‘Pleasant’ or ‘Tough’ Communication at the University

Abstract

Communication is the most important aspect in our life. Two-third or more of our daily life involves communication. Hence, in order to have an excellent institution and to promote harmonious at a workplace, effective communication plays a vital role. In this study, the issue is focussed on the communication between the English language (EL) teaching staff and their superiors at one of the local universities in Malaysia. The major concern of the research is to explore the methods used by the superiors to disseminate information to the English language teaching staff, besides, to investigate the staff’s perceptions about their communication with the superiors. The participants of the study were 40 English language teaching staff who completed the online questionnaire and four of them volunteered to participate in the interview. The findings revealed that various methods were used to convey the message from the superiors to the subordinates. In addition, the majority of the participants claimed that the superiors communicated well although some messages were reached them through grapevine.