LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network

ISSN: 2630-672 (Print) | ISSN: 2672-9431 (Online)

Volume: 16, No: 2, July – December 2023
Language Institute, Thammasat University
https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/LEARN/index

A Needs Analysis of English for Meeting Lessons for Thai

Undergraduate Engineering Students
Piyatida Changpuenga, Fasawang Pattanapichetb,*
a
[email protected], Faculty of Applied Arts, King Mongkut’s University of
Technology North Bangkok, Thailand
b
[email protected], Business English Department, Bangkok University, Thailand
*
Corresponding author, [email protected]

APA Citation:
Changpueng, P. & Pattanapichet, F. (2023). A needs analysis of English for
meeting lessons for Thai undergraduate engineering students. LEARN Journal:
Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, 16(2), 603-623.

Received ABSTRACT
05/04/2023

Received in The present study explores the needs for English meeting
revised form lessons for Thai undergraduate engineering students. The
21/06/2023 participants consisted of 5 groups: 443 engineering students,
Accepted
150 novice engineers, 224 experienced engineers, 4 ESP
27/06/2023 teachers, and 5 engineering teachers. Data were collected using
3 sets of questionnaires and semi-interview. Data analysis was
conducted using percentage, means, standard deviation, and
thematic analysis. The findings revealed that both novice
engineers and engineering students have a high degree of
difficulty when conducting meetings in English. In addition, it
was found that there are three stages of the meeting process:
preparation, participation, and post-meeting. Regarding types
of meetings, the most common regular type of meeting was the
problem- solving meeting. Furthermore, the results imparted
the language details for the meeting participation stage that
were identified based on each language function. The study
discusses the main issues concerning the difficulties that Thai
engineering students encounter, how the target language is
used, as well as practical implications for solving issues, and
proposes suggestions for developing English for meeting
lessons and teaching materials. Finally, analyzing meeting
discourse is recommended for further research.

Keywords: English for Specific Purposes, English for

Engineering, English for Meetings, needs analysis,
engineering students
 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623

Introduction

Proficiency in English is crucial for engineers to communicate effectively in a global

context, allowing them to collaborate with international colleagues, write reports and emails,
participate in meetings and discussions, negotiate with team members, and present their ideas to a
wider audience. The English proficiency can also boost their credibility and competitiveness in the
job market (Kaewpet, 2009; Kassim & Ali, 2010). However, the number of qualified engineers is
insufficient to meet companies’ needs. In 2006, more than 40,000 graduate engineers in Malaysia
could not find a job and the main reason was their poor ability in English (Phang, 2006, as cited
in Yusoff & Sumah, 2013). Reimer (2002) mentioned that graduate engineers’ language ability
cannot meet the communication standard of engineers. These studies reveal that English is
important for engineers, but these engineers still need improvement in using English. As a result,
many studies (e. g. Myles, 2009; Kaewpet, 2009; Kaneko et al. , 2009; Kassim & Ali, 2010; Spence
& Lui, 2013; Zaharim et al., 2009) have been undertaken to investigate the needs and problems of
engineers and engineering students regarding English communication in their work contexts in
order to create effective language courses to improve their English communication skills.
According to a review of the literature and interviews with engineers, meeting skills are indicated
as a job requirement for engineers (e.g. Cowling, 2007; Kassim & Ali, 2010, Rajprasit et al., 2014;
Spence & Lui, 2013). However, it was found that Thai engineers, especially novice engineers, had
difficulties attending meetings and writing the minutes of meetings (e. g. Changpueng &
Pattanapichet, 2015; Kluensuwan et al. , 2019; Rajprasit et al. , 2014). In addition, there has been
very little research on English for meeting lessons designed particularly for engineers.
The English for Engineers Course at King Mongkut’ s University of Technology North
Bangkok (KMUTNB) in Thailand was introduced in 1992, but it did not initially cater to the needs
of Thai engineers. In order to improve the course's quality, it is necessary for them to investigate
and revamp the meeting lessons for engineering students, given their significance in facilitating
collaboration, problem- solving, and decision-making (Kauffeld & Lehmann- Willenbrock, 2012).
Therefore, a needs analysis for creating English meeting lessons for engineering students was
needed as it was a required process in designing lessons or courses. This research aimed to gather
data for creating meeting lessons for engineering students by investigating the English language
needs of engineers in meetings. Moreover, the study also collected data regarding the meeting
contexts, meeting situations, and the target language used in engineering meeting tasks, which is
rarely explored in studies.

Literature Review

Needs Analysis

The terms and concepts of a needs analysis vary from researcher to researcher. However,
there are some overlaps between those terms and concepts. This literature review will explore the
ones that were selected as a framework for the study and will discuss relevant studies and articles.
Hutchinson & Waters (2006) proposed a framework that focuses on target needs and learning
needs. The framework is used to obtain information about three factors (necessities, lacks, and
wants) together with information about learning needs (Hutchinson & Water, 2006). In order to
gain insight into the information concerning the target needs and learning needs, two more
frameworks were proposed as follows:
• A target situation analysis framework: Why is the language needed?, How will the language
be used?, What will the content areas be?, Whom will the learner use the language with?,
and Where will the language be used?

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• A framework for analysis of learning needs: Why are the learners taking the course?, How
do the learners learn? What resources are available? Who are the learners?, Where will the
ESP course take place?, and When will the ESP course take place?

