An investigation into communication strategies learners of english use to overcome communication difficulties in english speaking classes at some

CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the Study The Communicative Approach to language teaching has been a prominent feature in Second Language (SL) or Foreign Language (FL) contexts This approach leads to developing learners‟ communicative competence That is, learners develop the ability to use language appropriately in a given situation (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, p.123) To develop learners‟ communicative competence is a complex process in which learners need to acquire what are suggested by Canale & Swain (1980, p 28), namely grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence Of the four competences, strategic competence plays an important role in maintaining communication using the target language despite the imperfect linguistic competence and other factors, such as fatigue and distraction (Savignon, 1983, p.40) Communication strategies are considered as central to the strategic competence According to Canale and Swain (1980, p 30), Communication strategies are defined as “verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence” These strategies consist of approximation, word coinage, circumlocution, literal translation, language switch, appeal for assistance, mime, topic avoidance, and message abandonment That is to say, when encountering communication difficulties, such as the lack of required words and structures, speakers use communication strategies to get their intended meanings across These strategies may be topic avoidance, message adjustment, paraphrase, lexical approximation, word coinage and mother tongue switching In addition to the positive effects on using language, the issue of the extent to which communication strategies contribute to learning language has attracted attention among researchers Although there have been arguments for and against their contributions to language learning, the arguments in favor have outweighed the ones against According to Faerch and Kasper (as cited in Ellis, 1985, p.187), some communication strategies have a potential effect on learning, like paraphrase and word coinage, while some others don‟t, such as topic avoidance and message adjustment Corder (1982, p.104) argues that successful borrowing is likely to be incorporated into the language user‟s interlanguage competence if the borrowed item is accepted as well-formed by the interlocutor in the target language As a result of the positive effects on using and learning language, communication strategies may be employed by both native speakers of English and learners of English as SL or FL In addition, communication strategies are characterized as problematic and potentially conscious ( Faerch & Kasper, 1984, p 47); therefore, they have really been helpful to learners of English as SL or FL, in which their interlanguage does not necessarily provide enough linguistic resource to express intended messages As Corder (1981, p.104) states, communication strategies are concerned with the relationship between ends and means It is assumed that native speakers have a balance between ends and means; that is, they always have the linguistic resources to get their intended meaning across, while non-natives are assumed to have a misbalance; that is, they may not convey their intended meaning for which they have no enough linguistic means Therefore, nonnative speakers resort to communication strategies to solve the problem It is the imperfect linguistic repertoire that has caused difficulties for learners in all aspects, especially in speaking and listening skills The most common difficulties learners of English have faced in the course of language production and reception are the lack of words, structures, ideas, confidence, problematic speaking and limited listening ability These were confirmed by the study of learners‟ difficulties in speaking by Nguyen (2008) in which some common di fficulties are lack of words, ideas, ways of expressing ideas and pronunciation In addition, as a teacher of conversational English classes at Foreign Language Centers, I have found that almost all my learners wish to be able to communicate fluently in English, but when they are engaged into the interactions, they encounter some communication difficulties that prevent them from having effective conversations or maintaining them Given the situation, I used the results from questionnaires (for 30 learners) for my Master course assignment (Bach et al 2009) on designing syllabus for English conversational classes at my Foreign Language Center to give me the understanding of difficulties the learners encountered in speaking The findings show lacks of vocabulary (100%), structures (80%), ideas (90%), problem with pronunciation (100%) and interpreting other people‟s ideas (70%) These difficulties clearly have a considerable influence on communication, but fortunately I find that the learners have made considerable efforts to keep speaking in such situations Intuitively, the learners may use some communication strategies to get their messages across despite insufficient linguistic repertoire With such an important role in learning and communication in English, the area