Survey of Workplace English Needs among Computer Science Graduates

This paper reports the results of a November 2008 survey sent to 899 Japanese college graduates of computer science and computer engineering courses regarding their use of English in the workplace since graduating from the university. The results, based on a 17.4 % response rate, indicate that the most frequent English-language tasks for computer specialists in the professional workplace in Japan are the reading of manuals and instructions (for installation, etc.), and the writing of email, faxes, and business letters. English-language speaking and listening tasks are reported by respondents to be not as common in the workplace as English-language writing and reading tasks. Findings suggest that academic institutions training engineers in non-English-language environments should avoid an institutional bias toward English for research purposes by balancing curricula between future professional and workplace needs of the majority of graduates and the needs of faculty for trained graduate students within the academy.