In order to create an ESP course, data regarding necessities, lacks, and wants are not
enough as we need more information about meeting contexts and the meeting language
(Rimkeeratikul, 2022). Thus, Huhta et al. (2013) offer the results of their project (CEF Professional
Profiles Project) as another framework to gather information in needs analysis, especially for
professionals working in companies or industries. The focus of the framework was placed on the
details of the language and communicative event needs of professionals. There are six parts to be
considered in collecting data as follows (Huhta et al., 2013):
• The target profession: general background information on a professional group for whom
the ESP course is to be designed
• Occupational information: typical examples of a job description
• Context information: settings in which the communication takes place, persons who are
involved in the communication situations, communicative situations, text, and discourse-
types
• The most common situations: some of the most routine communication situations for the
professions
• The most demanding situations: more details on complex responses and the interaction of
most common communication situations
• Snapshots: a narrative of a day in the working life of a professional

In this study, needs analysis means an investigation process focused on collecting data in
order to find out what engineers need concerning meeting tasks, together with the language used
for the tasks. Necessities are the details of the meeting tasks of engineers at work. Lacks refers to
the language skills that novice engineers and engineering students need to improve. Wants are
what the stakeholders suggest to develop the lessons, including their expectations from the lessons.
The target profession of this study was Thai engineers. Questionnaires and semi- structured
interviews were used to collect the data from engineers. Attending meetings and conducting
meetings comprised the target job description. The rest of the framework concerning context
information, the most common situations, and the details of the most demanding situations will
be investigated in this study. However, the details of the snapshots were not included in this study
as their details were not very significant for developing the target lessons.
In brief, the needs analysis conceptual framework of this study compiles the concepts of
the target needs (necessities, lacks, wants) and learning needs (Hutchinson & Water, 2006), and
the CEF Professional Profile Project (Huhta et al., 2013).

Needs Analysis of English Language Skills for Engineers in Meetings

English needs analysis helps to identify the language learning needs of engineering students,
enabling educators to identify the specific language skills necessary for academic and professional
success. Multiple studies have examined these needs and have mentioned the importance of
English language skills for engineers. However, it seems quite very rare to find studies about the
English language used in meetings for engineers. Most of the studies found are about the English
needs of engineers in general. Among these studies, English skills used in meetings are mentioned.
For example, Tinh (2015) conducted research on the English language needs of mechanical
engineering students in the Vietnamese context and found that listening, speaking, reading, and
writing skills were required for these students so that they can perform their duties effectively.
Regarding meetings, listening to presentations and discussions in meetings, seminars, or
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conferences has been shown to be one of the top ten most common communicative tasks for
mechanical engineers. This is similar to the research results of Spence and Liu (2013), who studied
Taiwanese engineers’ job descriptions at a semiconductor company, and Rajprasit et al. (2014),
who studied needs regarding the English language skills of a group of novice engineers in Thailand.
The results indicated that listening to presentations and discussions in meetings was required for
engineers. In addition, both works reported that engineers needed to be able to write the minutes
of meetings and speaking skills in order to attend and lead meetings as participants and
chairpersons. Although these meeting skills were important for engineers, they could not perform
them as well as they should. This can be seen from the results of Rajprasit et al. ( 2014) , who
reported that novice engineers rated their oral proficiency regarding meeting skills (e.g. providing
reasons, explaining opinions, and using both technical and general vocabulary) as being fair. In
addition, Kluensuwan et al. (2019) examined the needs of 190 engineers, engineering operators,
and administrative personnel working in the electronics industry in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya and
Pathum Thani in Thailand, and discovered that the participants had difficulty with listening,
especially when listening to lengthy texts, presentations, discussions, and speeches. Problems
happened when they needed to listen and take notes. Apart from that, they usually worried about
making mistakes when speaking English and found it difficult to enter discussions. As for the
needs analysis of engineering students, Rajprasit et al. (2015) investigated 130 fourth- year
engineering students’ language abilities in a public university after they performed some tasks
related to engineering work and found that they rated themselves at a fair level in attending
meetings and giving presentations, including listening during meetings and writing engineering
documents.
In conclusion, the research results mentioned above illustrate that meeting skills are
required for engineers, such as listening to presentations and discussions, sharing ideas, and writing
the minutes of meetings. However, both engineers and engineering students encounter challenges
in using English to perform their meeting tasks. Consequently, it is imperative to develop efficient
instructional materials, and in order to accomplish this, a comprehensive understanding of meeting
tasks, discourse patterns, and the language- related difficulties faced by engineers in meetings is
essential. However, limited investigation has been undertaken in this domain. Therefore, the
primary aim of this study was to conduct a needs analysis to acquire the crucial information
required.

English for Engineers Course at KMUTNB

The English for Engineers Course is an elective course under the general education
category in the bachelor’s degree program for engineers, focusing on English communication skills
in engineering/ technical contexts. The course includes reading, writing, listening, and speaking:
articles, minutes, agenda, instructions, writing reports, writing emails, conversations in relation to
engineering work; giving presentations; negotiation; phone calls, and meetings.

Methodology

This research employs a mixed-methods design (Long, 2005) to investigate the English
language needs of engineers in meetings for the English for Engineers course. Quantitative data
were collected using a questionnaire to investigate experienced engineers' meeting tasks, meeting
language, and novice engineers' and fourth-year engineering students' difficulties in carrying out
their meeting tasks. Interviews with all of the participants were conducted in order to gather in-
depth information and for triangulation purposes to ensure the quality of the data (Cowling, 2007;
Long, 2005; Piamsai, 2017; Wozniak, 2010).

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Population

To ensure the generalizability of results, this study included five groups: fourth- year
engineering students, novice and experienced engineers, ESP teachers from 11 universities, and
engineering teachers responsible for curriculum design. Fourth- year students were selected for
their background knowledge, novice engineers for their one to three years of experience, and
experienced engineers for their 6+ years of experience. The industries included automotive,
electronics, consumer products, construction and construction materials, petroleum and
chemicals, and mechanics.

Subjects

All subjects were selected using the purposive sampling technique. The details of each
group of subjects and the selection criteria are explained below.