of communication strategies has been the focus of attention to researchers on Second Language Acquisition A great number of earlier empirical research on communication strategy domain reflect more or less different research contexts and approaches (Varadi & Tarone, Bialystok & Paribakht (see Ellis, 1985 for a review); Dornyei & Scott, 1995b; Wanaruk, 2003; Jingjing, 2006; Chanawong, 2007; Ting & Lau, 2008; and Mei & Nathalang, 2009) In the context of Vietnam, several studies were done in relation to the area of communication strategies The study of “An investigation into language learning strategies by second year English majors in English speaking classes at Hue College of Foreign Languages” by Tran (2007) involves learning strategies in which part of communication strategies, such as switching to mother tongue, getting help, using mimes and gestures, word coinage, circumlocution and so on was investigated In addition, hesitation strategies, one of communication strategies, are focus of the study of “Second-year English Major‟ hesitation strategies in speaking classes in Hue University College of Foreign Languages” by Nguyen (2008) Although the studies mentioned above deal with communication strategy use assessment, almost all of them are limited to types of students in formal institutions; e.g colleges, in foreign contexts The studies in Vietnamese contexts focus on only small part of communication strategy taxonomy In addition, regarding research methods, the above studies adopt task-based technique to generalize their findings This task-based method is used to generalize learners‟ strategy use over a certain task, rather than a variety of tasks the learners have performed in speaking classes Oxford (1996, p.39) points out that task-based method, as one of the limitations of use, is less useful for identifying “typical” strategies of an individual than questionnaire This reality inspires me to investigate communication strategy used by learners in quite an informal educational context- Foreign Languages Centerswith an innovative research methodology to cope with difficulties in speaking classes Undoubtedly, English has played an important role in society in the international integration era in Vietnam As a result, the need for learning English has increased in the recent time Foreign Language Centers seem a convenient place for everyone interested in English from students to workers The Centers offer learners a variety of types of general English courses from elementary to advanced levels Recently, the Centers have been making a dramatic shift to conversational English classes to satisfy immediate needs for using English The fact is what learners want in the conversational classes and what they can are a gap This gap is due to insufficient linguistic system that inhibits learners from making effective conversations Surprisingly, until now little has been known about what communication difficulties the learners at the Centers face and how to cope with them to keep the interactions going on With the concern about the situation, this study will provide the understanding about how learners deal with the communication difficulties using communication strategies at the Centers In the light of such a situation, this study is to investigate communication strategies learners of English use to overcome communication difficulties in speaking classes at some Foreign Languages Centers Moreover, this study provides suggestions for teachers to train their students and to enhance the use of 10 communication strategies, leading to great contributions to learning English successfully 1.2 Aims of the Study The main aim of the study is to investigate what communication strategies learners of English use to overcome communication difficulties at speaking classes in Foreign Languages Centers In addition, as the function of communication strategies is to manage problems during the communication, difficulties faced by the learners in classrooms are also worth examining Finally, some suggestions will be made to promote the use of communication strategies in speaking classes, enhancing the effectiveness of communication 1.3 Research Questions In order to achieve the above aims, this study seeks to find out the answers to the following questions regarding learners of English at Foreign Languages Centers in Hue What difficulties English learners encounter in speaking classes? What types of communication strategies they use to overcome those difficulties? What are the suggestions made by teachers to incorporate communication strategies into speaking classes? 