Methodology
Participants.
Selection of the school.
The private vocational school where the researcher was teaching was selected for
purposive sampling in this study. There were a total of 1,026 students at this school, and the
total number of third-year students was 372. At the time of this study the school offered five
majors: (a) Accounting, (b) Computing, (c) English for Services Business, (d) Hospital
Management, (e) and Retailing. In order to prepare students for their future careers, all
vocational schools offer job training to allow students to apply their knowledge in real life
situations. At this vocational school, job training is mandatory for second and third year
students. The researcher had been teaching at this vocational school for almost five years
and had received similar feedback from the workplaces where students did their job training
that indicated the students were incapable of using English to communicate effectively.
Therefore, the researcher was interested in the English listening and speaking problems
experienced by the students and the causes of these problems. For these reasons, the
researcher chose this private vocational school to participate in this study.
Selection of the students.
The third-year students are preparing themselves for their careers, so the school offers
job training to help them develop their skills. This opportunity will allow students to apply
their knowledge to real life situations. They also have the opportunity to use English during
their job training. After encountering English listening and speaking problems during their
job training, they may be able to identify their problems with English listening and speaking.
For this reason, the researcher asked third-year students who already had job training