Group 1:

This group of subjects included only fourth- year engineering students who are finishing
their studies in 11 public universities and are about to enter the engineering industry. The
recruitment criteria encompassed the following: (1) being enrolled in one of the 11 public
universities in Bangkok and its vicinity, (2) voluntary participation in the study, and (3) pursuing a
major in any field of engineering. The size of the population of this group was 7,333 in the
academic year 2020. The sample size was derived from Yamane’s sample size formula (1973), and
the sample size was 380. A total of 443 engineering students responded to the questionnaire.

Group 2 and 3:

The population of the two groups of engineers was large and unknown, so it was difficult
to find a specific sample size number. Therefore, the calculation of the sample size employed the
formula of Cochran (1977). The calculation results were 400 for each group of engineers. A total
of 150 novice engineers and 224 experienced engineers responded to the questionnaire. This
showed the reliability of the sample size at 94% and 96% respectively for the unknown and large
population sizes. In addition, Fraenkel & Wallen (2000) suggested that at least 100 subjects are the
minimum number suitable for a descriptive study. The selection criteria were as follows:
1. Novice engineers can be defined as engineers that have worked in the field of engineering
for about one to three years. Experienced engineers are engineers that have been working
as engineers for at least six years. Both of them were recruited into the study voluntarily.
2. These two groups of engineers should be working for a multinational company as they are
expected to use English in the workplace. In order to obtain the names of the target
companies, a list of different groups of industries in Thailand provided by the Stock
Exchange of Thailand (SET) was studied (Stock Exchange of Thailand, 2016). The list
provided by the SET was chosen as it is clearly defined. Finally, the industries included
automotive, electronics, consumer products, construction and construction materials,
petroleum and chemicals, and mechanics.

Group 4:

Four ESP teachers that have taught ESP and English for engineering courses in universities
for at least 10 years in Bangkok and the area surrounding Bangkok

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Group 5:

Five engineering teachers that were responsible for designing the curriculum ( academic
vice deans of the faculty of engineers) from those 11 universities were the sample size of this study.

Research instruments

Questionnaires

Three questionnaires were employed in this study, all of which were written in Thai.
Questionnaire 1 aimed to identify novice engineers’ meeting-related problems and the need for
education to prepare them for work. It was developed based on interviews with experienced and
novice engineers and had three parts covering demographic info, meeting task details and
problems, and lesson suggestions. The second part had 15 Likert items. Questionnaire 2, based on
interviews with eight engineers, aimed to assess fourth-year students' readiness for attending
meetings at work. It had three sections, with the second section having 15 Likert items.
Questionnaire 3 aimed to investigate the language used by experienced engineers in meetings.
Authentic meeting discourse was not used due to confidentiality, so the questionnaire was partially
based on Handford’s (2010) analysis of the corpus of authentic business meetings provided in the
Cambridge and Nottingham Business English Corpus (CANBEC). The questionnaire consisted
of three sections, with the second section containing a list of 24 functions of meeting expressions
derived from a literature review and interviews with five engineers (Handford, 2010; Holmes &
Stubbe, 2014; Koester, 2004). Sections 1 and 3 were similar to the other two questionnaires. The
experienced engineers were asked to check the expressions they used during meetings. In addition,
the subjects were asked to write in the provided space any expressions they used in authentic
meetings that were not available in the questionnaire. All of the items in the three questionnaires
were validated by three experts (two ESP instructors and one engineer) with an acceptable score
of 0.7 or higher for the IOC. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient reliability results for Questionnaires
1 and 2 were 0.96. and 0.89, respectively. The questions in the third questionnaire were verified
using KR 20, and the reliability was 0.94.

Semi-structure interview

This study included four semi- structured interviews with different purposes. Table 1
presents information on stakeholders, interview duration, and sample questions. The questions
were validated by three experts in teaching and research (two ESP teachers and one English
teacher), and subjects were selected using purposive sampling. See Table 1 for more details.

Table 1

Details of semi-structured interview

Number Stakeholders Purposes Duration Samples of

questions
1 five Experienced To ascertain the meeting Before What are the meeting
engineers, three novice tasks, situations, the developing the tasks of engineers?
engineers problems of novice questionnaire
engineers, and the meeting What are the
language for each function problems of novice
engineers?
2 four ESP teachers, five To obtain information for Before What were your
engineering teachers developing lessons developing the suggestions for
lessons

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
developing meeting
lessons?

What did you think

about your students’
English background
knowledge?
3 ten engineering To investigate data After analyzing What kind of
students, six novice concerning their causes of questionnaires 1 problems did you have
engineers problems in conducting and 2 concerning writing the
meeting tasks minutes of meetings
when you started
working?
4 five experienced To obtain more After analyzing What are the meeting
engineers information regarding all questionnaires contexts of engineers?
meeting contexts, types of and arranging the What types of
meeting, meeting topics, required content meetings do you use?
etc.

Table 2

The criteria for score interpretation

Mean range Meaning

4.21-5.00 Most
3.41-4.20 High
2.61-3.40 Moderate
1.81-2.60 Little
1.00-1.80 Least

As for the qualitative analysis (semi-structured interview), the thematic analysis suggested
by Willig (2013) was employed in this study.

Results

This section reports the results of the needs of engineers in using English for meetings
based on the two frameworks.

Necessities

In order to obtain details on the meeting tasks, interviewing five experienced engineers
and three novice engineers, and reviewing the literature, were conducted. The results showed that
all of the engineers agreed that the main reason to have meetings in English was that they have
foreign bosses and colleagues, including clients that work both in Thailand and abroad.

