Abstract:

This study investigates the importance of English language in the corporate sector in Pakistan, where the official language (English) is different from the national language Urdu. It will also gauge the need for, and the role of English language trainings in the field of Business. This data will be used towards a research to develop English language training modules for mid career professionals. Past research showed, according to Khan that learning problems in English can be dealt with if the English teacher studies the nature of the problems faced by the target learners and evolves compatible strategies (Khan 2010). In a similar research (Wang Zhang 2011) a comparison was made between the English training programs in UK and China to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these two types of programs in order to help the educators in this area to improve the effective teaching of the English training course. Asit Bhattacharyya’s research gave an Asian perspective and aimed to highlight the initial problems (related to English language, communication skills, learning approaches and cultural background) faced by international students and how they overcame these difficulties in an Australian university (Bhattacharyya 2010). Other authors have laid stress on problems in writing, speaking, listening and reading skills and have suggested respective remedies. There are five mistakes in particular that come up in almost every assignment (Beare 2011). In Your Guide to ESL he talks about speaking English on the telephone, speaking English in situations at work, and speaking English in everyday situations, also known as small talk (Beare 2012). Essberger suggests Five Tips for Reading: Try to read at the right level, make a note of new vocabulary, try to read regularly, be organized and read what interests you (Essberger 2010). A great way to improve your vocabulary is to read on a wide range of topics (Improving Vocabulary 2010). The ‘Dos and Don'ts’ website states that sometimes, reading works from master writers, such as Shakespeare (Write better 2011) can help improve vocabulary too. Keeping in view the language skills mentioned earlier a survey was conducted to gauge the general importance of English language training for mid-career professionals in the corporate sector in Pakistan. The surveys investigated how important English language communication was in the day-to-day work environment in the corporate sector, from the perspective of the in-service professionals. The data collected in this study exposed the extent of the importance of English Language for these individuals in their particular settings. The study will conclude with a comparison of the Pakistani and Italian statistics gathered in this research. It is expected that this comparison will expose valuable results, identifying venues for improvement in existing English language training modules and also for developing new ones. Academia as well as the corporate sector organizations will benefit from the training modules developed as a result of this research.

Keywords:

Workplace Training, Training, Evaluation and Assessment, English Language Training, Business Communication, English for Specific Purposes ESP, ESL.