On Communication Strategies And Ways To Foster Strategic Competence

Since the early 1970's, much research has been conducted on communication strategies, the devices used to overcome the difficulty in expressing an intended meaning. It is suggested that effective use of communication strategies is of crucial importance for second language learners to compensate their limited language resources and avoid breakdowns in communication. Since most Chinese L2 learners find it difficult to convey their meaning and the need to improve their communicative skills is really urgent, it is necessary to explore the practical use of communication strategies in English teaching. This paper aims at emphasizing the importance of communication strategies in developing L2 learners' communicative competence. Based on a research project, this researcher examined 56 high school students' actual beliefs and use of communication strategies through a questionaire survey and interviews. Findings obtained indicate that there is a general lack of understanding about communication strategies among the students and their use of communication strategies is affected mainly by learning situations, cultural background, current testing system and insufficience of strategic competence. In addition, the importance of teachers' role in strategy training is taken into account and how to give communication stragety instruction is analyzed in order to achieve the improvement of students' strategic competence. The paper also suggests some questions for further research on commumcation strategies.