Our headquarters is in Switzerland. We have to use English to communicate

with foreign bosses, co-workers, and customers. We usually have online
meetings with them. (Exp eng1)

The target languages were required for different tasks. The meeting tasks could be divided
into three stages; namely, meeting preparation, meeting participation, and post- meetings. The
details of the meeting tasks of each stage are as follows:
1. Meeting preparation: writing e-mails or calling to invite participants to attend meetings, to
cancel or reschedule meetings

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2. Meeting participation: discussion of topics (roles: chairperson, minutes writer, and
participants)
3. Post-meeting: writing the minutes of the meeting

When we need a meeting, we will have to invite the participants. We usually

send an invitation email. Sometimes we will have to make a phone call to ask
about their availability before sending out an official email invite. (Exp eng 2)
When we are in the meeting, the chairperson will open the meeting once most
of the participants are present. Then he will inform us of the meeting agenda.
During the meeting, the chairperson will encourage us to discuss and share
opinions. Once the meeting is adjourned, one of the participants will be
assigned to write the minutes of the meetings. (Exp eng 3).

It is worth noting that engineers needed to understand the roles of the chair and
participants. They need to be able to use language based on those roles to communicate during
meetings effectively. Moreover, all of the interviewees indicated that they have problems with the
following areas: writing e-mails and the minutes of meetings, lacking confidence in speaking, and
listening for the gist.

Lacks

Questionnaires 1 and 2 asked the respondents to evaluate themselves regarding their

English used for meeting skills. Questionnaire 1 was used to ask the novice engineers while
Questionnaire 2 was used to ask the fourth- year engineering students. All of the questions were
identical except the questions about demographic data. The details are reported in Table 3 below.

The demographic data of novice engineers

The data show that the majority of the subjects were male (72%) and most of them held a
bachelor’ s degree (86%). The work experience ranged from 1-3 years and around half of them
(52% ) had three years of experience. Many of them worked in the automotive area (26. 6%),
construction (19.3%), consumer products (18%), and electronic parts (16%). In addition, 28% of
novice engineers had meetings every month. They also had meetings every day (24.7%) and every
week (16%). Normally, they had a meeting with colleagues in the same department (25. 7%) and
engineers from different departments (22. 9%). They sometimes had meetings with the
management team (19.6%) and clients (15.5%).

The demographic data on the fourth-year engineering students

The data reveal that the majority of them were about 21-23 years old (91%), and most of
them were male (62.8%). The first three highest responses were received from KNUTNB (46.5%),
KU (13.5%), and KMUTL (10.8%). They expected to improve their listening skill to a high level
(M= 4.09). Further, more than half of them (51.9%) practiced English themselves out of class and
they thought that they were competent in reading (M= 3.58). The majority of them had internship
experience (73.8%) and used English during that time (62.9%).

Table 3

Comparison between the levels of English skill difficulty with meeting tasks by novice engineers and those by
fourth-year engineering students

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The levels of English The levels of English

skill difficulty with skill difficulty with
meeting tasks by meeting tasks by
novice engineers fourth-year engineering
students
Meeting Sub-skills Mean S.D. Level Mean S.D. Level
task skills
Meeting Not knowing how to write invitation 3.49 1.28 High 3.40 0.93 Moderate
preparation e-mails
skills
Not knowing how to write e-mails to 3.42 1.32 High 3.45 0.91 High
cancel or reschedule meetings
Not knowing sentence structure, so it 3.55 1.32 High 3.25 1.03 Moderate
is difficult to write e-mails to invite,
cancel, or reschedule
Not knowing how to speak face to 3.51 1.32 High 3.23 0.97 Moderate
face or on the phone to cancel or
reschedule meetings
Not knowing how to speak face to 3.43 1.27 High 3.21 0.97 Moderate
face or on the phone to invite people
to attend meetings
Meeting Attending meetings without problems 3.17 1.21 Moderate 3.46 0.87 High
participation
skills
Being unable to catch the gist after 3.48 1.18 High 3.49 0.97 High
listening
Not knowing the words and 3.47 1.13 High 3.60 0.94 High
expressions used in meetings
Being unable to understand foreign 3.83 1.18 High 3.52 0.98 High
accents
Lacking knowledge of meeting 3.43 1.24 High 3.69 0.79 High
processes
Lacking confidence in speaking 3.56 1.33 High 3.57 0.98 High

Post-meeting Not knowing how to write each part 3.55 1.16 High 3.45 0.94 High
skills of the minutes
Having inadequate vocabulary 3.45 1.25 High 3.39 0.95 Moderate
regarding the minutes of meetings
Being unable to write the minutes of 3.58 1.29 High 3.49 0.98 High
meetings because of grammar
problems
Being unable to write the minutes of 3.59 1.29 High 3.39 0.98 Moderate
meetings because of sentence structure
problems
Total 3.50 0.94 High 3.44 0.48 High

Table 3 illustrates that both novice engineers and fourth- year engineering students have
problems at a high level in most stages of conducting a meeting ( the total mean score of the
difficulty rating by the novice engineers is (M=3.50, S.D.=0.94.) and the total mean score of the
difficulty rating by engineering students (M= 3.44, S.D. =0.48). Out of 15 questions, all 8 questions
(question number 2,7,8,9,10,11,12, and 14) received a ‘high’ rating from both novice engineers and
engineering students.
However, the novice engineers and the engineering students gave different ratings for 7
questions (question number 1,3,4,5,6,13, and 15). Question number 3 and 15 ask the respondents
to rate the degree of difficulty due to sentence structure problems when writing emails to invite
and when writing the minutes of meetings, the novice engineers rated ‘ high’ difficulty (M= 3.55,
S.D. =1.32 and M =3.59, S.D. =1.29) respectively) while engineering students rated ‘moderate