1.4 Significance of the Study The study is expected to be beneficial to learners of English in general and to those of Foreign Languages Centers in particular by improving communicative competence using communication strategies Also, it is a reference material for teachers who are interested in the incorporation of communication strategies into teaching speaking skill 11 1.5 Structure of the Study This study consists of chapters Chapter deals with the rationale, aims , research questions and significance of the study Chapter is concerned with literature review Chapter involves research methodology Chapter concerns findings and discussion Chapter presents conclusion of this study 12 CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW Chapter looks at previous studies concerning communication strategies This literature survey helps indicate the gap on which the present study is based In addition, it provides the theoretical framework for this project Finally, the tentative profile of Vietnamese learners in Foreign Languages Centers is mentioned 2.1 Previous Research on Communication Strategies So far, there have been a great number of studies on varied aspects of learners‟ communication strategy use found in the body of literature The following studies are mentioned because of their relevance to the present study These studies are reviewed with the inclusion of types of subjects and data elicitation methods Dornyei & Scott (1995b) discovered over 60 different types of communication strategies used by 44 Hungarian EFL learners The data were collected through three oral tasks, along with retrospectation to identify as many specific strategies as possible These tasks were cartoon descriptions, definition refo rmation and guided role-play Wanaruk‟s study (2003) examined communication strategies used by 75 English learners of Science and Technology The data were elicited from oral interviews-questions on family, studies, cooperative education program, hometown, free time and university Communication strategies employed by non-major English postgraduates at Beijing Normal University involving conversations with native teachers of English were the focus of Jingjing‟s study (2006) Chanawong‟s study (2007) investigated the use of communication strategies by 37 first-year medical students The data were collected by multiple methods: (1) oral interviews background questions, disaster in Thailand and picture descriptions, (2) questionnaire, and (3) retrospective interviews The generalized findings of this study were mainly based on oral tasks Ting and Lau‟s study (2008) examined the use of communication strategies among Malaysian learners of English as a second language in simulated telephone conversations involving enquiries about products or services Mei & Nathalang (2009) examined communication strategies used by 13 non-English major students in China Two types of oral tasks, namely, one -way (concept identification) and two-way task (role-play) were used to elicit data The topic of communication strategies has also attracted the attention of Vietnamese researchers The study of “An investigation into language learning strategies by second year English majors in English speaking classes at Hue College of Foreign Languages” by Tran (2007) involved learning strategies in which part of communication strategies, such as switching to mother tongue, getting help, using mimes and gestures, word coinage, circumlocution and so on was investigated In addition, hesitation strategies, one of the communication strategies, were focus of the study of “Second-year English Major‟ hesitation strategies in speaking classes in Hue University College of Foreign Languages” by Nguyen (2008) In general, these studies on communication strategies focus on types of students in tertiary institutions in foreign contexts, and little has been known about communication strategy used by Vietnamese students In the light of such a situation, the present study is to depict a complete picture of communication strategy use assessment in relation to various types of learners and research contexts The next section will provide a theoretical framework used to examine issues on communication strategies under investigation 2.2 Definition of Communication Strategies It is hard to give a thorough definition on which communication strategy researchers have had an agreement Therefore, the notion of communication strategies has been defined in different perspectives and in different ways in the literature so far Some following definitions provide an understanding of the concept of communication strategies on which the present study will be based These definitions are characterized by two defining criteria: problem-orientedness and potential consciousness, and by two perspectives: Psycholinguistic and interactional 14 Communication strategies are seen as attempts to bridge the gap between the linguistic knowledge of the L2 learner and the linguistic knowledge of the learner’s interlocutor in real communication situations (Tarone, 1981, p 288) Communication strategies are described as systematic techniques employed by a speaker to express his meaning when faced with some difficulty (Corder, 1981, p.103) Communication strategies, central to strategic competence, are defined as the strategies used to compensate for inadequate resources - such as linguistic rulesand for other factors- such as fatigue, distraction and inattention Communication strategies include paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation and avoidance (Savignon, 1983, pp.40-41) Communication strategies are defined as potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal (Faerch & Kasper 1983, as cited in Brown, 2007, p.137) All the above definitions reflect the same two criteria to distinguish communication strategies from other verbal strategies These are problemorientedness and potential consciousness According to Faerch and Kasper (1984, p 47), the criterion of problem-orientedness accounts for the