Thesis Chapter 1

Chapter 1
The Problem and Its Background
Introduction
English is the language for doing International Business. As a consequence, companies need those employees who are in relation with foreign clients or suppliers to have the skills in English which enable them to do their work efficiently. Even if an employee has good knowledge of the English language, he/she still needs to acquire the language to their professional area and therefore need to be proficient in English. Due to the fact that Business English is so important, companies require increasing numbers of their employees to have knowledge of this language. This knowledge is no longer the preserve of people in positions of responsibility; technicians who have to phone for support in another country and receptionists who receive foreign delegations also need to be able to do certain parts of their jobs in English. The primordial objective of the business person using international business English is to communicate efficiently and effectively. Native speakers with their fast delivery, colloquial expressions and unclear pronunciation are feared in the business place as they have become the most difficult people to understand. The result of this is that native speakers may have to start learning how to speak a more communication-friendly form of their own language. Since the first Philippines outsourcing boom in the early 2000s, English proficiency has often been mentioned as the country’s biggest advantage over other destinations. It’s the primary reason that call centers made their way into the country and did business. Now, as outsourcing companies move beyond customer service into such diverse fields as BPO, web content writing, and IT outsourcing, English proficiency is once again being promoted for outsourcing to the Philippines. But recent language test results released by the IDP Education Pty. Ltd. Philippines, an accredited group that administers the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to Filipinos seeking to work and migrate abroad, showed that the Philippines is no longer the top English-speaking country in Asia. With an overall score of 6.71, Malaysia is now the No. 1 in English proficiency in Asia. The Philippines placed only second, followed by Indonesia, India and Thailand .This was gleaned from IELTS results in 2008, during which some 35,000 Filipinos took the language exam to evaluate their English proficiency in reading, writing, speaking and listening. During a conference on English organized by the Centre for International Education (CIE) in Manila, Andrew King, country director of IDP Education Pty. Ltd. Philippines warned that the continuous decline in Filipinos’ English proficiency could affect the growth of the call center industry which provides thousands of jobs at home and abroad. English as the language of the global community has found a prominent place in the lives of people. To the students, learning the language for effective and efficient communication has been considered an imperative for school learning where they use it to learn, how to learn and to foster a critical understanding and appreciation of how they give expression to their experience in the world. Evidently, such an expression never fails to create an impression. In the present high voltage competition the student who presents himself better even though having nearly the same level of knowledge manages to nudge others. Mastery of the English Language often proves and to be the key to success. Additionally, not only student, but also professionals engaged in different jobs need to build an effective vocabulary and be proficient in the English Language. The competition that exists in the present age is not only confined to schools, colleges and qualifying/entrance examinations. It has crept into the corporate world, and is becoming more in intensified there. Therefore, this study will establish a solution in preparing the student in a highly competitive community by means of developing their English language proficiency.
Setting of the study