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
difficulty (M = 3.25, S.D. =1.03 and M= 3.39, S.D. = 0.98 respectively). Furthermore, different
ratings were also found for question number 4 -speaking face to face and on- the phone to schedule
meetings, number 5- inviting people to attend meetings, and number 13- having inadequate
vocabulary regarding minutes of meetings. While novice engineers rated the difficulty of these
tasks as ‘high’ (M = 3.51, S.D.=1.32 and M= 3.43, S.D.=1.27), engineering students rated the
difficulty of these tasks as ‘moderate’ (M = 3.23, S.D.=0.97 and M= 3.21, S.D.=0.97). In addition,
question number 13 asking both groups of respondents to rate the difficulty of writing minutes of
meetings due to lack of vocabulary, the novice engineers rated the difficulty of this task as ‘high’
(M = 3.45, S. D. =1. 25) while engineering students rated this task as ‘ moderate’ (M = 3.39,
S.D.=0.95).
Nevertheless, question number 6 asks the respondents to rate a degree of difficulty in
attending meetings, novice engineers rated ‘ moderate’ (M =3. 17, S. D. =1. 21) while engineering
students rated ‘high’ (M=3.46, S.D.=0.87).
The interview with 6 novice engineers and 10 engineering students confirmed the results
of the questionnaire and provide more clarification on certain points. The interviewees all agree
that they had some English communication courses while studying at university, but they did not
have lessons on meetings, as seen in the following:

I took a course for English for communication but the course focused more on
speaking practice in general. It wasn’t related to engineering work. (N eng 1)
The university provided an English for communication course but there was
no specific content for engineering students. (N eng 5)
The course I had was Communicative English. It covered English used in
general, not in engineering contexts. I had the course with other students from
different faculties. (S eng1 and S eng2)

Regarding writing issues, many of novice engineers and engineering students said that
writing was difficult because they have grammar and sentence problems.

I couldn’t write well because I have problems with sentence structure and
grammar points. (Nov eng 6), (N eng 2)
Grammar points and writing sentences were my problems. And limited
vocabulary was my problem as well. (N eng 3)
Grammar is the most difficult part for me. (S eng3)
Grammar and structure are my main problem. (S eng4)

Furthermore, they did not know how to write e- mails or the minutes of meetings. A
response is presented below:

Writing e-mails and the minutes of meetings was difficult because I’d never
studied how to write either of them. I didn’t know how to start writing and what
I should write in each part. (N eng 4)
I don’t know how to write emails and minutes of meetings. We didn’t have
much practice in class. I remember writing a short email to introduce myself and
apply for a job but I have never been taught to write other types of emails and I
don’t know what meeting minutes are. (S eng5)

For the listening part, they explained that listening was difficult for them. The main barrier
was the various accents of speakers that blocked them from understanding. Excerpts from some
of them are reported below:

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Usually, when we listen to audio clips in class, the recordings are made easy for
us. I think they are native speakers of English talking. But, when I talk to
foreigners who are not native speakers, I always have a hard time understanding
them. (S eng 6)
Japanese, Indian, and Filipino accents were difficult for me to understand,
especially when engineers with those accents sat together in the same meeting
room. (N eng 1)
My listening problems were with the speed of how Indonesian and Indian
engineers talked and their accents. It was so difficult to understand them. (N eng
2)

Because of problems with the listening part, they were afraid of speaking to share ideas or
respond to questions since they were not sure if what they heard was correct or not:

I was afraid of sharing ideas in meetings. I had to be sure that I understood

things clearly so could I respond to them. (N eng 5)
I was always silent during meetings at the beginning because I didn’t understand
what other people said. (N eng 3)
Listening is problematic for me since I don’t get to listen to English speaking. I
cannot catch what the speakers are saying and that makes me very nervous. I
always end up not knowing what to respond. (S eng 7)
In real world, people don’t talk as slow as the conversations we studied from the
audio clips in class. In class teachers can pause and play the recordings many
times for students. But, in reality they speak very fast and I don’t know what to
say to them. (S eng 8)

Another result regarding listening problems was taking notes during meetings. Since they
did not jot down all of the important information, they could not write the minutes of meetings
effectively.

It was not easy to catch the gist after listening and taking notes at the same time.
I was always worried if I got the correct information or not. So, I couldn’t write
the minutes if I was not sure. (N eng 5)
I don’t know how to take notes. I don’t understand what it’s being said and I
have difficulty to write some words down because I don’t know what the words
are. (S eng 9)

Regarding the speaking problem, many of them were not confident in speaking English:

What I worried most about was making mistakes in speaking. (N eng 1,6, 2)
Speaking English makes me very nervous. (S eng 10)

Wants

The semi-structured interviews and short answer section from the questionnaire asked the
stakeholders to suggest what they expected to be included in the course. All of the stakeholders
agreed that meeting lessons are useful for engineering students and that they should learn about
meetings as a part of the curriculum. The information can be divided into four parts: activities,
contents, teaching methods, and assessment. As for the activities, all of the stakeholders agreed
that practicing meetings through simulation and authentic situations was suitable. For instance,

Students should learn from simulation using authentic situations to help them
get real experience in meetings. (Eng. T 4)
I would like to have a lot of practice through real group meetings. (S eng. 20)

In addition, more listening practices with various accents were also suggested. With respect
to the content, all of the stakeholders offered various content for the lessons; namely, presentation

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
skills, vocabulary related to meetings and writing e- mails, taking notes, and meeting expressions
for each meeting task, as they reflected:

Presentation skills are part of meetings, so engineers have to know how to give
presentations. (N eng. 3)

Furthermore, the students thought that practicing four language skills was crucial as the
background for them to study group meetings, writing minutes, and invitation e-mails. Many ESP
and engineering teachers were concerned about the meeting manners, including using appropriate
language for meeting contexts. Regarding the teaching method, many students suggested how to
teach the lessons. For example, they preferred hybrid classes. They thought that they could learn
the content through e-learning, while practice speaking could be conducted onsite. For instance,

I would like to learn and review the lessons from the VDO, and go to class to
practice. (S eng 2)

However, some of them preferred studying only on- site. The ESP teachers agreed that
practice with a lot of group meetings was required, with feedback from teachers being given. In
addition, content should be developed using the corpus- based approach. Finally, all stakeholders
advocated using real group meetings as the main test task, with clear rubrics. Many engineering
students offered that they did not want grading from the meeting tasks; they only required feedback
from teachers. Some of them preferred many quizzes to test their abilities. Similarly, novice
engineers also agreed that students should learn by doing quizzes.

