A Study On Chinese EFL Learners' Communication Strategies

In EFL teaching the importance of developing learners' communicative competence is gaining worldwide acknowledgement. There are now more teachers and learners of English as a foreign language in China than in any other country. However, most Chinese EFL learners' communicative competence is still undeveloped. So developing learners' communicative competence is becoming an emergent task for China's ELT. Strategic competence constitutes a major component of communicative competence and largely determines the learners' fluency and conversational skills. But strategic competence is rather neglected in traditional ELT in China. This thesis aims to investigate how Chinese EFL learners use communication strategies to negotiate meaning in conversation and then provide some practical ideas for the development of Chinese EFL learners' strategic competence.The thesis first identifies the nature of communication strategies and offers the classification of them. Then the author explores how Chinese EFL learners use communication strategies to negotiate meaning in conversation. The study involves an empirical experiment into the nature of the relationship between the level of Chinese EFL learners' target language communication competence and their strategic competence. From the experiment the following findings are obtained: 1) The frequency of communication strategies employed by Chinese EFL learners is found to vary according to the level of their communicative competence. 2) Achievement strategies are more frequently employed by the high communicative competence learners whereas reduction strategies are proportionally more used by low communicative competence learners. 3) Achievement strategies and reduction strategies in the communication produce different effects. 4) The language distance between the learners' native language and target language is also an important factor affecting the learners' choice of communication strategies. Based on the findings, the author provides some implications and applications for developing strategic competence in the process of English language teaching such as syllabus design, language testing and training strategic competence. The study will help English teachers and learners understand the nature of communication strategies and strategic competence completely and accurately, in addition, it is practically meaningful for developing the Chinese EFL learners' communicative competence, especially the strategic competence.