scholarly journals The Effects of Learning and Communication Strategies Instruction on Economics Undergraduates’ Oral Communication Ability in Thailand

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arab World English Journal ◽  
Mintra Puripunyavanich ◽  
Kittitouch Soontornwipast

This study investigates the effects of learning and communication strategies (LACS) instruction on economics students’ oral communication ability in Thailand and explores their perceptions toward the instruction. The study involved 23 third-year economics undergraduates at a public university in Thailand who were explicitly taught 13 learning and communication strategies in class. The impacts of the LACS instruction on oral communication ability were assessed by the participants’ pre- and post- oral presentation tests, and the perceptions of the participants as well as their strategy use were obtained from students’ reflective journals (SRJ), semi-structured focus group interviews, and the teacher’s observation notes. The findings reveal that all students’ oral presentation test scores significantly improved and confirm that teaching a combination of different LACS could enhance oral communication ability. The qualitative results indicate that all 23 students had positive perceptions of the strategies instruction. Furthermore, it is revealed that strong students used a combination of all three types (cognitive, metacognitive, and affective) of learning strategies (LS) and a communication strategy (CS) of self-repair, while moderate and weak students employed a combination of two types (cognitive and affective) of LS and self-repair. Nonetheless, this study would argue that strong, moderate, and weak students did apply metacognitive strategies, as evidenced by their reflections on their strategy use in the journals and the self-assessment form, but some students were not aware of it. Consequently, future studies should emphasize raising students’ awareness of their metacognitive strategy use.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-146
Author(s):  
Rona Merita ◽  
Sony Eko Adisaputro

Nowadays, the importance of communication is undeniable. In oral communication, the learners employ speaking skills which requires the mastery of communication strategies in order to solve the communication problems which they found during oral communication and to get across the communicative goals to the interlocutors. Unfortunately, speaking is still considered one of the most difficult skills to be acquired by English language learners. English learners need more practices and also strategies in communication. In addition, communication ability also influenced by some factors such as target language proficiency, learning and communicating contexts, task types, gender differences and learners’ personality. Driven by this condition, this paper is aimed to discuss theoretical framework about communication strategies and its development since firstly proposed by Tarone (1977). This paper is beneficial for English language practitioner and English language learners, ELT researcher as well.


Author(s):  
Raed Latif Ugla ◽  
Mohamad Jafre Zainol Abidin ◽  
Mohammed Najim Abdullah

<span>This study aimed at investigating the influence of language proficiency level on the frequency of the use and choice of L1/L2 communication strategies used by Iraqi EFL students. This study was qualitative in nature. The interactive task and speaking task were used to gather data regarding communication strategy use and choice from<em> </em>52 second and third year English major students. Those participants were divided into two groups; low and high proficient students (n=27 low proficient students and n=25 high proficient students). A taxonomy of communication strategies was adopted to code the communication strategies used by low and high proficient Iraqi EFL students. The results revealed that low proficient students use communication strategies more frequently than high proficient students. Both low and high proficient students used communication strategies other than those included in selected taxonomy. This study showed that low proficient students use L1-based strategies more frequently, while high proficient students use L2-based strategies more frequently.</span>


Author(s):  
Gan Lai Kuen ◽  
Shameem Rafik-Galea ◽  
Chan Swee Heng

This study investigates the use of oral communication strategy instruction on English as a Second Language (ESL) learners’ oral communicative performance and their strategic competence. The treatment involved 12 weeks of training using oral communication strategies such as circumlocution, appeal for help, clarification request, fillers, comprehension check, confirmation checks, self-repair and topic avoidance. Strategies were integrated into the learners’ Communicative English 2 Course syllabus with Mechanical Engineering content. The study involved two intact control (n=34) and experimental groups (n=54). The control group only received the normal Communicative English course with no explicit focus on communication strategies (CS) while the experimental group received CS training designed with metacognitive strategies. Pre and posttest procedures were used to assess the effectiveness of the training and learners’ strategic competence. Five instruments were used to collect the data (oral proficiency test, oral communication test, transcripts of oral communication test, unstructured interview and self-report). The findings revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group after the training and the learners’ self-reports also revealed positive results. The results also revealed that the learners frequently used literal translation from their first language in their communication. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Kennedy

AbstractIn this study, the communication strategy use of two pairs of English as a lingua franca (ELF) users was explored in relation to two contextual factors, the communicative goal and the ELF users’ thoughts and feelings about the interactions. The ELF users were video-recorded engaging in researcher-designed tasks which required sharing information to achieve a joint goal. Subsequent stimulated recall with individual speakers targeted instances of potential or actual difficulties in understanding. Recordings and transcripts of the paired tasks and stimulated recall were used to identify communication strategies used to address difficulties in understanding. Results showed that overall, 11 different strategy types were seen across both pairs of speakers. However, the pair which achieved the shared goal showed a different pattern of strategy use and of interaction than the pair which did not achieve the shared goal. The two pairs also differed in how they attributed responsibility for successful communication. These findings, discussed in the context of previous ELF communication strategy research, highlight benefits of investigating interlocutors’ contemporaneous thoughts and feelings and the ways in which communication strategies are used during interactions.


Economica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Tóthné Herbst

The ultimate goal of language learners is to communicate efficiently and fluently in the given second language, which is hard work to reach. They are learning the language for long years, and it may happen that theoretically they are familiar with all the grammar intricacies, but practically they are not able to ask for even a glass of water in real situations. The question is whether the use of communication strategies could help to cope with the difficulties by their direct teaching. A few years ago I conducted a research to find out what kind of interactive strategies the learners are using and to provide a full list of them. The publications at that time did not deal with strategies specifically in the teaching material. I used my own list. The latest books, however, put a stress on useful phrases. So the question is whether the fact that they draw attention to strategies in separate sections, will bring significant changes in the learners’  communication.


Author(s):  
Megawati Sukarno ◽  
Su-Hie Ting

Communication strategy use varies with proficiency in the target language and less proficient learners rely on L1 strategies for conversational repair. In an English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) context where the technical register is unfamiliar, little is known on whether communication strategies can enable learners with limited English proficiency to overcome hesitancy in speech. The study examined learners’ use of communication strategies and fluency in group interactions in an EOP context using an integrated problem-solving, interactional and discourse-based framework of communication strategies. A 13-week communication strategy training was conducted focusing on conversational repair strategies (fillers, approximation, code-switching), meaning negotiation strategies (clarification request, comprehension check, confirmation check), response strategies (rephrase, shadowing, reply) and discourse-based strategies (lexical repetition, topic fronting). The results on communication strategy use in three group interaction sessions involving three participants showed that the most frequently used communication strategies were lexical repetition and fillers. The participants’ fluency, as measured in C-units and frequency of fillers, was higher when they interacted on familiar topics. The participants learnt to use discourse-based strategies but not meaning negotiation strategies. The findings suggest that for better negotiation of meaning, the communication strategy training needs to create metacognitive awareness of the interlocutors’ communicative needs.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document