Huhta et al.’s (2013) Framework

This part reports the results regarding the framework of Huhta et al. (2013), consisting of
the target profession, occupational information, context information, most common situations,
and most demanding situations. Most of the details were received from interviewing experienced
engineers, except for the information from the discourse part, which was collected from
experienced engineers using Questionnaire 3. The results of the study are as follows shown in table
4.

Table 4

The needs analysis results regarding Huhta et al.’s (2013) framework

Content Details
Target profession Thai engineers: experienced and novice engineers
Collecting information plan: questionnaires, interview questions
Occupational details Attending meetings and leading meetings in English
Location Companies/ factories
Person Meetings: among engineers (same or different departments)
Between engineers and clients or vendors
Between engineers and colleagues in the same
company
Between engineers and superiors
Communication The situations depend on the types of meetings.
situations
Types of meetings
Participants: internal or external meetings
Purposes: meetings for kick-off, reviewing, planning, solving
problems, following-up, training, brainstorming
Context information Frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
Note: internal meetings are the meetings that occurred between
engineers and their colleagues in the same department or in
different departments of the same company (e.g. managers and
managers, engineers and engineers, and senior engineers and
novice engineers). Generally, external meetings were set between
engineers and clients and engineers and vendors.

Texts Invitation e-mail and minutes of meetings were required. See the
results of the genre analysis: invitation e-mail, minutes of
meetings (Changpueng and Patpong, 2021)
Discourse Meeting discourse: See more details below.
Most common Solving problem situations
meeting situations
Most demanding Example 1:
situations Situation: A steel company received a complaint from a customer regarding a stain on
the steel, so the engineers from the departments (e.g. production, QC, research, and
development) had a meeting to find the root cause and solutions in order to inform the
customers of the meeting results.
Example 2:
Situation: A customer ordered a new product from an automobile company. The
deadline to submit the product is about one month, but the production line has its
own routine busy production schedule. The new product also needs to be tried out
before the actual production. In addition, one of the machines could not run at full
speed because some machine parts have not been changed. Thus, the engineers from
the departments (e.g. production, process, logistics, and maintenance) had a meeting to
figure out the problem.

Please note that the term ‘ discourse’ was not used in the results section as the collected
information was not directly gathered by analyzing the meeting discourse of Thai engineers. The
discourse data were confidential, so the data were obtained by asking the engineers to choose the
meeting expressions that they usually use in meetings in the questionnaire. Therefore, the term
‘language’ and the term ‘expressions’ were used instead. The details of the language for meetings
are presented below.
The demographic data of the experienced engineers presented that more than half of them
were male (79%), the majority of whom completed a bachelor’ s degree (59. 4%). Most of them
had work experience of about 6-20 years. They worked in various industrial areas, especially
electronic parts (22. 7%) and petroleum & chemicals (28. 5%). They had meetings in many ways;
the highest frequency was every day (31. 7%). In addition, they had meetings with various
interlocutors such as colleagues in the same department (19. 1%) and colleagues in different
departments (21.6%), including their bosses (24%).

Language details for the meeting participation stage

It should be noted that normally there was more than one purpose in a meeting because
sometimes there were many agenda items to discuss. In addition, there were various factors
influencing how engineers use language in meetings; namely, the language for internal and external
meetings (formal and polite language normally used in an external meeting), unequal status in their
workplaces (e. g. manager, senior engineers, and novice engineers), meetings issues, and social
distance between them (how well they know each other). These factors can lead to a different
power in working and how to use language in meetings. The details of the target language that the
experienced engineers used in each language function during the meetings are shown in the
samples in Table 5- 10 below. For the details of all 24 functions (opening a meeting, introducing
agenda, identifying objectives, asking for opinions, introducing opinions, showing agreement,
showing disagreement, asking for suggestions, making suggestions, explaining reasons, keeping the
discussion on track, summarizing the meeting, closing the meeting, focusing, summarizing ideas,

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
clarifying one’s own position, checking to understand, being vague, hedging, signaling obligation,
seeking clarification, hypothesizing, backchannels), go to the following link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GmzoYYXZ2Xf5ZsmWw17LyAZlM4Y4oT9/edit?us
p=sharing&ouid=116360366627031786619&rtpof=true&sd=true
Please bear in mind, the total number of responses in each function was greater than the
number of respondents because they were asked to identify all of the expressions they used.

Table 5

Examples of opening meeting expressions

Opening the meeting remarks Number Percentage

Shall we start? 179 79.9
Let’s get started 156 69.6
Shall we begin? 116 51.8

Table 5 provides some examples of opening meeting expressions. ‘Let’s get started’ and
‘ shall we start?’ were ones that the engineers normally used. The interview results found that the
formal opening of the meeting (usually occurring in external meetings) involved opening remarks
by the chairs, and then he/she introduced him/herself and the participants. After that, the chairs
stated the agenda and purpose of the meetings. For the internal meetings, the opening of the
meeting was quite short. The engineers may only say ‘ start?’ or ‘ shall we start?’ and then talked
about the agenda before beginning the discussion. As for using formal or polite language, this was
found in turn taking as well. Again, it usually happened in external meetings, for example, when
the chairs asked the participants to provide information about something, to share opinions, or
ask questions. Below are statements from the engineers.

Meetings require polite and formal language, especially in external meetings.

