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DevelopinganEnglishforspecificpurposecurriculumforAsiancallcentres:
Howtheorycaninformpractice
JaneLockwood⇑
DepartmentofEnglish,TheCityUniversityofHongKong,TatCheeAvenue,KowloonTong,HongKong
articleinfo
Articlehistory:
Availableonline21June2011
Keywords:
ESPcurriculumCallcentreAuthentictextIndustrytraining
SystemicfunctionallinguisticsGenre-basedresearch
abstract
Theprimaryfocusofthisarticleistheinvestigationofhowcurrentappliedlinguisticresearchintothenatureofcallcentrecommunicationbreakdowninbusinessprocessingoutsourcing（BPO）sitessuchasIndiaandthePhilippines,canimpactEnglishcommunica-tionstrainingprogramcontentanddesignforthisindustry.Itisarguedthataresearch-basedapproachtoEnglishforspecificpurpose（ESP）syllabusdesignandcontentwillyieldimprovedoutcomes.Itistheinterfacebetweentheresearchandthedesignandcontent,ratherthantheimplementationandtheevaluationoftheprogram,thatisthefocusofthisarticle.
AcasestudyofanESPcurriculumdevelopmentprojectcommissionedbyalargemulti-nationalcompanyoperatingglobalcallcentresandbackofficesinAsiaisusedforthisinvestigation.TherehasbeenconcernwithinthiscompanyaboutthelevelofEnglishcom-municationskillswheretheircustomersarenativespeakersofEnglish,buttheircustomerservicesrepresentatives（CSRs）aresecondlanguagespeakersofEnglish.Thearticleout-linesthetheoreticalprinciplesuponwhichthisESPsyllabuswasdevelopedandthentracesthestepsinintegratingthefindingsandtailoringtheprogramtotheneedsofthismulti-nationalworksite.
©
2011ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved.
1.Introduction
TheoffshoringofmultinationalsupportservicestodevelopingcountriessuchasIndia,CostaRicaandthePhilippinesisbigbusiness.Largesavingsandcompetitiveadvantagesaccruetothosecompaniesthathavechosentorelocatesuchsupportservicesas,forexample,customerservices,IThelpandretail,andlegalandfinancialassistance,tothesecountries.However,oneofthemainconcernsofthebusinessprocessingoutsourcing（BPO）industryistheabilityofthecustomerservicesrep-resentatives（CSRs）tocommunicatewellinEnglishbyphone,thusensuringthequalityoftheseservices.TheBusinessPro-cessingAssociationofthePhilippines（BPAP）reportedinitsannualreport（BPAP,2006a,2006b）thatthelackofEnglishlanguageproficiencywasoneofthelargestthreatstothisburgeoningindustry,particularlyinthecallcentreswherebeingskilledinspokenEnglishisacorecompetency.
Thereisgrowingliteratureonthecausesofcommunicationbreakdownincallcentresinnon-EnglishspeakingBPOdes-
tinations,suchasIndiaandthePhilippines（Friginal,2007;
Hood&
Forey,2008;
Lockwood,Forey,&
Price,2008）andSinga-pore（Clark,Rogers,Murfett,&
Ang,2008）.Interestingly,theseappliedlinguisticresearchfindingsonthecausesofandsolutionsforproblematiccallcentrecommunicationappeartobeatoddswiththeperceptionsofcallcentreindustrystake-holdergroupswhothemselvesdevelopandcommissionEnglishcommunicationprograms.Thekeybusinessstakeholders,suchastheaccountmanagers,humanresourceoffice（HRO）recruitersandcommunicationsqualityassurancepersonnel
⇑Tel.:
+85234428892;
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E-mailaddress:
lockwood@cityu.edu.hk
0889-4906/$-seefrontmatter©
2011ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved.doi:
10.1016/j.esp.2011.05.002
commonlyviewmothertongueinterference（MTI）inpronunciationandthegrammaticalinaccuracyoftheirCSRsasthekeyreasonsforcommunicationbreakdownonthephones.However,ourearlyresearch（Forey&
Lockwood,2007）suggestedotherwise:
[Itappears]thatcommunicationfailurehaslesstodowiththetraditionalnotionsofpoorlanguageskillsi.e.poorgram-maticalknowledgeandpoorpronunciation,andmoretodowithpoorinteractionalanddiscoursalskillsandculturalappreciationofthenuanceofwhatthecustomerissaying（p.323）.