use of communication strategies by learners when they face difficulties, such as the lack of vocabulary, in expressing themselves Problems regarding the use of communication strategies are referred to as problems with linguistic or sociolinguistic structure (Tarone, 1980; Faerch and Kasper, 1984) Corder (1981, p.104) explains that the use of communication strategies involves the relationship between means and ends That is, unlike native speakers of English, language learners have a mismatch between what they express and how they express it; therefore, they resort to communication strategies to get their meaning across In Faerch and Kasper‟s definition, the other criterion is referred to as potential consciousness They argue that when faced up with difficulties in communication, the speaker is first aware of which strategies to employ to solve the problems and subsequently the automatic use of such strategies 15 may lead to the state of potential consciousness In short, the defining features mentioned in most discussion of communication strategies are potentially conscious and problem-oriented (Ellis, 1985, p.180) In addition, the above definitions account for two perspectives on conceptualizing communication strategies: psycholinguistic and interactional In the psycholinguistic view, Faerch and Kasper (1984, pp 46-47) argue that speech production process involves planning phase and execution phase Communication strategies are employed in the phase of planning in which the appearance of difficulties prevents the initial intended plan In other words, the use of communication strategies is viewed as a mental process in which individual language speakers experience their own problems in expressing themselves and so employ communication strategies to overcome the problems without considering the participation of the interlocutor Tarone (1980) conceives of communication strategies from the interactional perspective This perspective is regarded as when the speaker wishes to communicate a concept to the listener and believes that linguistic or sociolinguistic structure being used is not shared by the listener, so the speaker has two options: (1) Seeking alternative meaning structure to express the concept or (2) avoiding the concept (p 419) In other words, Tarone (1980, p 419) views communication strategies as “a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures not seem to be shared” This interactional view allows for the inclusion of various repair mechanisms “to clarify the intented meaning rather than simply correct linguistic form” (ibid) Skehan (1998, p.19) suggests that speakers and their interlocutors resort to communication strategies, such as comprehension checks and clarification requests, to have a successful conversation in the context of the appearance of difficulty As mentioned above, one of the two defining features of communication strategies is problem-orientedness Problems regarding the use of communication strategies have been referred to differently as problems with “linguistic and/or 16 Table 4.5: Types of Communication Strategies Used by FLC English Learners in Oral Tasks Types Strategies Frequency Percent L1- based Code-switching 2.4 (fre.=2 or 2.4%) Literal translation 0 Circumlocution 19 23.2 Word coinage 1.3 Approximation 7.3 Self-repair 6.1 Restructuring 2.4 Mime/gesture 0 Self-repetition 4.9 Filler 3.7 (fre.=21 or 25.6%) Hesitation 14 17.1 Avoidance strategies Topic avoidance 0 (fre.=10 or 12.3%) Message abandonment 10 12.2 Appeal for assistance 7.3 Meaning negotiation devices Clarification request 7.3 (fre.=16 or 19.5%) Comprehension check 2.4 Confirmation check 2.4 82 100 L2-based (fre.=33 or 40.2%) Non-linguistic resource (fre.=0 or 0%) Time-gaining devices Total 58 Table 4.6: The Use of Communication Strategies in Oral Tasks According to Frequency Strategies Frequency Percent Rank Circumlocution 19 23.2 Hesitation 14 17.1 Message abandonment 10 12.2 Approximation 7.3 Appeal for assistance 7.3 Clarification request 7.3 Self-repair 6.1 Self-repetition 4.9 Filler 3.7 Coding switching 2.4 Restructuring 2.4 Comprehension check 2.4 Confirmation check 2.4 Word coinage 1.3 Literal translation 0 Mime/gesture 0 Topic avoidance 0 Total 82 100 Table 4.6 shows different use frequency levels for specific strategies in the oral tasks It indicates that circumlocution, hesitation and message abandonment were the most frequently used in the total of 82 strategy instances identified, 59 whereas the least frequently was word coinage Furthermore, no instances of literal translation, mime/gesture and topic avoidance were found When asked to describe the objects for which the learners did not use precise words, almost all the participants resorted to circumlocution as a solution to lexical problems, which accounted for the highest use with 19 (23.2%) out of 82 instances identified This finding resembles that of Mei and Nathalang‟s study (2009, p 127) which reveals that all participants resorted to paraphrase ( another term for circumlocution) to cope with the problems in performing conception identification and role-play tasks Circumlocution is defined as using a L2 phrase to describe characteristics of a particular L2 item, rather than using that precise item It is classified into features: physical (e.g size, shape, color and material), functional, constituent, locational, historical and other features (Paribakht, 1985, p 136) These different means of circumlocuting a particular item are considered in the extract below, taken from the oral task data Extract 1: P5: a animal with four leg and … er have a nose is long [Circumlocution] P3: This is an animal you ah see, especially in Komtum, Daklak [Circumlocution] P1: It is used for putting clothing, there are… there are … three drawers [Circumlocution] P7: I think … it’s interesting for many musicians, and this is the thing you can…er… show yourself, when you play it you can hear many melody from it [Circumlocution] P5: In the picture there is a thing which make people happy because thing …er.