| Abstract: |
This paper focuses on enhancing secretarial practice in emerging Nigerian offices through phonetic language skills, business communication and recording competences. Phonetic skills offer the modern office secretary benefits of increased vocabulary, reading, phonetics, spelling and many other language skills even in paperless/virtual offices currently advocated globally. Business office communication and recording competences are needed for secretarial duties in any office and they form major components of the secretarial profession and function. The secretary is now much more than a stenographer, receptionist or typist because an increasing number of executives expect their secretaries to function as administrative assistants who can relieve them of many routine and some specialized tasks. This secretary must therefore be equipped with handy secretarial practice skills and competences like ability and capacity in taking dictations whether directly, or from dictating machines, on the telephone, in meetings or for personal use and transcribing same speedily and accurately in an adequate/deliverable format on the computer. This paper discusses professional competences that enhance secretarial practice in the areas of confidentiality and safety of information; referencing and word processing; application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in routine activities; and efficient recording system for smooth storage and retrieval. It concludes that phonetic language skills, business communication and recording competencies are critical to effective and efficient secretarial practice in emerging offices in Nigeria and recommends that functional e-era offices need efficient secretaries – bi-lingual and multi-lingual - with these competences to meet with global best practices. |
EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
