A development of the competency-based English oral communication course for undergraduate public relations students

Abstract

The study was aimed at developing the competency-based English oral communication course for undergraduate public relations students. The objectives of the study were as follows: (1) to investigate the needed competencies in English oral communication for undergraduate public relations students to enable them to handle public relations job interviews and to perform entry-level public relations work (2) to develop the comptetency-based English oral communication course for undergraduate public relations students (3) to examine the effectiveness of the developed course against the set criteria. The study was a descriptive and experimental research consisting of two phases: course development and course implementation. To develop the course, needs analysis was conducted based on the modified DACUM technique using interviews with 28 experts and a questionnaire survey with 222 PR students. The results revealed four competencies needed for public relations job interviews and eight competencies needed for entry-level public relations work. Then, 4 needed competencies were chosen to be the learning objectives for developing the course. The instruments for the experiment consisted of pretest, posttest, self-checklists, in-class self-checklists, teacher'logs, students'logs, the end-of the course evaluation forms and a semi-structured interview. Before the course implementation, the sample lesson plans, the course materials including the English oral test and the scoring rubrics were evaluated by experts and the results of the evaluation indicated that all of the proposed plans and the materials were accepted. During the course implementation, the results of in-class self-checklists illustrate significant improvement of the students' opinions of their competencies. After the course implementation, the findings revealed that the posttest scores of the students were significantly higher than the pretest scores and all of the students had positive opinions toward their needed competencies and the overall course. The findings from qualitative data indicated that the course was practical and able to serve the needs of the students. Finally, the study discusses theoretical justifications of the course effectiveness and points out some practical issues concerning the current curriculum and the issue of cooperation. Some recommendations are also included.