An Analysis of Ghanaian Tertiary ESL Classroom Lectures: The Case of Achievement Communicative Strategies

Whenever we speak, we use specific strategies to help us achieve our communication goals (Nakatani, 2006). These can be reduction or achievement strategies. Achievement strategies are used by teachers and students to help them overcome their inadequate linguistic knowledge (Trihastuti & Zamzani, 2018) so that lessons can ensue smoothly. This study sought to investigate achievement communicative strategies used by lecturers and students in two public tertiary institutions in Ghana. An observational descriptive case study design was adopted with 12 Communication Skills classrooms purposively sampled from the two institutions. Lesson recording and observation were the instruments used to collect data and analysed using conversation analysis. The analysis revealed that strategies such as code-switching, all-purpose words, literal translation, and appeal for assistance were employed whenever lecturers and students realized they had problems expressing their intended meaning and they needed to solve the problems. It was revealed that the functions of the strategies were for repair to reach communication goals, to convey meaning, to ensure language accuracy, and to request for explanation and clarification. It also showed that the reasons for using the strategies were to avoid a break in the communication process, to develop learner autonomy, and to deepen lecturer-student interaction. Accordingly, it is recommended that such strategies (and others) should be incorporated into the teaching and learning process to create opportunities for meaningful communication to enable lecturers and students develop their communicative competence.

Beyond Two Decades of Social Transition in Ukraine: The Underestimated Power of Agency in Transition Research

The purpose of this article is twofold. Firstly it explains the process by which democratic social transformations are realised in post-Soviet Ukraine; and secondly it introduces models describing the life-course strategies that Ukrainians utilise in facing the uncertainties of a society in transition. By analyzing and dissecting the individual’s ways of dealing with systemic structural changes in the economic, political and social spheres this paper demonstrates how the sociology of life strategies can be applied to the specifics of post-Soviet Ukraine. Particularly, by drawing on mainstream post-Soviet scholarship and statistical data, the life pathways of Ukrainians are observed to be distinctly polarised. Agents adopt one of two opposing life strategies: one dynamic, risk-taking and future-oriented “achievement strategies” (or “creation strategies”), which are open to mobility; and the other conservative, risk-minimizing and survival-oriented “survival strategies” and “strategies of adaptation” that are less conducive to any type of change. Focusing on existing problems of a continuously fragile internal political and economic stability in Ukraine which have threatened to further delay the incorporation of Ukraine into the democratically advanced and developed West, this article puts forward the idea that the proliferation of life strategy type can determine the vector of development of the whole society, giving insight into the circular relationship between social transformations and actions of individuals in conditions of social change.

Consecutive Interpreting Strategies on A Court Setting: A Study of English into Indonesia Interpretation

This study was an attempt to investigate the consecutive interpreting strategies used by an Indonesian interpreter, Yuliana Tansil, in the court setting. This study examined a trial court in English and consecutively interpreted it to Indonesian. Faerch and Kasper’s (1983) theory of consecutive interpreting strategy was used. The descriptive qualitative method was applied as the method of this study. Data were collected through video recording taken from official YouTube. The video then was transcribed carefully. The results showed that the interpreter used two types of consecutive interpreting strategies, namely reduction strategies, and achievement strategies. In terms of reduction strategy, the interpreter applied skipping, incomplete sentence, and filtering. Yet, the message abandonment was not found in this study. In terms of achievement strategies, the interpreter used both appeal for assistance and elaborate strategy. The results also indicated that the interpreter frequently elaborated and expanded the lexical meaning of words or phrases in the utterances. The interpreter used this strategy when she faced the difficult words in long utterances because of some cultural nuance. So, she elaborated on her understanding of the message by adding more information as a way of making the utterance in the target language to be understood better.

