CHRISTINE SARI (MAE FAH LUANG UNIVERSITY)

ENHANCING STUDENTS’ ANALYTICAL SKILLS IN SWOT ANALYSIS THROUGH ENGAGING ACTIVITIES IN PREPARING FUTURE CAREERS : ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC/SPECIFIC PURPOSES

In preparing for a future career, junior students sometimes have difficulties deciding the occupation or career path they will pursue after graduating. This is also most likely to happen to the sophomore students since they are still in the second year considering they still have much time before graduation. This condition affects the students’ analytical skills, especially in conducting self-assessments of their interests and abilities. The study aims to investigate the effectiveness of the set of activities in enhancing students’ analytical skills in SWOT analysis in the English for Career Development (ECD) course. ECD is a compulsory subject for non-English major students to prepare for future careers, especially in utilizing English for specific purposes, and SWOT is the preliminary part in preparing the needs before entering the workforce world. The set of activities consists of a case study (group work), an occupation’s SWOT analysis (group work), and a self-SWOT analysis mindmap (individual work). The set of exercises was implemented in two semesters within two classes in each semester. The findings showed that the students had a deeper understanding of SWOT through the group work of case study and job SWOT analysis, and at the end, the students were able to do self-assessment and create a self-SWOT mindmap.

Christine is currently working as an English lecturer at Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand. She also has been teaching Indonesian language for foreign speakers since 2012. Her research interests are English linguistics, language teaching, ESP, and discourse analysis. She's actively published papers on aforementioned topics and presented findings at conferences.