People often turn to a second language to communicate when the native language
fails to be the medium of communication particularly in international collaboration
communication. The second language of choice must be a language that is
understood by the speaker and the listener. Correct language usage does leave a
good impression in many circumstances but in many collaboration activities, the
message matters more than the accuracy of the language use. This paper examines
the English language usage among the participants from two universities during a
collaborative project. Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) and Rajamangala
University of Technology Srivijaya (RUTS) have conducted a collaborative project
for their undergraduate students. In order to encourage the use of English language,
the participants are restricted to non-Thai speaking for UniMAP students and nonMalay speaking for RUTS students; with exception for a few students who acted as
mediators for emergency situations. The use of English language is reported based
on the perspectives of the students which have been gathered using questionnaires.
Findings show that the program is successful in encouraging the use of English in
all four skills of listening, speaking,reading and writing. Findings also show that
writing skill has the highest English language usage amongst the participants of this
program.