The parts where we normally use formal language are opening the meeting and
turn-taking. For turn taking, it can be asking questions or inviting the
participants to explain something. (Exp eng 3)
The opening for internal meetings is short. Generally, the meeting leaders just
greet the participants and say ‘start’ with high intonation. After that, the details
of the agenda and the purpose of the meeting are mentioned. Then, they start
the discussion. (Exp eng 2)
Meetings with Japanese engineers is strict in the opening part, the order of the
issues in the agenda, and the table setting. The seats must be arranged based on
order of seniority. Self- and team introduction are required in the meeting
opening. (Exp eng 5)

Table 6

Examples of expressions showing disagreement

Disagreeing Number Percentage
I’m not sure. 165 73.7
I’m sorry but I don’t agree. 139 62.1
I’m afraid I can’t agree with that. 119 53.1

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
Table 7

Examples of backchannel phrases

Backchannel Number Percentage

Right 187 83.5
Yeah 164 73.2
Hmm 123 54.9

Table 8

Examples of hedging expressions

Hedging Number Percentage

I think. 188 83.9
I don’ think. 142 63.4
I guess. 140 62.5

Table 6 explains how engineers show disagreement with interlocutors. The expression that
they used a lot was ‘ I’m not sure’ . Then, they needed to provide reasons or suggest ideas. The
interview results also confirmed that most of the engineers did not say I disagree with you’ or I
don’t agree because they were aware of face- threat. Face- threat was important for both internal
and external meetings, as indicated in the following:

Avoiding face threats is very important for all meeting levels, especially if you do
not agree with the ideas of the seniors. You cannot say ‘disagree’; you need to
avoid that expression. You need to say something to avoid direct disagreement,
such as ‘I’m not sure’ and then provide the reasons why you don’t agree. Also,
you can propose your ideas. (Exp eng 1)
You need to be careful about face threats because if a conflict occurs during a
meeting, the meeting atmosphere will be worse. It will be difficult to continue
the meeting. (Exp eng 2)

The unequal status of participants influenced how participants use language to show their
disagreement as well. See more explanation below.
Furthermore, engineers also used backchannels (short responses made by listeners to signal
that they are listening, that they do not want to take the turn to talk, or that they are supporting
the speaker) and hedging as feedback to show disagreement in order to avoid face-threat (Table 7
and 8). ‘Right’ and ‘yeah’ are used quite frequently in backchannels, while ‘I think’ is employed a
lot in hedging. Possibly, engineers use both hedging or backchannels at the beginning and then say
the sentences that they want or use the expressions from Table 6, as seen in the following sample
dialog:

Chair: What do you think about his idea?

Novice engineer: Right, I’m not sure. I think I partly agree with him (a senior
engineer), but it may take too long a time to solve the problem. May I suggest
something?

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
Table 9

Examples of expressions showing hypothesizing/speculating

Hypothesizing/speculating Number Percentage

I think if we… 186 83
If you 174 77.7
If I 147 147

Table 9 presents how engineers offered ideas to do something. It can be seen that ‘if’ was
used to provide more choices for interlocutors. Also, it was a way to tell the participants what
may happen if the team made a decision in a certain way. They do not want to force them to
decide. An example from an interview script is shown below:

Using ‘if’ is good since it means that we don’t force them to make a decision.
We talk about what can happen later. However, using ‘if’ is also quite risky
because other participants may not agree with our idea and may offer another
choice when they hear the word ‘if’. Therefore, it won’t be easy to end the
discussion. (Exp eng 4)

Table 10

Examples of expressions used for signaling obligation

Signaling obligation Number Percentage

We should 199 88.8
We need to 170 75.9
We can 160 71.4

Table 10 illustrates using modality in order to suggest engineers to do something. ‘Should

and need to’ are employed quite highly in this case as they are used to giving suggestions and not
forcing. Samples of engineers’ ideas are presented below:

A meeting is a means for discussion, for people to suggest ideas to do

something. Using ‘should’ or ‘need to’ is important. I never use ‘must’ or ‘have
to’ maybe because I normally have meetings with clients, so offering them
choices is a part of my work. (Exp eng 3)
I love using ‘shall we?’’. I feel comfortable using this expression since it means
that I’m not forcing them to do something. Although I am a manager and I can
force them to follow my directions, I don’t do it. (Exp eng 4)

Discussion and Implications

This section discusses the results of the needs ( necessities, lacks, wants) of engineers
according to Hutchinson and Walter’s (2006) and Huhta et al.’s (2013) framework, particularly the
language details used in meetings that align with the tasks that engineers commonly engage in, the
skill areas that require improvement, and their expectations regarding the English for Engineers
course. Moreover, it explores the classroom implications that specifically concentrate on the
advancement of English for Meeting lessons tailored to the needs of engineers.

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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
Necessities, Lacks and Wants

The findings from the study shed some light on the necessities, lacks, and wants of
engineers when having a meeting. As for necessities, engineers are required to perform three stages
of the meeting process, the preparation, participation, and post- meeting tasks. They are required
to use English to perform each role in the meeting. This discovery is consistent with previous
research on the genre of business meetings (Bargiela- Chiappini & Harris, 1997; Handford 2010;
Holmes & Stubb, 2014). Among the three stages of meeting tasks, it was found that meeting
participation and post- meeting tasks are the most problematic areas for engineers since the two
stages require English speaking, listening, and writing skills, which are common issues for non-
native English speakers (Jarupan, 2013; Kasim & Ali, 2010; Spence & Liu, 2013). The subsequent
section addresses the challenges faced by Thai engineering students and novice engineers in terms
of English language proficiency during meetings, as well as their desire for the development of
English meeting lessons in the following domains:

Vocabulary and expressions

Technical vocabulary is important in Engineering English, but engineers and engineering

students struggle with it, according to several ESP studies as well as the results from the
questionnaire and interviews. They have difficulties with technical jargon and vocabulary, as well
as formal language use in meetings. Using appropriate words or terms to explain technical concepts
and writing meeting minutes require formal language skills, which are also a challenge for them.

