Description
In the wake of waves of international students entering American and British universities, starting in the 1980s, it became apparent that research into actual academic discourse was needed so that more effective TEFL and EAP programs could be designed. Many publications followed focusing on academic writing but little research was done on academic speaking, a skill critical for success in Western universities, particularly in business programs, which are highly interactive. Even less research has been done on oral communication in MBA seminars, and to this researcher's knowledge no studies have examined the oral discourse of Turkish students studying in American MBA programs. This study aims to fill that gap by comparing and contrasting the questions asked by two groups of American native English speaking MBA students at universities in the United States with each other, as well as with a group of native Turkish speaking students enrolled in a joint American/Turkish Executive MBA (EMBA) program. Using a quantitative research design, data were collected from audio and video recordings of Question and Answer sessions following a guest presentation in two American MBA programs, as well as audio and video recordings of questions asked by Turkish E-MBA students. These data were analyzed for (1) the number of words in each question, (2) the presence of a metastatement, (3) the presence of grounding, (4) the number of reformulations within an elicit, (5) the tone of the question, (6) the use of fillers, i.e., like, uh, and, umm, and finally, (7) the presence of a communication breakdown. The purpose of the study was to ascertain if there were any differences in the elicits made by the American and Turkish MBA students, and if so, if those differences caused any communication breakdowns between the student and the American guest presenter or professor. The findings of this study were: (1) the private, East coast university MBA students' questions were less embellished, more succinct and direct than those of the public, West coast MBA students' questions; (2) the elicits of the native Turkish speaking students in the joint U.S./Turkish E-MBA program were even less embellished, more succinct and direct than the American native English speaking MBA students at the private, East coast university. The study results show that the succinctness and directness of the Turkish students' elicits did not cause any communication breakdowns or hinder their ability to communicate effectively with an American professor. The implications of this study suggest that the actual oral communication norms practiced by business professionals, as well as other professionals, e.g., lawyers, engineers, and doctors, need to be at the core of TEFL and EAP courses.
