staff, English for flight attendants, etc. These courses can be different from a general English courses because of the effects of needs analysis since the process focuses on specific uses of English in a particular field rather than paying attention to the common use of English, which is a common characteristic of a general English course (Hutchinson and Water, 1987).

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Hutchinson and Water (1987) suggest that as the learners’ needs can change all the time, a teacher needs to perform needs analysis as an ongoing process, which means that it should not be done only once.

In terms of data collection in needs analysis, as suggested from Long (2005), various techniques can be employed i.e. questionnaires, structured interviews, language audits, participant observations, diaries, journals, and logs. In this research study, the researcher chose a questionnaire as an instrument for data collection and some points need to be concerned when using this method as highlighted by Sava (2012), people who answer a questionnaire might get influence by the wording of a question and the selected response mode. To avoid this scenario, the questionnaire must be designed with great care.

The above-mentioned definitions of needs analysis and significant points from the experts enabled the researcher to understand the broad concept of needs analysis, which is a method that focuses on determining learners’ needs under a systematic procedure with the main objective of developing a course that responds to the actual needs of learners.

<b>2.3.1 Target Situation Analysis (TSA) </b>

As determined by Dudley-Evan and St. John (1998), there are three situations used as criteria to elicit needs:

1) Target situation analysis (TSA) deals with the goals of an ESP course. 2) Learning situation analysis (LSA) highlights the learning style of the learners along with their needs.

3) Present situation analysis (PSA) emphasizes the current strengths and weaknesses of the target learners

In this research study, the researcher chose target situation analysis (TSA) to analyze the English communication skills needs of Thai developers. As reported by West (1994), target situation analysis (TSA) refers to the form of needs analysis used to identify the learners’ language requirements in their current setting. The setting could be both occupational and academic. The target situation in this context refers to the situation in which the language learners will be using the language they are learning (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987).

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Target situation analysis can be considered as the most common form of need analysis study as shown in many studies that used this approach as a framework to determine the needs of their subjects. Munby (1978) formulated the model for TSA known as Communicative Need Processor (CNP). This framework is arguably the most conventional method for needs analysis and it has been widely studied and discussed among researchers in the needs analysis field. In this model, there are eight elements of inquiry and an instrument that can be used for a needs analysis to elicit an accurate profile of language learners as follows.

<b>1. Participants - The background information of the learners i.e. gender, age, </b>

nationality, and the current level of target languages

<b>2. Purposive domain – The occupational or educational purposes for which the </b>

target language is required

<b>3. Setting – Both the physical and psychosocial settings in which the target </b>

<b>6. Dialect – The dialects of the target language </b>

<b>7. Target level – The degree of mastery which the learner will need to gain over </b>

<b>the target language </b>

<b>8. Communication event – The main events in which the participants is required </b>

<b>to use English. </b>

This model helped the researcher to understand the data of learners that is needed when conducting needs analysis. It was also used as a framework for formulating the questionnaire that helped to obtain the necessary details in needs analysis for the Thai developers.

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<b>2.4 Previous Studies </b>

There are a number of previous study regarding needs analysis. Below is a review of some relevant studies on necessity of communication skills for IT positions.

Rahman, Rahim and Seyal (1999) conducted a survey to identify requisite skills among programmers that worked in an organization in Brunei. They divided three requisite skills into three categories: technical, application development and communication. The skills for communication were broken down as oral presentation listening, writing, and training users. The questionnaires were distributed to 100 Brunei-based organizations but only 38 organizations returned completed questionnaires. The results revealed that communication skills were rated as very necessary skills and ranked consistently higher than that of technical and application development categories. The ranking of communication skills showed that listening was the most concerned required skill for a programmer. Each skill was ranked in order based on the highest mean score as follows: listening, writing, training users and oral presentation.

Ahmed, Bouktif, Campbell and Capretz (2012) studied the soft skills requirements in software development jobs from 500 job advertisements posted on well-known recruitment sites from a range of geographical locations, including North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The objective was to identify the demand for soft skills from software development jobs from different regions and see if cultural differences impact demand. The data was taken from the job descriptions from four job titles: software tester, system analyst, computer programmer and software designer. Nine soft skills were focused on this study: communication skills, interpersonal skills, analytical and problem-solving skills, team player, organizational skills, fast learner, an ability to work independently, being innovative and adaptability to changes. The findings showed that communication skills were listed as the highest demand skill for every position from all regions. For computer programmers, this skill was listed as high demand alongside with interpersonal skills in the Australian job market. Moreover, it was concluded that cultural differences did not have a major impact on the choice of soft skills requirements in hiring a new employee in the case of the software development profession.

