IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS IN BUSINESS ENGLISH STUDENTS – THE IMPACT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BASED TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

Today, more than ever, effective communication, regardless of the shape it takes, is important for every company’s success. Having as a target the idea of going global, employers search for employees who know exactly how to express themselves in order to be understood efficiently and correctly, constantly ranking writing ability among the most popular skills for business graduates to possess. Nowadays, the global business image needs professionals who possess communications skills, especially writing skills since businesses want to convey their idea, a message, a concept to employees, customers, partners, contractors all over the world. We can think of a lot of reasons why writing skills are important in the business world. As communication technologies and information are having a great impact on all the aspects of the language use, written communication changes, too. The more diffused computer-mediated communications are, the more we witness a modification in the purpose of writing, the genres of written communication and the nature of the audience. For both teachers and students, writing has always been a problematic issue, due to several aspects, among which the most significant ones are: it is more time-consuming, it is not very dynamic, it is not very interactive and therefore, it is more difficult to be integrated in the structure of the course of Business English. The whole picture has changed. One of the most used platforms among students is WhatsApp, being a popular instructional learning medium. The present article is based on research using semistructured interviews, in the qualitative phase, as an instrument for data collection, aimed to find out the students’ perspective towards the use of WhatsApp group in improving their writing ability in English. The sample of the study consists of 45 students at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Oradea, first and second year of study. The author wants to research how today’s technology influences the development of writing skills in Business English students, more exactly the impact of the WhatsApp groups, in the case of the abovementioned students. The elements discussed are the following: tone, simplicity, clarity and concision. The results show that the students feel that their writing skills have improved after a period of using WhatsApp group and benefit during the teaching and learning process. It also shows that it can develop the writing ability of the students. This result is supported by the opinions of the students who gave more good responses than bad ones. Thus, the result shows that the WhatsApp group is one of the most appreciated and appropriate learning platforms for today’s Generation Z.