… make the music [Circumlocution] As an example, when asked to talk about an elephant, participant used constituent features like four legs and a long nose to help the listener to recognize it 60 Similarly, participant described the elephant by mentioning location – in Kontom or Daklak- where people could find it Participants and 5, when asked, described a piano by constituent features (e.g ….for many musicians and when you play it you can hear many melody from it) and functional features (e.g make people happy and make the music) respectively Similarly, the concept of cupboard was described by participant using a combination of functional and constituent features (e.g used for putting clothes and three drawers.) As a whole of different circumlocution features (22 instances identified) on describing objects was considered, 10 instances of constituent feature, of functional feature, of physical property and one of locational feature were used to identify the objects In addition to circumlocution, another of L2-based strategies was also used to bridge the gap in communication- Approximation This strategy is understood as the use of a L2 item sharing enough semantic features similar to the desired item and this strategy accounted for out of the 82 instances identified The following extract illustrates this case Extract P5: a animal with four leg and … er have a nose[Approximation] is long P7: In the picture you can see a thing where you often take your clothes inside, big and you have many many parts[Approximation], you can pull and take your clothes inside P2: When you visit Minh Mang tomb, you can take raise and the photo with er er … the picture[Approximation] of tomb As the extract shows, participants 5, and used nose, parts and picture for the precise words trunk, drawers and statues respectively In retrospect, participant explained that he used nose in place of trunk which he didn‟t know at the moment of speaking because he thought nose was understandable by the listener for sharing 61 the similar biological faculty as trunk A possible explanation for the use of parts for drawers was that participant could not think about drawers at that time, so he used a general word parts Participant explained that the word picture shared similar features as the precise word statue which he didn‟t know at that time When the participants could not use L2 resource available to compensate for the gap in communication, they resorted to time-gaining strategies to continue and accomplish their communicative goals As can be seen in Table 4.6, hesitation had the second-highest use frequency (14 out of 82 or 17.1%) The illustration of this strategy is made below: Extract 3: P4: Hue many special food, especially bun hen , it famous food, it is … er …er er… [Hesitation] popular for people especially who live in Hue and come to Hue P3: The government should er …er… [Hesitation] create many …er… .er…[Hesitation] high tax on car or motorbike when they control traffic jam P1: It is a person but it very small and ….er … [Hesitation] baby often play with it As stated by Dornyei (1995, pp.57-58,), hesitation is defined as a communication strategy because it helps to gain time to think and to sustain communication in the case of linguistic difficulties This is similar to the confirmation in ACTF, 1986 ( as cited in Linski-Gasparro, 1996, p.317) that limited vocabulary necessitates hesitation and leads to the slightly unexpected use of circumlocution In extract 3, participant used hesitation to think about the word popular in the mind Similarly, participant used hesitation twice Participant used this device to think about how to describe the concept of doll to the listener In short, participants resorted to hesitation in the attempt to sustain and to convey their intended meanings in spite of linguistic inadequacy 62 As a result of failure in the attempt to get the meaning across in the case of linguistic insufficiency by employing L2-based strategies or time-gaining strategies, the learners turned to avoidance strategies The analysis of the oral task data shows that message abandonment was the third-highest use on the list ( 10 out of 82 instances identified) and no instances of participants were asked not to give up topic avoidance were found because the topic of oral tasks The following examples illustrate message abandonment in use Extract 4: Participant 1: I think we should awaken awareness of people and … that’s enough [Message abandonment] Participant 4: They can taste this food, er … I can’t describe it [Message abandonment] Participant 