Use of Communication Strategies by Thai EFL Learners

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Discussions and Conclusion Discussions With respect to the first research question, findings of the present study revealed that all communication strategies in the integrated framework were employed by the students. Moreover, the present study indicates that the students tended to rely on compensatory strategies (94.85%) more frequently than avoidance strategies (5.30%), indicating that the students attempted to keep the conversation flowing and maintain their interaction with the interlocutor. This could be explained that participants were familiar with the English language as they studied in the English program. Put simply, the familiarity of L2 could determine the frequency of CS use. Therefore, they had an awareness of using the target language in the required communication situations. It is also worth pointing out that among twenty-two communication strategies, fillers/hesitation devices appeared to be the most-frequently used strategies (43.33%) as they tended to be overused when the students performed their task. This is because the use of this strategy allowed the students to process their cognitive demands required from the task as well as did help the speech to flow naturally. Generally speaking, the students “slipped” fillers in their actual speech rather than “used” them. In contrast, the least frequently - used communication strategy appeared to be “foreignizing” (0.05%) as it was unusual to adjust L1 both morphologically and phonically to L2 because L2 (English) has different characteristics from L1 (Thai). To answer research question 2, the findings indicated that English-speaking proficiency did not have the impact on the choices of communication strategies. This result could be explained that no matter how L2-proficient they are, Thai EFL learners seemed to have the target language problems, influenced by their native language transfer, therefore leading them to use communication strategies as the tool to communicate successfully . In other words, each student had an ability to tackle with individually communicative problems by employing communication strategies. This provided support for Willems (1987), who maintains that “…the way we handle language in the classroom not only in traditional structural approaches but also in modern ‘communicative’ ones does not sufficiently help the learner to develop this ‘strategic competence’” (p.361). That is to say, the ability to speak is not the same as the ability to employ communication strategies. Nevertheless, it was observed that high and middle-English speaking proficiency students tended to be enthusiastic in performing both tasks than low English-speaking proficiency students. The findings seemed to provide support to the explanation of Long (1990) regarding the effects of task types on the use of communication strategies that the oral interview, as a open task, promoted negotiation that involved talking about various topics which required the students to share their own information and resorted to intra-actional strategies which required them to use whatever that was available in their linguistic repertoire to help them solve their difficulties. In contrast, picture story narrative task is considered as close task in natural which required the students to reach single, correct answer or one of the small finite set of solutions. Therefore, they were likely to give up when faced with language difficulties. Regarding interactional strategies, it was found that oral interview task allowed the students to resort significantly more frequently to this type of strategy than the picture story narrative task. These results confirm Ellis (2003)’s ideas that reciprocal or two-way tasks would promote interaction between two or more learners to achieve task outcome where both 811
learners have equal right to speak and provide more opportunities of negotiation of meanings (Leaver, L.B. & Willis, R.J., 2004). Additionally, some of the students reported that their communication anxiety during the tasks negatively affected their willingness to communicate (WTC). The apprehension problems lead them to have feelings of frustration, uneasiness, and worry. According to the retrospective interview, their anxiety during the tasks arose from four important factors: the degree of acquaintance between communicators, the topic of discussion, fear of evaluation, involving in authentic communication situation, and their perception of low L2 competence. The finding conforms to Mccroskey & Mccroskey (1986), who stated that communication anxiety is the predictor of a person’s WTC in the second language. In other words, the students who are capable of controlling their apprehension tended to be a risk taker in communication. With willingness and confidence to communicate, they appeared to utilize CSs effectively. Self-perceived English speaking ability The present study shows that the students who have perception of high English ability tended to feel at ease with the use of English and be able to utilize CSs effectively. Even low English -speaking ability students who show the positive attitude towards their self Englishoral proficiency reported having confidence in English speaking and agile use of CSs. Despite their defects in pronunciation and clarity of their speech, they felt comfortable with their oral competence and attempted to maintain the flow of the conversation. As a result, they adopted CSs to enhance their oral production, increasing the frequency of CS use. In contrast, if the students no matter what their English oral proficiency are were afraid that their speaking ability would not be so competent as the interlocutor anticipated, they were inclined to lack confidence and feel apprehensive about communicating in his/her second language and as a result avoid using it or using it with the reluctant attempt to communicate. Therefore, the ability of using CSs was not correlated with English-oral proficiency. The finding is in consistent with Baker & MacIntyre (2000) that the effective communication does not only depend on the actual abilities of speaking but also how a speaker has a positive view of their oral competence. Frequency of using English outside the classroom According to retrospective interviews, the students who reported their opportunity for constant interaction in the L2 tended to be able to tackle with communication better than the ones who lacked exposure to the target language and have self-awareness of using communication strategies to overcome communication difficulties. Moreover, constant L2 interaction increased their perceived competence and willingness to communicate as they felt familiar and comfortable with L2. The findings were consistent with Piranian (1979), who maintained that language learners were exposed to the target language or have conversational interaction in the actual situations tended to be more flexible and successful in using communication strategies. The present study shows that the students with their enthusiasm to use L2 in speaking both in and out of classroom become more L2 competent and confident to initiate and maintain their conversation in L2 than students who rarely used the target language on a regular basis. According to Clement (1986), “seeking opportunities to communicate would greatly increase the chances for intercultural contact, L2 communication practice (Larsen-Freeman, 2007) and comprehensible input (Krashen, 2003)”. 812
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Page 7 and 8: 2. Compensatory strategies Table 4.
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Page 13 and 14: Dornyei, Z., & Scott M., L. (1997).

Use of Communication Strategies by Thai EFL Learners

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