A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

study, based on the students’ perceptions about each strategy, indicated that the topic
avoidance skill almost never could be used by the middle to high-level adult learners
of Taiwan. In fact, respondents in Tunghai University were not much differentiated
by their English proficiency in this study. Based on many homogenous outcomes
obtained in a class with only one proficiency level, this study suggested that further
studies should be conducted with more classes in different proficiency levels.
The researcher suggests that further research can be conducted with several
levels of English learners. Students at different levels would help the researchers to
investigate students’ intentions related to applying different strategies, different
problems encountered in applying communications strategies, and different
anticipations of using communication strategies.
The Correlation between Gender and Strategy
Inspired by this study, a comparison of strategy application between female
and male students should be conducted. In the findings from the fourth research
question, Jiun Sheng revealed that his face-problem, caused by his male position,
compelled him not to use cooperation strategy, especially when talking to a female.
Actually, Jiun Sheng’s perceptions suggested that a future study related to gender
differences should be conducted in Taiwan.
Since there are vast differences between males’ and females’ communication
strategies (Wetzel, 1988), the curriculum of strategy training needs to be designed
based on the target students’ characteristics. It is not an effective method of training
students to use communication strategy if the curriculum used is just a copy of
strategy training from the other countries. Therefore, the researcher believes that this
study of gender comparison should explore the two genders’ different intentions and
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