3: I think it difficult for our city in particular as well as in our country in general, especially difficult to reduce traffic jam, but I think that our …… [Message abandonment] Message abandonment occurs when the learner leaves a message unfinished due to the lack of vocabulary or linguistic structures As can be seen in the extract 4, participants and could not finish their message and therefore stopped halfway by signaling expressions, such as that’s enough and I can’t describe it respectively Similarly, Participant abandoned his message by making a long pause at the end of his utterance because he could not find words to finish his message So far when facing linguistic problems in the course of communication, learners themselves have coped with the difficulties by mainly employing L2 -based, time-gaining strategies or topic avoidance to communicate their co mmunicative goals Meaning-negotiation devices-based strategies were found in the interactional corpus as an attempt to make the learner and the interlocutor understood by joint cooperation to bridge the gap in the communication This strategy type came third among strategy types identified and within this type the two strategies of appeal for 63 assistance and clarification request were recorded with considerable use frequency of instances each These strategies are described in turn as follows Extract 5: P4: The local government er … kêu gọi hè? … [Appeal for Assistance].many people help together call … P3: P3: I think it‟s difficult because it er… er… tốn hờ? … [Appeal for Assistance] a lot of money from our government waste … P4: P1: We shouldn‟t hold market in the street , it …(pause) …[Appeal for assistance].very dangerous make noise … P2: P5: In my opinion, I think government should widen roads Do you think so? P6: Can you repeat? [Clarification request] P3: This is an instrument, and ah for example when the singer sing you can use it to help her to sing well P4: repeat, repeat? [Clarification request] P8: Can you explain the meaning of region? [Clarification request] 64 As the extract shows, owing to not finding words in the target language, participants and directly asked the interlocutor for help by using expressions in their mother tongue (Vietnamese) kêu gọi and tốn hà respectively and got responses in English expressions call and waste respectively In addition to direct self-request for assistance by those signaling expressions, participant paused a long time to signal participant for help and thanks to the context participant inserted a phrase (make noise) into the middle of the participant 1‟s utterance The same as appeal for assistance strategy used in number was clarification request This strategy occurs when learners can‟t understand what they talk to each other In the extract 5, participants 6, and used formulaic expressions for repeating what they don‟t understand, namely can you repeat, repeat repeat, and can you explain the meaning of region respectively In conclusion, these two interactional strategies reflect the cooperation among the learners to cope with communication difficulties to make them mutually understood In short, the interactional data analysis shows that three most frequently used strategies were L2-based, time-gaining and meaning-negotiation devices Within these strategy types, strategies with the highest frequency of use were circumlocution, hesitation and message abandonment In addition, no instances of literal translation, mime/gesture and topic avoidance strategies were found in the interactional corpus 4.3 Teachers’ Suggestions Made for Teaching Learners Communication Strategies Communication strategies, no doubt, play an important part in learners‟ English speaking proficiency As stated by Savignon (1983, p.40), communication strategies are the ones used by English speakers to compensate for the gap in the knowledge or other factors such as fatigue, distraction and inattention.” In the present study, both teachers and learners of this study recognized communication strategies as means used to deal with difficulties arising in the process of communication and to maintain fluency in speaking As a result, this strategy 65 importance entails some suggestions for incorporating the strategies into s peaking lessons When asked to suggest the teaching of strategies in the classrooms, all five teachers asserted that communication strategies should be incorporated into the lesson in an indirect way That is, these strategies are included as part of a complete lesson where possible For instance, teacher E stated, “As communication strategies are just small part, they should be included indirectly into speaking classes” Although all the teachers agreed with the integration of the strategies into the lesso n plan, they proposed different ways to that Four of the five teachers argued that communication strategies, if any, need to be presented before a topic begins to be discussed by learners This introduction is based on the anticipation by the teachers about the coming of possible difficulties faced by the learners and solutions to them For example, teacher A said, “ When I predict problems my learners can possibly face in talking about a certain topic, I provides ways to cope with those problems before the topic is discussed” Another teacher stated