The effects of communication strategy training on foreign language learners at the university level

This study investigates the effects of communication strategy training on foreign language learners at the university level. Three specific strategies are examined: circumlocutions, fillers and hesitation devices, and requests for clarification. The study addresses two research questions: (1) Does strategy training result in learners making greater use of communication strategies when faced with communication problems? (2) How do students evaluate the strategy training that they received?; The 44 students who volunteered to participate in the experimental study were undergraduates enrolled in three different sections of second-semester elementary French 102 classes at a historically black university. Twenty-two students were randomly assigned to an experimental group and 22 students were randomly assigned to a control group. The students in the experimental group received two weeks of training in the use of circumlocutions, fillers and hesitation devices, and requests for clarification. The students in the control group did not receive any strategy training but followed the regular course syllabus for French 102. The students in both groups also received three different versions of oral tasks which served as a pretest, an immediate posttest, and as a delayed posttest.; The data were collected and a repeated measures ANOVA was performed to compare the experimental and control groups' frequency of use of circumlocutions, fillers and hesitation devices, and requests for clarification. The results of the ANOVA revealed statistically significant differences between the two groups. The experimental group's frequency of use of circumlocutions increased from pretest to immediate posttest to delayed posttest, whereas the control group's frequency of use of circumlocutions decreased from pretest to immediate posttest to delayed posttest. In regard to both groups' frequency of use of fillers and hesitation devices, the experimental group's frequency of use of the strategy increased from pretest to immediate posttest but slightly decreased from immediate posttest to delayed posttest. For the control group, the group's frequency of use of fillers and hesitation devices decreased from pretest to immediate posttest to delayed posttest. In regard to the frequency of use of requests for clarification, the experimental group's frequency of use of the strategy decreased from pretest to immediate posttest to delayed posttest, whereas the control group's frequency of use of requests for clarification increased from pretest to immediate posttest, but it remained nearly the same from immediate posttest to delayed posttest. The findings suggest some potential benefit in the direct teaching of circumlocutions and of fillers and hesitation devices as means of helping learners avoid communication breakdowns.