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Bhatnagar, Conforti, Kovalchick, Kovacs, Peslak and Wang (2018) conducted an analysis of skills requirements for the programmer analyst position. The objective was to address what employers were seeking in a programmer analyst. They collected and analyzed 500 job postings on postjobfree.com. One of the research questions pertained to identifying the soft skills required for a programmer analyst. The result indicated that communication was the second most important soft skill as it was mentioned at least once in 65% of the 837 posts for a programmer analyst that they examined while writing was in third place.

Overall, the researcher thinks that developers need to have a good command of hard and soft skills at the same time since communication skills are now considered as a mandatory skill in most IT positions. Developers who possess good communication skills might have more opportunities for career advancement.

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<b>CHAPTER 3 </b>

<b>RESEARCH METHODOLOGY </b>

This chapter presents the research methodology: (1) the participants, (2) materials, (3) data collection, and (4) data analysis.

<b>3.1 Participants </b>

The population of the study was Thai developers working for the software development department of a multinational company. A total of 155 Thai developers were working as permanent employees in the software development department. However, only 30 developers were recruited as participants for this study. The sampling method that was used to select the participants was simple random sampling. Participants had a solid background in the informational technology field.

<b>3.2 Materials </b>

This study was a survey research using a questionnaire to collect the data. The questionnaire was developed in English language first before being translated into Thai. The Thai questionnaire was used as the main research instrument in the study. To ensure that the questionnaire was understandable to participants, a pilot study was conducted. There were three Thai developers included in the pilot study and their responses were excluded. The feedback from the pilot study was used to adjust some of the questions in part I and part II. The participants were asked to complete all three parts in the questionnaire as follows.

<b>Part I: Demographic Information and English Background of Participants </b>

–The participants provided personal information that includes gender, age, educational background, and the number of working years. For English language background information, the participants were required to give information such as TOEIC score, frequency of use of English skills in the current job and number of years for English study. They also needed to assess their English proficiency by identifying the level of English proficiency, and four main English communication skills.

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<b>Part II: Needs for English Communication Skills at Work – The participants </b>

were asked to assess the work situation in which English communication skills are needed to fulfill tasks by providing an opinion of agreement. A 5-point Likert scale was used to measure the participants’ opinions and each point represents their opinion as

There were nineteen items in this part and they were subcategorized into four parts; each part represents the English communication skills as follows.

Part A – Listening Skill (5 items) Part B – Reading Skill (5 items) Part C – Speaking Skill (4 items) Part D – Writing Skill (5 items)

Each part consisted of situations related to their work and at least one of the English communication skill was needed in the provided situations. To reduce the probability that the participant might give inaccurate responses due to the way that questions had been grouped and might influence their opinions, the names of four skills were omitted from the questionnaire.

<b>Part III: General Opinions on English Training Courses to Develop English Communication Skills – The last part of the questionnaire was designed to explore the </b>

participants’ opinions and suggestions regarding their perceived English communication skills and their needs for training courses.Open-ended and close-ended questions were used to collect the required information in this part. The participants were asked to give their opinions regarding the importance of English skills in their career, English skills that they want to improve, the challenge of English skills in their career, and the way that the company can help to improve their English communication skills.

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<b>3.3 Data Collection </b>

Due to COVID-19, the researcher needed to distribute the questionnaire through the online channel using Google Forms. The survey link was directly sent to all participants via email and they were asked to complete and return the questionnaire within one week after the email was sent. The data from the questionnaires were collected from 8 - 15 April 2020.

<b>3.4 Data Analysis </b>

After the questionnaires were collected, the data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel. The basic statistics of frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were employed in this process.

<b>Frequency and percentage were used in the data analysis of the first part of </b>

the questionnaires, the demographic information and English background of participants, as well as the close-ended questions in the third part.

<b>Mean and standard deviation (S.D.) were used in the data analysis of the </b>

second part, Needs for English Communication Skills at Work. The range of the Likert scale was interpreted using these criteria:

For the last part that was open-ended questions, the written answers from the participants were analyzed by groupingsimilar ideas into categories and presented by frequency. Any comments that were written in Thai were translated into English to report in this current research project.

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<b>CHAPTER 4 RESULTS </b>

This chapter reports the results of the current study. They are: (1) demographic Information and English background of participants, (2) needs for English communication skills at work, and (3) general opinions on English training courses to develop English communication skills

<b>4.1 Demographic Information and English background of Participants</b>

The results of this part are presented in the form of the statistical values of frequency and percentage in Tables 1 – 14. The following tables include information about gender, age, educational level, current work level, years of work experience, TOEIC score, frequency of English usage in their career, years of English study, overall English proficiency, level of participants’ English proficiency in the four skills, and the level of participant’s English skills needed in their career.

