Language needs of Malaysian Public Relations students in ESL writing

Chen, Jia Yee and Koh, Esther Khai Qi and Low, Shun Jun and Liew, Michelle Jia Yan (2019) Language needs of Malaysian Public Relations students in ESL writing. Final Year Project, UTAR.

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Abstract

In recent years, it is found that most of the Public Relations undergraduates could not produce a decent piece of writing, even though writing is considered one of the most important skills for a communication student. The objectives of the study are to determine the performance and analyse the language needs of Malaysian Public Relations students, as well as to explore their difficulties in ESL writing. This is a mixed method research using embedded design. 45 Public Relations undergraduates were selected through purposive sampling for this study. 45 samples of speech writing and semi-structured interviews were used to gather data. Students writing performance was quantitatively measured using the SPSS while textual and thematic analyses were conducted to explore the types of errors and students and teachers’ feedback on Public Relations students’ ESL writing. The instruments used are semi-structured interview protocols and content analysis. After collecting and analysing the data, it is found that majority of the students score a below average score of 52.37 in their writing exercise. The results showed that most of the students perform below average score is because of the language needs they have. The language needs for the students are found to be the subject-verb agreement, syntax error, tenses, language used, preposition, mechanics, semantics, conjunction, dangling modifiers and verb consistency. It is also found that the difficulty faced by the students in writing were not only caused by their language needs, but their lack of maturity and content in the writing as well. This study indicates that Malaysian Public Relations students have high language needs. The writing performance of Malaysian Public Relations students are below average, where their language needs are subject-verb agreement, syntax error, tenses, language used, preposition, mechanics, semantics, conjunction, dangling modifiers and verb consistency. Furthermore, students’ writings are also lacking in maturity and content.

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