An Investigation Into The Use Of Communication Strategies Of Chinese EFL Learners At Tertiary Level: Non-test Situation VS. Test Situation

The study of Communication Strategies (CS_s) has made a lot of progress during the last few decades and has remained a potentially fertile source of insight. A large number of empirical studies indicate that CS use seems to interact with such factors as language proficiency level, L1 background, task type, form of language instruction, teaching background, personality and even cognitive styles. But there is little evidence to suggest that communicative situation factor also exerts great influence on the employment of CS by L2 learners. Based on the theory of communicative competence of Canale & Swain (1980, 1983) and Bachman (1990), the present paper reports an empirical research into the interrelationship between Chinese EFL learners' language proficiency and their strategic competence in both non-test situation and test situation.The results indicate that, on the one hand, Chinese EFL learners' CS use in non-test situation accords with that in test situation; but on the other hand, the employment of CS_s in non-test situation differs markedly from that in test situation. It is implied that the surface realization of CS_s used in non-test situation is much more authentic than that in test situation. The implications for language testing and teaching practice are also suggested.