Understanding Fresh Graduate and Employees Needs on Learning English
Punya Skill — Research Study Case
Background Overview
PunyaSkill is one of the companies that run in the education industry, mainly focusing on giving a workshop or training to the fresh graduate and a full-time worker who wants to improve their skill for the current needs of the industry. Currently, PunyaSkill is looking for a new product to increase its revenue by entering a new language education sector. But PunyaSkill still did not know what kind of foreign language could be delivered to the audience as well as they still did not see the audience target for this product.
According to the Report from English First, Indonesia has a terrible ranking for the English Proficiency Index because Indonesia placed 81st among 112 countries that don’t use English as their native language. However, English skill is needed for applying for a job because, according to Detik.com, 96% of companies in Indonesia say that English talent is vital for the employee. This data shows that English skills are still considered the most important foreign language in Indonesia because Indonesians still lack English skills, but the demand is relatively high.
This research is held to inspire some of the solutions for creating a new foreign language product, especially for the English language, based on the needs and behaviour of the fresh graduate and a full-time worker.
What’s my role in this research?
In this research, I worked with the other teammate called Mbak Meilinda as well as Mas Chandra because we are in one group called Kelompok 1 from Bootcamp that Mentify has held by Gizalab.
What would we like to learn from this research?
There are three objectives that we would like to learn from this research there is consist of :
- Understand the behaviour of fresh graduates and full-time workers in terms of learning English
- Learn their goals and motivation of new graduates and full-time workers in terms of using their English
- Discover recent graduate and full-time worker needs and challenges in terms of learning English
So, How do we conduct the research?
In this research, we mainly focus on knowing their needs and challenges as well as their behaviour in learning English. Because of that, this research would be Foundational Research. We used In-depth Interviews to capture their thoughts and feelings related to Attitudinal of the participants and would obtain the qualitative data. We also used a diary study to capture their use of English in their daily lives. We conducted this research on 3 Participants who have these backgrounds:
- Fresh Graduate / Full Time Worker
- 23 to 40 Years Old
- Had an Interest in Learning English
- Had goals of learning English to Study Abroad or their career
- At least had ever to join or use English learning program or platform either online or offline
We used a Survey screener to filter out the participants to distribute them to any group. We had a chance to interview one participant who had joined an English learning program and had been motivated to study abroad. Two remaining participants also joined an English learning program. Still, they use it for their career growth.
Then What kind of insight that we get from the research?
- Challenges on Learning TOEFL
Participant motivation to learn English is for a TOEFL Certification that would be used for a Master’s Degree as well as work as a teacher for the English Language.
When learning English, participants were motivated to continue their study overseas and teach High School students and Lecturers, making the TOEFL important.
“ rencana mau ngelanjutin studi kalau di luar negeri kalau di luar negeri pasti ada syarat minimal toefl.Korelasi ya bisa kemampuan bertambah semakin luas untuk bisa ngajarnya dari yang awalnya 450 itu aku ngajarnya SD sampai akhirnya pas 500 yang SD sampai ngajar Dosen . ”
However, the participants had to repeatedly increase the TOEFL Score from 450 to 500 because it’s quite challenging to learn in Listening, reading and structure.
The participant had difficulty increasing her TOEFL from 450 to 500 because the Listening, Reading, and structure made progress for learning overseas takes a lot of time.
“Tantangannya dari sisi TOEFL karena TOEFL waktu itu berbulan bulan untuk naik dari 450 ke 500”
One of the reasons is the participant’s lack of experience when learning a TOEFL, especially the clear step-by-step that is necessary for learning TOEFL.
The difficulty participants had for learning TOEFL was listening, reading, and structure. The difficulty in listening is to focus on the conversation while reading how to read the long text more effectively. The structure is related to how the verb or noun is used in the sentences.
“ Nah aku itu step by step nya itu belum kebayang karena sebelum aku belum pernah kursus TOEFL jadi pingin step by step buat belajarin structure, listening dan juga reading itu seperti apa”
So What Could We do to help the participant to solve their problem?
- For TOEFL Challenges, We could make an Intensive TOEFL Program with a clear learning structure from basic to advanced to make the participant understand the step to learn TOEFL for reaching the TOEFL Score they want.
Because we had already known that the problem in the participant was a lack of experience in learning TOEFL, the participant didn’t know the proper learning material to increase the TOEFL from 450 to 500. Because of that, A structure with step by step learning that could be personalised would be suitable for the participant so that the participant could understand how to learn the TOEFL systematically and it could reach a score of 500 in the TOEFL
2. Challenges on Speaking using English
Participants were motivated to speak English fluently because it would be used to negotiate with a client from overseas to run smoothly.
One of the reasons participants learn English is to use the language fluently to have a conversation using English because the participant needs the English to negotiate with the client. The English skill makes the participant feel more confident and easily tricked by the client.
“kerjaan freelance ada sample settingan cukup agak menantang untuk negosiasi kita kasih harga yang puas tapi gak ngerugiin juga tertarik banget jangan sampai takut di bego-begoin gitu sih ”
However, Participants had difficulty speaking English because of nervousness and were afraid that their English was not good; they would be judged because of their grammar. It makes them Nervous.
Participants had difficulty speaking English because they were afraid their grammar was utterly wrong, so they tended to feel more nervous when speaking English to an Indonesian.
“ itu ada aja nanti yang judge yang bahasa inggris gitu tinggal di daerah bahasa inggris. misalnya aku kerjanya di multinational company itu kayak gak gapapa kalau dilingkungan yang gak papa apa. ”
So What Could We do to help the Participant to solve their problem?