Grammar and sentence structure

Both students and novice engineers had main problems in grammar and sentence
structure, both in speaking and writing skills in those three stages of the meeting, and this led to
communication problems. Studies by Jarupan ( 2013) , and Sinturat et al. (2002) have examined
these difficulties with Thai students and engineers.

Accents and pronunciation

The study found that engineering students and engineers struggle with understanding
different English accents, especially those of non- native speakers. This can lead to
miscommunications and awkward moments during meetings. The interviewees felt that the
listening materials provided in class did not reflect real- life listening situations and were often
spoken in a clearer and slower manner than real- life speech. They also mentioned that they were
not exposed to other accents, as the listening practice materials usually presented native- speaker
accents.

Speaking and listening

The two groups of respondents have difficulties in speaking and listening skills. This is
similar to the studies by Rajprasit et al. (2014), Rajprasit et al. (2015) and Kleunsuwan et al. (2019).
This problem may be caused by lacking confidence in speaking since they worry about making
mistakes in speaking. As for listening, cannot catching the gist is another concern since this causes
another problem in taking notes and writing minutes.
Regarding wants, they expected to study meeting lessons that provide them with authentic
materials using real scenarios of meetings and meeting language to teach them. Practice speaking
using simulation and group discussion was suggested, and focusing on various accents in the
listening materials, and more practicing on presentations, grammar, and sentence structure, were
required.
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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
Huhta et al.’s (2013) Framework

The results showed that engineers need to know how to use English in the three stages of
the meeting process. There were various meeting situations that they had to attend, e.g., between
engineers and colleagues, and between engineers and superiors. Therefore, they should carefully
use polite language in order to avoid problems in meetings, such as face threats. This is similar to
the study of Holmes and Stubbe (2014), which discussed using polite language in meetings. In
addition, the results emphasized the language details used in engineering meetings. As mentioned
in the methodology, the researcher was curious to know if Thai engineers use meeting language
similar to that of other professionals in business areas, and the study found that Thai engineers
use meeting expressions similar to those of other business communities and countries. This is
consistent with previous studies (Bargiela- Chiappini & Harris, 1997; Handford, 2010; Holmes &
Stubbe, 2014). Koester (2004) points out that a meeting is a business communication involving a
specific lexis, technical jargon, and a structure of business interactions relevant to the participants'
working roles and meeting topics.

Implications

The findings of the present study illustrate that conducting meetings is complex and
requires specific tasks and language use. This has implications for pedagogical and administrative
aspects as follows.
The findings suggest that a specific and sufficient number of lessons with authentic
examples of meeting tasks, meeting situations, and language use are necessary for students to
practice. The lessons should be divided into three lessons based on the three meeting stages.
Applying the results of this study to the design of lessons is recommended, such as providing
various accents of speakers in the listening materials. Further, a situational, text- based, or
integrated- skills task- based syllabus is suggested (Boonteerarak, 2021, Loganathan & Paul, 2019;
Namtapi, 2022). A task-based syllabus is suitable for designing lessons, as the results showed that
there were various meeting tasks that engineers need to do, so asking students to practice English
for meetings by doing tasks. For example, role- play tasks and group discussion tasks are
recommended. Students should be given enough time for real practice on each task, and teacher
feedback is also required.
The results additionally indicate that the stakeholders were in consensus about the
importance of ample practice utilizing simulated scenarios and real- world situations, as well as
resources. In order to create effective lessons, English for engineering meetings should be a
separate course, as the results implied that there are many meeting tasks that engineers need to
practice. Thus, more practice time can be provided for students if the lessons are created for
English for engineering meeting course.
Furthermore, collaboration between educational and industrial sectors is needed from the
beginning stage until the end of the course development in order to ensure the course’ s
effectiveness. This is because the results showed that it was difficult to create authentic teaching
materials without asking for information from experienced engineers. This idea is consistently
discussed in many ESP studies. For example, Tiongson (2018) highlights the importance of
interdisciplinary collaboration between language teachers and content specialists in the field of
English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Hassan and Mostafa (2016) emphasize the urgent need to
establish a university- level resource center that supports ESP professional development. They
further emphasize the importance of ESP teachers collaborating with subject matter specialists.
Ahmad et al. (2018) propose CETIF, a collaborative ESP testing framework that involves English
lecturers, engineering lecturers, and industry personnel to enhance assessment efforts.
This study struggled with time constraints since the researcher needed the data to develop
the course and materials for teaching in the coming semester. The study had to be completed
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 Changpueng & Pattanapichet (2023), pp.603-623
within about two months. This might have restricted the research's depth and breadth of data
collection and analysis. Thus, it is imperative for further study to extend the duration of the data
gathering period to longer than a few months in order to obtain a substantial dataset. Further study
is suggested in the area of analyzing the meeting discourse of Thai engineers, as it was another
limitation in this study because the data had to be kept confidential. Asking for cooperation
between universities and industries is a channel for obtaining permission in order to explore the
data. Finally, this study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic situation, and this caused
substantial difficulties in accessing the participants and time management when collecting data.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Faculty of Applied Arts, King Mongkut’s University of
Technology North Bangkok. Special thanks are also extended to Associate Prof. Dr. Pinkanok
Wongpinpetch, Dr. Bruce Leeds, and Dr. Karnchanoke Wattanasin, as well as the engineers and
engineering students. Their invaluable contributions played a crucial role in the successful
completion of this research project.

About the Authors

Piyatida Chnagpeung: An associate professor in the Department of Languages, the Faculty of

Applied Arts at King Mongkut’ s University of Technology North Bangkok. She obtained her
Ph.D. (English as an International Language) from Chulalongkorn University. Her research
interests include ESP, course development, and teaching using the Genre-based approach.

Fasawang Pattanapichet: A full-time faculty member in the Department of Business English at

Bangkok University International. She obtained her Ph.D. (English as an International Language)
from Chulalongkorn University. Her research interest includes English Course Development,
English for Specific Purposes and Teaching English for Careers.

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