Table 1 illustrates that the majority of participants (60%) were male and the minority of participants (40%) were female.

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<b>Table 2 (continued). </b>

<b>More than 45 1 3.3 </b>

Table 2 shows the number of participants aged less than 25 years was more than half (66.7%) of the total participants. The least common age of the participants was found to be over 45 years (3.3%).

Lower than bachelor’s degree 3 10.0

As can be seen in Table 3, the majority of participants (76.7%) held a bachelor’s degree while 13.3% held a master’s degree, and 10% had an education level lower than a bachelor’s degree.

Table 4 indicates that most of the participants' current work level was senior developer (36.7%), followed by advanced developer (23.3%), others (16.7%), principal

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developer (13.3%), and junior developer (10%). The others work levels were senior service manager, service delivery manager and team leader.

According to Table 5, the majority of participants, representing 33.3% had been working as software developers for 7-10 years, followed by those who had been working for 4-6 years (30%), more than 10 years (16.7%), 1-3 years (13.3%), and less than one year (6.7%), respectively.

Table 6 reveals that more than a half of participants (53.3%) had never taken the TOEIC exam before. There were 20% who had scores of more than 700 and 16.7% had scores between 601-700, while those who had scores of less than 500 were the smallest number (10%).

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<b>Table 7. Frequency of using English skills in current job </b>

According to Table 7, the results show that the majority of participants (53.3%) used English skills frequently in the current job at 4-5 days a week, followed by 2-3 days a week (20%), 6-7 days week (16.7%), and 1 day a week (10%), respectively.

<b>Table 8. Years of English study </b>

Table 8 shows that most participants had studied English for more than 5 years at 36.7%, followed by those who had studied English for 11-15 years and less than 5 years (23.3%), while only 16.7% had studied English for 5-10 years.

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<b>Table 9. The self-evaluation of participants’ overall English proficiency The evaluation of English </b>

As shown in Table 9, the participants’ evaluation of their English proficiency indicate that 36.7% of them rated themselves as good, 30% as very good, 23.3% as fair, while only 3% of them rated themselves at a poor level of English proficiency. None of the participants rated themselves as excellent.

<b>Table 10. The self-evaluation of participants’ English listening skills The evaluation of English </b>

Table 10 shows that in listening skills, most participants (30%) rated their listening skills as very good and 26.7% of them rated their own listening as good, followed by fair and poor at 20% and 16.7%, respectively. Only 6.7% of the participants rated their skill as excellent.

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<b>Table 11. The self-evaluation of participants’ English speaking skills The evaluation of English </b>

Table 11 shows that almost half of the participants (40%) rated their speaking skills as good, followed by fair (26.75), very good (23.3%), and poor (10%), respectively. None of the participants evaluated themselves as excellent.

<b>Table 12. The self-evaluation of participants’ English reading skills The evaluation of English </b>

Table 12 shows that that almost half of the participants (40%) rated their speaking skills as very good, followed by good (30%), fair (16.7%), and excellent (10%), respectively. Only 3.3% of the participants rated their English reading skills as poor.

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<b>Table 13. The self-evaluation of participants’ English writing skills The evaluation of English </b>

Table 13 shows that most the participants rated their writing skills as good and very good at 36.7% and 33.33%, followed by fair (16.7%), and poor (10%), respectively. Only 3.3% of the participants rated in skills in this category as excellent.

<b>Table 14. Level of English skills needed to perform their current job </b>

According to Table 14, almost half of the participants (about 43.3%) thought that the level needed to perform their current job was advanced, followed by intermediate and advanced with the percentages of 36.7% and 20%, respectively.

<b>4.2 Needs for English Communication Skills at Work </b>

The second part of this questionnaire consisted of nineteen questions focusing on needs for English communication skills at work for Thai developers. The results are presented in the form of the statistical values of frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation in Tables 15-18.

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<b>Table 15. Participants’ need in using listening skills at work</b>

I listen to non-Thai colleagues or non-Thai clients in face-to-face communication in order to get feedback or to provide information concerning the

I talk with non-Thai colleagues who have various

I listen to non-Thai colleagues or clients via

telephone calls, using English, for getting feedback or providing information concerning the current project.

From Table 15, the participants agreed that they needed to use English listening skills the most for listening to non-Thai colleagues or clients via telephone calls, using English, for getting feedback or providing information concerning the current project (x̄ = 3.50, SD = 1.55), followed by the similar situation of listening in face-to-face communication with a slightly different mean score (x̄ = 3.47, SD = 1.46) Meanwhile, the situation that least needed English listening skills was participating in in-house training classes conducted in English (x̄ = 2.63, SD=1.40).

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