English is not only use as an executive language in many nations, but also influence on many

different cultures in a large number of countries and it is the central language of communication
in the world-wide (Susanna, 2007). EngIish language is most extensively read, taught and spoken
verbal communication in the world. It is obviously present when a lot of people in a country talk
English as the first language such as in the United States of America, Canada, Britain, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa and others (Braine, 2005; crystal, 2006). The growth of the English
language has rapidly increased the needs to gain better communication English throughout the
world because the ability to use English is very much needed for further studies, in working
environment, journeys in other countries as well as for social and professional global associates
of different kinds (Hashemi, 2011; Susanna, 2007). A revise carried out by Ton & Pham (2010),
recognize that the English language is usually used as an international language for
communication between people from different language backgrounds in every part of the world.

Yes, Im agreed. Many Malaysians have difficulty communicating in English in the workplace
whether it is oral or written. Superior English communication skills are the prime necessary for
obtaining and holding a good job, as well as advancing to a better position in current business
world. A number of studies show that, written English and oral communication skills are
measured to be the most important capability in evaluating entry-level job candidates. All these
skills are consideration to be the most serious quality for career and managerial success. From
the report in Malaysia entitled year 2005 Malaysia has 60,000 Graduates Unemployed, the
Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Ministers Department establish that around 60,000
Malaysian graduates are unemployed due to lack of certain skills such as communication skill,
poor command of English and lack of work experience. This may cause the country to lose its
competitiveness especially in the industry and technical fields. While, (Suresh,2006) found that
70% of graduates from public universities, 26% from private higher learning institutions and
34% of those graduated from foreign universities are still jobless due to Malaysian fresh
graduates have communication problem in English. In order to continue its international spirited
edge in all aspects of the economic environment, be it administration, education, trade or finance,
Malaysia and workers need better communicative ability. Almost everyday there are some
information or reference made in the newspapers about the failing standard of English. English is
broadly used in the private sector and fresh graduates need communicative capability in English.
Efficient English in oral communication at the workplace can be a major problem for employee
who are not native English speakers, such as Malaysian employees, as English is not their
mother tongue because in Malaysia there are different religion so most of them loves to use their
own mother tongue as first language for communication. Moreover, effective English oral
communication can be a serious problem for those who have insufficient English knowledge,
limited experience with English, or limited revelation to English interaction. The main cause for
these problem due to listening comprehension, poor or insufficient vocabulary and use of idioms,
deformation or misunderstanding of the message and unsuitable formulation of the message.

Example, found that Malaysian employees who need to conduct a board meeting were limited
grammatical knowledge and poor or incorrect English pronunciation. These problems were
caused by a failure to understand a complex text, non-fluency in the interaction and a lack of
awareness of the country and the cultural background of their customers. Other than that, it also
found that Malaysian Police Officer had limited vocabulary and could not express their ideas
coherently and correctly. These problem cause by Malaysian because lack of understanding of
the questions asked, which required a lot of repetition from the interviewer, long pauses during
conversations, low fluency, poor English grammar, misunderstanding the foreign accents and low
confidence and nervousness when speaking due to the lack of opportunity to practice English
because the main language used is their mother tongue.

In Malaysia, majority government sectors they used their native language as communication
language even written any letters for corporate level. These itself will give them low impression
of the workers to learn English. When these peoples conduct any meetings with outsiders they
will have difficulties to communicate.

Furthermore, based on Malaysian studied student they only learn English written in the class and
time allocation 10 hours per week, while in government university majority subjects will be
learn in Malay languages, due to that many of them lack confidence and find communicating
with foreigners or Malaysian itself to be a major problem. Based on few studies, the main
problems among Malaysian were with pronunciation and the grammatical structure of English
sentences. Fennick et al. (1993) guilt the employees poor writing skills on their education when
they claim that part of the reason why students are not capable to write effectively in workplace
positions is because their school writing has been far dissimilar from what is necessary in their
real workplace situations.

In addition, research conducted by Sidy (1999) examines the significance of freshman

composition to write in the place of work. Four professionals who had graduated from university
for numerous years were asked about their writing in the workplace, university writing classes
and the significance of skills employers estimated. The results indicated that, all participants felt
that efficient workplace writing must be job-related, brief and clear. All participants have
negative attitudes towards the writing lessons they had because there is an enormous mismatch
between the type of writing studied and the prospect and necessities of their jobs. In wide-
ranging, research suggests that the participants could not narrate what they did in the freshman
writing lessons to the types of writing they contain to do in the workplace. Based on these
information it shows Malaysian studies have recorded similar result with regard to such writing
deficiency. Potential young executives were found to countenance many problems in
accomplishing writing tasks, still when writing a simple application letter (Tg Nor Rizan Tg
Mohd Maasum et al., 2007). In a 2008 study, Siti Hamin Stapa et al. establish that 118 out of 205
applicants for a post in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia ranged among the levels of very weak
and fair in their writing. Texts written by the participants were found to be insufficient and
ineffective in terms of ideas, correctness and appearance (Siti Hamin Stapa et al. 2008, p.28).
The study accomplished that the participants written literacy had yet to meet the workplace
writing demands.