- For Speaking Challenges, We could make a speaking group for a specific topic between other students that would be moderate by the mentor so it could be evaluated if the sentences or grammar are correct or not.
To make the participant not feel nervous about speaking English, they need a feedback mentor when attending a speaking group in an English Program. It could make the participant keep evaluated when speaking as well as they could also be assessed from the learning process as well. By having a mentor, participants could also understand whether the speaking is already grammatically wrong or correct by having a mentor.
3. Challenges on Learning English in a Class
Participants have difficulty learning English if the classes or learning method is passive because it makes the learning session boring and monotonous so the learning session would be ineffective.
From the Participant’s point of view, passive learning tends to bore the participant and feel less interactive. Passive learning is considered like there’s no level of learning or challenge. There’s no interaction between other students, making the learning session monotonous.
“…karena mereka pasif. Untuk speaking, writing tidak efektif buat aku”
It happens because less interaction when learning English is caused by the teacher who did not involve the student in the session and the participant turning off the camera when learning remotely. Hence, the Participant tends not to get the Emotional feeling when learning English.
Besides, less interaction makes the participant not feel emotional when learning English. Emotional learning could be acquired when interacting with other students and students. Still, if the learning session is passive such as no interaction between student and teacher and turning off the camera during the online learning, it makes it less fun.
“perasaan secara emosional itu gak dapet padahal itu faktor yang penting jadi lebih kenal tau sehari hari apa gitu ;”
So What Could We do to help the Participant to solve their problem?
- For an Interactive class, We could make an interactive class with Games and challenges when learning English so the participant could learn English effectively.
The participant feels that joining a passive English Program makes the participant bored to learn English because no interaction would engage the participant to motivate to learn English more. By making the class interactive with Games and challenges, participants could learn emotionally because the class is interactive and engages the student and the teacher. It could make learning vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading, and writing more fun.
4. Challenge on Choosing the Right Material for Learning
Participants feel surprised after knowing that the participants need to learn again from the basics of English even though she is already in Middle School because the participant does not know her capability in terms of English.
A participant had to take an assessment when she was in Middle school to attend an English program course, but the result was similar to a kindergarten level. Because the assignment that she had was related to English as a basic language and included how to write an English word correctly with dots and commas. It made the participant learn from the basics of writing a spelling for a word. From that assessment, the participant was surprised. After all, they had to take the lower level of the lesson because they did not know her capability to learn English.
“tapi soalnya titik koma itu dinilai gitu nulis “duck” itu bukan sebuah kalimat itu salah dari level awal banget. Jadi aku sadar gak apa aku sekarang level awal dulu gitu nanti naik level kok ”
Therefore, the participant would like to know their capability before learning English to personalise the learning material based on their needs.
Because of that event, Participants tend to want to know their capability or English level to make sure that the learning material would be personalised as they are needed to improve their English.
“Terus dia lihat level bahasa inggrisku terus dia coba susun sistem belajar yang bagus itu gimana”
So What Could We do to help the Participant to solve their problem?
- For Choosing the suitable material, we could create an assessment for everyone who wants to learn English from the start and advance to the next level so the learning materials could be personalised based on the student’s capability.
Participants tend to look for their needs first before they learn English, then they also would like to look for the course/program that is suitable for the same level of the English capability of the participants. By assessing the participant, they would know the capability of their English so that the learning material would be personalised based on their capability. Implementing this system could boost the learning effectiveness and make it easier for them to understand step by step.
5. Challenge on Selecting Time for Classes
Participants are not consistently learning English because of other priorities that they have. It is challenging to join some English programs because the time duration for registration and the study session is not flexible enough.
Participants feel not very consistent in learning English because the participant tends to procrastinate in learning. It is mainly because other priorities could not be slipped and are more urgent than learning English, such as Family or Friend matters. But these issues led to not being able to join some English Programs because the program has a limited time of registration and session, so it’s not flexible enough to join the class.
“ ikut chit chat club waktu sebagai pembelajar ,tapi karena sistem daftarnya di hari minggu jam 3 jam 5 sering miss. ”
However, the Participant had an experience when the program was too flexible, which made the classes cancel without any notice from the other student.
Because the class is being flexible, participants happened to be experiencing the class being cancelled too suddenly, and there were no classes because it was cancelled from one side.
“Tapi Terlalu flexible kadang dua orang temanku ini kerja hari rabu dan itu tidak bisa lebih sedikit dibandingkan sering yang tiba-tiba kayak cancel terus”
So What Could We do to help the Participant to solve their problem?
- For the selecting time issues, We could create an English program where the students could pick the schedule based on their time off but still with some terms and conditions available on the course.
Participants tend to have difficulty joining an English class because of the limited time of registration and study sessions that are not flexible enough. It makes the participant always could not keep up with the class and could not attend the course. So it makes the participant would like to join a flexible English Class that matches their daytime off. So they could attend the class and learn English to fulfil their goals by learning English.
What did I learn from this research?
Through this research, I learned a lot on how to analyse and make a story from the insight that has been analysed from the captured sheet. I also learned that the number of participants matters when there are two types of participants that we would like to uncover. For example, this research is focusing on gaining data from a person who learn English for study abroad and a person who learn English for their career but we could not get the sample equally so there is some pattern that still needs to be validated by having an interview to some participant especially the type 1 person, someone who needs English for study abroad. This research also might be still lacking in many areas, for example in terms of the number of participants who are invited to the interview or diary study.