that “ communication strategies should be suggested right after the learners have encountered difficulties in the course of communication” In addition, all the teachers agreed that the learners need opportunities to practice communication strategies These ideas reflect different personal perspectives on the training in the strategies in the classrooms The further implication of this study is creating a comprehensive overview of the how to teach communication strategies in speaking lessons To this end, Machon‟s (2000) suggestions are here dealt with on teaching learners communication strategies These proposals are reviewed in the light of previous research ( see Machon, 2000 for a review.) Given the previous research, Machon (2000, pp 21-23) suggests that communication strategy instruction involves two stages: (1) Instruction phase and (2) Practice phase The phase of the instruction deals with (1) the student awareness on communication strategy existence, (2) the important role of communication strategies in coping with difficulties in the process of communication, (3) the 66 communicative effectiveness of different strategies These steps can be explicitly or implicitly recognized by the learners In general, this strategy instruction focuses on training the learners metacognition which helps them manage their problems during the communication After the instruction phase, learners are given opportunities to practice the actual use of communication strategies Machon (2000) proposes that this stage involves giving learners chance to take part in communicative activities in which the learners achieve a communicative goal using coping devices, and that learners themselves set goals to be achieved and accept challenges entailed by the goal accomplishment This practice stage requires a variety of activities to different strategies Many proposals vary to activities used in the training program These activities are designed to help learners to solve problems at the level of vocabulary or to negotiate the meaning in the course of communication ( see Tarone, 1983; Williams, 1987; and Dorneiy & Thurrel, 1991 for details) In summary, this two phase training program aims to raise learner awareness on strategies and pro mote the control over their use Summary This chapter has presented and discussed communication difficulties faced, strategies employed by FLC English learners and some suggestions for teaching communication strategies in speaking classes It is found in the questionnaire data analysis that the learners were confronted with the above-medium level of communication difficulties in speaking classes Of these difficulties, lack of vocabulary and structure were reported with the highest level To cope with these difficulties, the learners employed communication strategies with the above-average frequency The questionnaire data analysis shows that the non-linguistic resource, avoidance and meaning-negotiation strategy types were usually-used in respond to the problems arising during the speaking sessions 67 Moreover, clarification request, hesitation, mime/gesture, topic avoidance, and literal translation were also frequently-employed In an attempt to document what communication strategies the learners actually use, three oral tasks were performed among the learners The interactional data analysis shows that the strategy types, namely L2-based, time-gaining and meaning-negotiation, were most frequently used by the learners Within these strategy types, circumlocution, hesitation and message abandonment were recorded with the highest frequency use on the list It is suggestive, not conclusive, that the combination of findings of both questionnaire and interactional data mentioned above shows that learners tended to frequently resort to time-gaining strategies (e.g hesitation), meaning-negotiation strategies (e.g clarification request and appeal for assistance), avoidance strategies (e.g message abandonment) and L2-based strategies (e.g circumlocution and approximation) to achieve their intended meaning in spite of communication difficulties arising in the course of communication In addition, all the teachers under investigation supported the incorporatio n of communication strategies into speaking classes and a detailed procedure for including the strategies in the lessons suggested by Machon (2000) was introduced 68 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 5.1 Restatement of the Study Purposes This study is to investigate what communication difficulties encountered and what communication strategies as solutions to those problems used by FLC English learners in Hue In addition, it also presents teachers‟ suggestions on incorporating communication strategies into classroom speaking lessons Multiple data collection methods, namely questionnaire, oral tasks and interviews were adopted to explore issues under investigation 5.2 Research Questions 5.2.1 What Difficulties English Learners Encounter in Speaking Classes? It is found that in general the learners experienced medium frequency of communication difficulties in speaking classes Of the specific difficulties, lack of vocabulary and lack of structures were reported the most frequently used whereas misused words were the least frequently 5.2.2 What Types of Communication Strategies