English Language Needs in the Banking Sector: Focus on two Branches of a Bank in Malaysia
Islamic Science University of Malaysia
ABSTRACT
As Malaysia is heading towards achieving its vision 2020 to reach an optimum level of a developed nation status, there have been tremendous efforts by the government to make the dream come true. One of the efforts is to further improve the standard of English in the era of globalization to be on par with other developed nations. The banking industry, too, is one area that plays a vital role in the country’s endeavor to achieve its goal. Therefore, as a small contribution, this research has been undertaken to study the role of English in the banking field. This study is based on two branches of a bank to investigate what English language skills are required by the bank employees in their daily work in the various departments. Through questionnaires for the employees, and structured interviews used on the management staff, the aim was to determine what proportion of their daily communicative tasks is carried out in English, and in addition, which language skills are used more frequently, and what language use purposes and related materials are essential to the aspiring employees in the banking sector. It is interesting to note that the needs analysis carried out points towards speaking and writing skills as the most desired skills in the banking field.
KEYWORDS
English, needs, banking, communicative, skills