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Abstract-In the 21st century workplace, future engineers are not only required to possess technical knowledge but also relevant soft skills for effective workplace communication purposes. Specifically, the demand of communication skills among engineers has accelerated since the workplace expects professional engineers to be equipped with excellent communication skills for global interaction. The responsibility to develop proficient future engineering workforce are mainly shouldered by the English language lecturers. Thus, it is paramount for English language lecturers to use the most effective teaching and learning approaches to prepare engineering students for future workplace expectations. Educational research in language teaching and learning provides evidence-based pedagogical strategies which English language lecturers' could consult in making pedagogical decisions. This article describes the use of educational research findings to develop engineering students' workplace communication skills based on the model of 'Teaching as Inquiry' developed by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Index Terms-educational research, Teaching as Inquiry, workplace communication skills. I. INTRODUCTIONThe teaching of English in higher education institutions in Malaysia mostly endeavors to prepare students for workplace communication. However, it is viewed problematic when graduates are not employed due to not having skills to communicate effectively in English. Specifically, the issue of poor communication skills among engineering graduates has been linked to inadequacy of English language courses and poor preparation of engineering graduates for the workplace [1], [2].What is delivered inside world's higher education classrooms leaves an intense impact on not only students' grades but also towards the global economic, social success and international survival [3]. Previous studies have mentioned that the real challenge in producing proficient graduates is unspokenly shouldered by the English language lecturers [2], [4] and recommends that the teaching of English should undergo changes in pedagogy by focusing more on effective communicative strategies [5]. Thus, it is paramount for English language lecturers to use the most effective teaching and learning approaches in higher education institutions to prepare engineering students for the emerging new world reality.Teachers' professional knowledge comes from a variety of sources and the sources used to make instructional decisions Manuscript received April 9, 2017; revised June 19, 2017. The authors are with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia (e-mail: thivviyahs@gmail.com).by teachers are readily available -through colleagues from informal discussions, official curriculum documents, professional magazines/newspapers and professional training programmes [6]- [9]. In addition, most teachers rely their teaching practices based on tradition, opinions of experienced practitioners, ideology, faddism, marketing, politics and personal experience attained through trial and erro...

English as an international language serves its importance in many fields such as finance, medicine, technology and education. The four main skills in the acquisition of English are speaking, listening, reading and writing. In order to converse well in this global world, speaking skill is the most important for communication. Language learners deploy many strategies such as cognitive, metacognitive, compensation affective, social and memory strategies to enhance the speaking skills. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the language learning strategies employed by Form Four male students. A mixed method design was employed with semi structured interviews and questionnaires as the instruments for data collection. In this intervention, 40 Form 4 students from a secondary school in Negeri Sembilan were selected as the participants. The findings of this paper showed that the most frequent language learning strategies implemented were social, affective and memory strategies in the acquisition of speaking skill. Based on this finding, more studies are expected to be conducted to identify the application of other skills to help the students strive in learning English.

The aim of this study is to explore the polytechnic English Language lecturers’ attitudes towards the teaching of Communicative English, which has been introduced in 2010 in the current English syllabus. It also sets out to investigate the challenges the lecturers face in teaching Communicative English syllabus. Participants of this study were 15 English language lecturers teaching at Malaysian Polytechnics and the main mode of data collection was informal interview. Interview data were qualitatively analysed with initial descriptive codes being assigned to lecturers’ responses. Results from the study indicate that the English language lecturers felt that the current Communicative English syllabus could help to prepare students for the workplace needs. However, issues related to students, institutional policy, non-academic tasks and professionalism were reported as challenges in teaching Communicative English courses. This study allows relevant authorities to identify the attitudes and challenges faced by English language lecturers and to facilitate these lecturers who are teaching the new Communicative English syllabus at Malaysian polytechnics.