Communication Strategies Used by EFL Learners in Task-Based English Debate

This research aims to describe the use of communication strategies in an EFL classroom during the completion of task-based debate activity. This research was conducted in an English course located in Sidoarjo. The subject of this study are 10 EFL intermediate level students. In line with that reason, this research is a qualitative study since it focuses on the depth of the comprehension of the communication strategies data rather than computing it. For obtaining the data, the researcher do observation and records learners’ verbal and non-verbal behaviour based on Dornyei (1995) taxonomy of communication strategies during the debate activity. The result showed that all taxonomies by Dornyei are used by the subjects i.e avoidance strategies, achievement strategies, and stalling strategies in the debate. There are various reason for leaners to choose those strategies to overcome their communication breakdowns during the short-time debate between speakers such as because it’s time-efficient, less confusing, and sound trustworthy to lengthen their time to think, keep the communication channel at hand, and keep up the discourse at the moment when learners face the difficulties. As the conclusion, English debate activity is considered as one of the task that promotes students-centered learning in a TBLT class, provides opportunities for students to speak Engish, and challenge students to use their language sources to strengthen their arguments. In the debate, learners mostly applied stalling strategies such as fillers since is considered very easy and quick for learners to use when they encounter problems such as nervous, lack of vocab, and lack of grammar structure in the English debate activities. Keywords: Communication strategies, task-based learning, English debate.

EVALUASI KINERJA PROGRAM STUDI EKONOMI SYARIAH FAKULTAS EKONOMI DAN BISNIS ISLAM IAIN SAMARINDA PASCA AKREDITASI

<p><em>This study aims to determine the perception of the IAIN lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Islamic Business. This research method uses qualitative methods with data collection techniques such as questionnaires and data analysis using descriptive analysis. This study found that the 6 performance standards set by BANT PT, namely standard 1 about vision and mission, goals and objectives and achievement strategies, standard 2 governance, leadership, management and quality assurance systems, standard 4 human resources, and standard 5 learning curriculum and academic atmosphere, standard 6 for financing facilities and infrastructure as well as information systems, and standard 7 related to research, service and community service and collaboration in general are felt by lecturers in the satisfied or good category.</em></p><p><em> </em></p>

STRATEGIES USED BY UNDERGRADUATE ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS IN ORAL COMMUNICATION

Communication strategies (CSs) play a significant role in enabling EFL students to achieve a higher level of English proficiency and good ability in oral communication. Helping both EFL teachers and students be aware of CSs is essential in the Vietnamese context. This study, therefore, aimed to explore the most commonly used strategies in English oral communication among English-majored students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH)-Vietnam. Two instruments were employed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, namely (1) the questionnaire and (2) the focus group with the participation of 213 English majored sophomores, juniors and seniors. The findings of the study revealed that the most commonly-used speaking strategies are ‘fluency-oriented’, ‘message reduction and alteration’, and ‘negotiation for meaning while speaking’, and that the students used achievement strategies more often than reduction ones; and the most commonly-used listening strategies are ‘negotiation for meaning while listening’, ‘non-verbal’ and ‘scanning’. The findings also revealed that there are no significant differences in the use of CSs among the three academic levels of students. It is expected that the findings of the study would partly contribute to the enhancement of communicative competence (CoC) and the use of CSs among students at HUTECH in particular and at the Vietnamese tertiary level in general.

Communication Strategies Used by Teacher

This thesis was aimed to find teacher communication strategies during classroom interaction. This research was conducted in SMP SWASTA Brigjend Katamso 1 Medan. The subject of this research was the English Teacher. We used a qualitative approach, more specifically classroom discourse analysis, in analyzing this study since the source of the data were communication strategies which are used by an English teacher in communicating with her students during an English teaching-learning activity. We took the data by recording 90 minutes of English Lessons. We used Faerch and Kasper as a framework for this data analysis, for the reason of its specification and newness. The result showed that the five strategies used were repetition. From those strategies, code-switching was the strategy that was most frequently used by the teacher during the process of teaching and learning. The teacher`s reasons for applying those communication strategies were to overcome the communication barriers that occur between the teacher and the students to help the students understand and memorize the material more accessible. The result of the interview also showed that the students had a good perception of the implementation of communication strategies used by the teacher in the classroom. Keywords: Achievement strategies, Communication strategies, Reduction strategies, Teacher