A Study On Communication Strategies Used By Senior Middle School Students In Their Oral English

The term of communication strategies (CS) was coined by Selinker (1972) in Interlanguage to describe the sources of errors made by second or foreign language learners. In Canale & Swain's framework of communicative competence, they regarded the use of strategic competence as communication strategies, "verbal and non-verbal strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence" (Canale & Swain, 1980:30). As one of the three components of communicative competence, communication strategies are particularly crucial to foreign language learners, because they are attempts to cope with imperfect knowledge, to handle breakdowns in communication, and to keep communication channels open.This thesis reports a study on senior middle school students' overall attitude toward and their use of communication strategies, the relationship between the two, as well as the use of CS in a task of describing an object. It also attempts to find out differences in students' use of CS across different proficiency levels and the main factors that affect the use of CS.The present study employed both quantitative and qualitative designs. In the quantitative part, it examined 160 students of three proficiency levels from two senior middle schools through a questionnaire. In the qualitative part, it examined 15 subjects through interviews and 6 of them through a task of object description with retrospection.The major findings from the study are as follows:(1) The subjects tend to believe in the important role of achievement strategies (ACHS) in oral communicative competence. They as a whole do not show a definitely positive or negative attitude toward reduction strategies (RDS). As proficiency level increases, the attitude changes from an indefinite attitude to a slightly negative attitude. They also tend to take a negative attitude to L1-based strategies (L1S). No significant difference exists, however, in the students' attitude toward ACHS and L1S across the three levels.(2) According to CS use, the subjects use RDS most frequently, L1S least frequently and ACHS in between. Senior One students use more significantly more RDS and L1S than students of senior three. No significant difference exists, though, in theuse of ACHS across the three levels.(3) The students' attitude toward and use of RDS are positively correlated but not statistically significant. The attitude toward and use of L1S and the three types of ACHS (including time-gaining strategies, non-linguistic strategies and co-operative strategies) reach a significantly positive correlation across the three levels. In terms of a paired sample T-test, the students' attitude toward and use of RDS as well as ACHS are significantly different; the attitude and use of L1S are significantly different between students of senior one and senior two.(4) Four factors are found to affect CS use. Proficiency level affects the use of RDS, L1S, and two types of ACHS: L2-based and time-gaining strategies. The classroom learning situation affects the use of RDS and ACHS. The students' attitude toward ACHS and L1S affects their use of corresponding strategies. The students' insufficient knowledge and skills constrain their use of ACHS.In light of the findings, a systematic instruction should be slotted into English courses to teach and train students in the use of CS in practice. Both teachers and students should raise their meta-communicative awareness about CS use. Authentic listening and speaking materials should be introduced into classroom instruction to exemplify the strategy use. More real communication and real-life-like classroom activities should be brought into classroom to develop students' strategic competence. Teachers' assessment must be supportive to the use of CS. Cross-cultural knowledge should be provided to help students to build up a referential system to the use of CS. Thus students can be assisted to produce more fluent English and promote their interlanguage development.