Business English (BE) has been given nowadays to students at university level across the continents, especially students of business administration, management and economics. Thus, Prasetiya Mulya as a graduate school of management gives BE to its regular students freely for four trimesters as a part of the curriculum. The four courses are not credited, but they are compulsory for the regular students. However, the whole program has never been evaluated theoretically and instrumentally. Therefore, the purpose of this study is first to discover whether the program has similar characteristics as a supposed-to be BE program. It is accomplished by analyzing the four syllabuses, the teaching methods and the materials based on some theories. The teaching methods are examined by using the video recordings of the learning interaction in class. The second purpose is to find out whether the program is a good BE program for students of a graduate school of management. The instrument used to achieve the purpose is questionnaires. These questionnaires consist of two types, one is for the alumni of Prasetiya Mulya and the other for companies that employ the alumni. The scoring system in the questionnaires is in percentages (%) and the rating scale is 1 to 4 (poor, fair, good, and very good).
The results from both analyses, the theories and the questionnaires, clarify the extent to which the Prasetiya Mulya BE program has compatible characters as a typical BE program and has good effectiveness to be used in their workplace.
In addition, this study will benefit business English teachers, syllabus designers and material designers. And most of all, Prasetiya Mulya can take advantage of this study to identify the opinions about the program and to improve and develop the program. Besides, other graduate schools of management can take advantage of this study when BE will be included in their curricula. |