the Learners Use to Overcome the Difficulties? To deal with the difficulties in speaking classes, the learners resorted to communication strategies to different extents The findings show that the communication strategies were employed above average level of frequency The strategy types, i.e non-linguistic, avoidance, and meaning-negotiation and the specific strategies, namely clarification request, hesitation, mime/gesture, topic avoidance, and literal translation were usually used 5.2.3 What Are the Suggestions Made by Teachers to Incorporate Communication Strategies into Speaking Classes? An attempt in this study was discovering teachers‟ suggestions on teaching communication strategies in speaking classes The findings reveal that the teachers 69 recognized the importance of communication strategies and suggested some ways to incorporate them into speaking lessons 5.3 Contributions of the Study This investigation can help learners be aware of communication difficulties faced and of strategies used to compensate for the gap in the oral communication, and promotes them to employ these strategies in the case of linguistic insufficiency in order to get their meaning across In addition, it may awaken teachers‟ attention and interest in communication strategies as useful solutions to problems caused by learners‟ imperfect linguistic resources in the course of communication These findings suggest some pedagogical implications as follows: 5.4 Implications of the Study The overall findings show that the learners employed communication strategies to different extents This suggests that the learners appreciate the usefulness of the strategies in relation to problem management in the communication Therefore, teachers are expected to raise learners‟ awareness on their existing communication strategies and encourage them to use the strategies in the case of linguistic problems arising during the communication Although all communication strategies under investigation were used by the learners, use frequencies of these strategies were different The results from the questionnaire analysis show the learners tended to employ the strategies without using L2 resource (e.g mime/gesture, hesitation and topic avoidance) more than L2-based strategies (e.g circumlocution, approximation and clarification request) This tendency implies that the learners may lack L2 resource available to compensate for the gap in the communication Therefore, teachers need to provide the learners with basic vocabulary which is used with some strategies For example, expressions such as it’s kind of , it’s used for and it’s something like are useful for circumlocution or other expressions such as can you repeat that? What you mean? and What you call …?are useful for meaning-negotiation strategies However, the fact that circumlocution was used the most in the oral tasks indicates 70 that this is a useful strategy Thus, teachers should encourage the learners to emplo y this strategy as much as possible to overcome linguistic difficulties during speaking classes Many proposals from teachers and theoretical research for the need to teach communication strategies in speaking lessons indicate that teachers‟ more attenti on should be paid to the crucial role of communication strategies in developing learner speaking ability by designing communicative activities achieving the goal using communication strategies and by encouraging learners to resort to the strategies where necessary 5.5 Further Research This study aims to give an insight into what communication strategies used by FLC English learners in relation to dealing with difficulties arising in the process of communication Based on the scope and the findings of this study, some recommendations are made for further research: (1) A further study may be implemented using other taxonomies of communication strategies, (2) A further study could be carried out with types of learners, e.g English majors of Foreign Languages College and of specialized schools, (3) A further study might be conducted to compare the use of communication strategies by factors, such as sex, language proficiency, course levels and academic fields, (4) A further study may compare strategy use prior to and after an explicit strategy training to see whether there is a statistically significant difference in the level of strategy use between the two periods, (5) A further study should investigate strategy use in the corpus of tapescripts, and (6) A further study could find out strategy use in written communication 5.6 Limitations of the Study Due to the constraint on implementation time, the study was conducted on a small scale It was administered to collect the data from 90 FLC English learners and teachers This small sample cannot represent all English learners at Foreign Languages Centers in Hue However, the adoption of both quantitative and 71 qualitative methods helps overcome this limitation of the study to a certain extent It is hoped that subsequent research will be carried out with a larger sample to ensure more reliability and validity of the data gathered Despite the limitation mentioned above, the study investigated communication difficulties that FLC English learners encountered and how to solve these difficulties using many communication strategies 72