Moreover, some other sample shows condition at the bank. Normally the banks language of
correspondence in Malaysia depends to the banks what language they are going to be used.
Example, In Bank A, Malay language is the corporate language, used dominantly in written
correspondence and oral communication. English served only as an alternative language as a
customer decided to begin some form of communication in that language, particularly in e-mails.
However, it is value noting the managers anxiety regarding the poor English writing proficiency
among the executives when responding to customers. Based from this sample of bank, these
shows how poor management system that they are going to bring at the same time the workers
will face difficulty when communicating or written an email to other banks which are
correspondence using only English. Its happen because Malaysian not practicing using English
as communication or written in work-base place. Whatever , its going to occur generation-by-
generation because they are going to bring the same attitudes and no changes going to happen
accept the company management strictly used English as the first language communication in
working environment.

At Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), each and every one students in the diploma
programmers take English language skill courses in the first three semesters of their programme.
They are required to pass all three levels of their skill courses. All students in the degree
programmes beginning these faculties are necessary to get hold of a minimum of between two to
four of their total credits from English language courses. In spite of such emphasis on the
English language, graduates from public universities like UiTM still discover communication in
English a confront at the workplace. They still face harms with the various job-related tasks that
require speaking, writing, reading and listening in the language. Ahead securing a job after
graduation, they discover that the English they learn in school and at university does not get
ready them to use the language at the place of work. They face difficulties in moving out tasks
such as preparing reports, participating in meetings or giving presentations. Most of them lack
self-assurance in their own ability to use English. In fact, many graduates are not talented to
secure any job because they cannot function sufficiently in English. Given the high tempo of
unemployment between graduates (see for example 70% Public University Graduates Jobless,
2006), this is certainly a worrying trend.

Pereira, Louis and Lok (2002) in a learning of the employers of the English Language
proficiency of BBA graduates from UiTM, Shah Alam also found that these graduates lack self-
assurance in oral communication especially in interviews and oral presentations, and this was
credited to a lack of motivation to improve. The employers surveyed cited speaking in English as
the majority important skill followed by writing. In another study, Hawa Rohany (2003)
conducted a Needs Analysis learning of the use of the English language and other languages
between working professionals and reported that qualities which give professionals the
aggressive edge in their job is self-confidence and efficient oral communication skills in
presenting ideas and information.

It is essential in a country like Malaysia which aspires to achieve the status of developed nation
by 2020, to have people who are able to communicate effectively in order to compete on the
worldwide platform (Gill, 2002). Thus, there is very little uncertainty that English plays a central
role in achieving this position. How Malaysian companies deal through language problems at the
workplace and what are the accurate problems remains largely absent from the literature.
However, an important amount of work has been complete in Malaysia with regards to language
choice and language utilize in the workplace. Nair-Venugopal, 2001, 2002; NairVenugopal,
2003 examined multilingual employees language use in the private workplace domain. Her
investigation of the discourse of two business teaching organisations' training sessions exposed
that language choice of the speakers depended mainly on their status and location held in the
organizations, educational background and language capability. The learning found that English
was used when the spectators was from the upper rung of the ladder in the organization. On the
other hand, Malaysian English and Malay language were used as a strategy to accommodate
those whose English language proficiency is much lesser. (NairVenugopal, 2003) says that the
switch to these sub-varieties is undertaken for both individuality marking and solidarity. This is
supported by earlier studies which looked at the use of English in the Malaysian place of work
domain (Kassim & Ali, 2010; Sundaram & Webster, 2000) Maros (2000) studied language use in
the marketable sector based on the communicative functions and requirements of the firms. The
findings indicated that language use was determined by the clients and the type of the
organizations. Maros believes that the customer sharing which was largely local, could have
affected the patterns of language use in the organizations studied. However, the learning also
showed that there was bilingual use of Bahasa Melayu and English as well as Chinese and
English among the higher echelons in the companies. As can be seen here there is barely any
published work done in the Malaysian background looking at language problems faced at the
workplace. To a large degree the language problems in the workplace have been comparatively
ignored. Therefore, it would seem suitable to study in greater depth the language barriers faced
by the IT industry. (Harzing & Feely, 2008) conceived in regards to communication among
parent company and its supplementary puts all the language barrier mechanism into a model
based on the design of a nasty cycle. According to them, the joint impact of the anxiety, the
division, the suspicion and the pessimistic stereotypes increases the wisdom of separation among
the parent company and its subsidiary. Our dispute is the same situation applies among any two
individuals and therefore it would grounds the communication to become more stressed,
guarded, and formal as time goes on.
However, as a conclusion the areas that create as challenges for them are language difficulties
mainly grammar and the authority of their own cultural surroundings that makes communication
with other races challenging. The connection between the colleagues is also a communication
barrier as many feel anxious when speaking to someone above their rank. Moreover, writing is a
skill that many executives find hard, particularly ESL writers, who are essentially challenged by
the wide-ranging linguistic properties of English. To composite these matters, business writing
requires a very particular writing technique. It is therefore no shock that the managers who
participated in this study stated their anxiety over their executives writing problems.

Kheng-Suan Chew (2005) in Hong Kong, particularly in conditions of the point of division
across some Malaysian banks in which English presides as a leading language in the business
world and Malay as the national language when communicating. However, with consider to
professional writers services and working out for non-professional writers, the lack of both as
seen among the studied banks point out a difference to the European banks studied by
Gunnarsson (2009). Based on the reading, the most excellent thing to make Malaysian the best in
workplaces is by inadequacy of training provided to graduates for get-together the demands of
place of work writing and communication.