NEEDS ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH PRESENTATION SKILLS AMONG THAI EFL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Being able to present in English is nowadays considered by many stakeholders to
be one of the essential skills that students in higher education should possess before
graduation and venturing into the real working world. From simple information to
complicated figures, this could possibly make or break the decision to accept someone as
an employee at certain companies. However, some postsecondary teachers, particularly in
EFL situations, may find that students struggle with presenting in English. In case of some
students, an appalling commitment towards practicing and enhancing their presentation
skills is also exhibited. Hence, the objectives of this study are to investigate the importance
of English presentation skills from undergraduate students’ point of view and to identify
other aspects of English language which undergraduate students need to improve. The
participants included 213 second-year students who enrolled in English for specific
purposes (ESP) courses in the first semester of academic year 2023 at a university in
Bangkok. The questionnaire used in the study was based on the book English for
Presentations (Grussendorf, 2007) and employed a five-point Likert scale, multiple answer
questions, and open-ended questions to collect data from the participants. The results
revealed that the participants currently hold a fair to good level of English presentation
skills, and the majority of them indicated that English presentation skills are very important
for their studies or their future careers. Lastly, speaking and listening emerge as the top two
aspects of English language that require the most improvement among undergraduate
students.