Mostoutsourcedandoff-shorecallcentrescurrentlyprovideEnglishcommunicationtrainingpriortoCSRsstartingworkonthephonesandthesetrainingsolutionsaretypicallydevelopedbythebusinessesthemselves.Thesetrainingcoursesdoagreatdealof‘accentneutralisation’tomaskfirstlanguage（Li）differencesandseektoeradicategrammaticalinterferencemistakes,oftenthroughdrillingandthroughtheexplicitteachingofgrammarrules（Friginal,2007;
Lockwood,2008）.Afur-therproblemidentifiedincallcentrebusinesstrainingpractices（Lockwood,2010a）relatestothe‘siloing’orfragmentationofcommunicationstraininginto‘languagetraining’（meaningexplicitgrammarinstruction）;
accentneutralisation（meaningpronunciationdrilling）;
interculturaltraining（knowledgeofthetargetculture）andsoftskillstraining（customerserviceskills）whichareoftendeliveredbydifferenttrainersindifferentdepartments.Furthermore,thesetrainershaveusuallyrisenthroughtheranksofthecallcentreandthereforetypicallydonothaveteachingEnglishtospeakersofotherlanguages（TE-SOL）qualificationsandexperience.Anotherpracticethathascompromisedthevalidityofthetraininghasbeenthewhole-sale‘transportation’ofon-shorenativespeakersoftskills’trainingpackages（developedforUKCSRs）tothenewoff-shorenon-nativespeakerdestination.Friginal（2007）states:
Trainingtopicsintelephonesupportwhichaddressservicecompetenceincludeappropriatespeechtechniques,establish-ingrapportandpersonalizationofsupport;
andclarity,effectivenessandaccuracyofinformation.ThefociofthesetopicsalreadyassumefluencyintheEnglishlanguage.Thesecommontopicsareuniversalinthecontextofoutsourcingbutthereisaneedforgroundingoftheseskillsincrossculturalcompetence,andconsequentlyeffectivelanguageusage.（p.199）
Whilstallthisiscommonpractice,itisarguedinthispaperthat‘siloing’and‘transporting’thecommunicationstraininginthiswayisproblematicfortworeasons.ThesepracticesreflectbothalackofappreciationofthenatureofspokenEnglishfromasociolinguisticperspectiveandthelanguageneedsofthisEnglishasasecondlanguage（ESL）targetgroupofCSRs.ThewaysinwhichsociolinguisticresearchoutcomesinBPOcommunicationbreakdownimpactssyllabusdesignandcontentselectionisthesubjectofthisarticle.IndescribingthetheoreticallinguisticframeworkthathasinformedthedevelopmentoftheESPpro-gramcentraltothisarticle,Idrawontheworkofgenrebasedandsystemicfunctionallinguistswhohavepublishedinthisarea（Bhatia,2008;
Clarketal.,2008;
Lockwoodetal.,2008）.Ihavealsotakentimetoexplainthecontextofthecallcentresiteandtheimportanceofthebusinessstakeholderperspectivesininformingthisproject.
1.1.Backgroundtotheproject
In2008,aRequestforProposal（RFP）wasissuedbyalargemultinationalworkplacewhich,forthepurposesofconfiden-tialityinthisstudy,willbeknownasGlocalFinancialServices（GFS）.GFSwasseekingaprovidergrouptosupplyEnglishlanguageassessmentsolutionsandanESPcommunicationstrainingcurriculumforitsglobaloff-shorecallcentres.Overthepreviousdecade,differentassessmentandcurriculatoolsandprocesseshadbeendevelopedinternallyand/orsuppliedbyexternalvendorsacrosstheGFSsites.ThereweretwomainproblemswithwhatexistedatthetimeoftheRFPcall.Firstly,therewasnosystematicapproachacrosstheoff-shorecallcentresitesbecauseeachhadsoughtitsownadhocsolutionstoassessmentandcommunicationstraining.Secondly,thevalidityandqualityofboththeassessmentsolutionsandthetrain-ingcurriculawerebeingseriouslyquestionedbythelearninganddevelopmentteamaswellasthebusiness.TheAsianre-gionaltrainingmanageratGFScommented:
Thereisamountainofthebestof‘badpractice’outthereinthecallcentreindustrytellingusthatimmediatecommu-nicationsolutionscanbeachievedbyeliminatingallfirstlanguageinterferencemistakes.It’sallproblematicandourindustryhasspentmillionsofdollarsonmisinformedsolutionsintrainingandassessmentthatareexacerbating,ratherthansolvingourproblems.
OneofthemajorfindingsintheExecutiveSummaryoftheprovidercommunicationsauditforGFSreported:
Bothsites（IndiaandManila）wereinefficientandinaccurateinpickingthebestcandidatesatrecruitment,whiletrainingandcoachingweresub-optimalinpreparinganddevelopingcandidatesforthecommunicationdemandsofthecallcen-trefloor.Thereisnostandardcommunicationassessmentwithinasite,whichmakesitimpossibletoeffectivelyaddressrealcommunicationproblemsonthefloor.ThereremainsaseriousdisconnectbetweenGlocalFinancialServicessites;
eachsitehasdevelopedhomegrowntrainingandassessmentsolutions,methodologiesandcommunicationbenchmarklevelsratherthanstreamliningandstandardizingqualityintheseareasregion-wide.（GFSAuditReport,2008,p.3）.
ItwasdecidedtoselectonetrainingprovidertodevelopbothanassessmentsolutionandacommunicationstrainingsolutionforGFS.AManila-basedbusinesscommunicationspecialistgroup,FuturePerfectBusinessEnglishSpecialists（FPBES）,wasselected.TheaimoftheGFSESPprogramwastoimprovethelanguagecompetencylevelsfrom
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