Perceived Barriers to Effective Oral Communication Between Organizational Communication Alumni as Filipino Call Center Agents and Their American Clients as Native Speakers of American English

Abstract

Authorities on communication recognize the need to understand noise which hinder understanding between the participants in the process. In the area of intercultural communication, specifically in the oral level, some forms of noise that serve as barriers may be categorized into three types—personal, physical, and cultural or linguistic. Examining how such barriers operate could be in the context of oral communication between Filipinos as second language speakers of English, and the Americans who are the native English speakers. While this process has been recognized, there have been no studies that directly examine this process. This is so despite the proliferation of the call centers in this country where such problem exists. Given the gap in knowledge involving the potential barriers to effective intercultural oral communication, this study seeks to address this concern by discovering the answer to this main problem: “What are the perceived barriers to effective oral communication between the OrCom alumni as Filipino call center agents and their American clients?” Descriptive and exploratory research designs are employed in this study. The participants are OrCom alumni who graduated in 2005 and earlier. The research tools are a checklist and an interview schedule. Data analysis was done qualitatively as well as quantitatively. From the gathered data, it was found that the more recent graduates got into the call center industry as inbound and outbound agents and/or team leads. Of the identified barriers to effective intercultural oral communication, the most recurring barrier is found to be those that are cultural and linguistic in nature, particularly speech and comprehension of the American English and racial prejudices of Americans against Filipinos. These barriers have several negative influences and few positive influences on oral communication. Negative influences include refusal of some Americans to comprehend Filipino agents due to differences in accents and racial prejudices that may further result in insults and occurrence of repetition and clarification of messages being exchanged. On the other hand, the positive effect which are attributed to the Filipinos' patience and tolerance is the alumni-agents’ reaching a higher level of English competence in order to address the identified cultural-linguistic barriers. Furthermore, it was revealed that extensive training that focuses on American culture and accent is the most frequently mentioned means that was employed by the call center organizations to address the difficulties in intercultural oral communication.