A Survey On Non-English Major's Application Of Communication Strategies In Oral Communication In Guilin Colleges

The ultimate goal of learning a foreign language is to gain the ability to communicate in the language you are learning.Therefore,how to cultivate and improve the communicative competence of foreign language learners has become one of the concerns of researchers and foreign language teachers.Due to the limited language proficiency,people often use some circuitous ways to achieve their goals or express their thoughts in the process of oral communication.That is,using communication strategies to fill the gap between limited language knowledge and actual communication needs.It can be seen that cultivating learners? ability to use communicative strategies is one of the important means to improve their communicative competence.In order to solve three problems:(1)What is the overall situation of non-English majors? application of communication strategies in Guilin?(2)What are the differences in the frequency of using communication strategies between high and low proficiency groups?(3)What are the differences in the types of using communication strategies between high and low proficiency groups? This paper employs three research tools: questionnaire,observation method and retrospective interview,and combines some relevant cognitive theories of learning,Levelt?s speech production model and Canale and Swain?s model of communicative competence to conduct investigation and research.The results show that:(1)one of the characteristics of the application of communication strategies for college English learners is the frequent application of reduction strategies,and another feature is the few application of paralinguistic strategies;(2)in the frequency,communication strategies used by low-proficiency subjects significantly outnumber those adopted by high-proficiency subjects;(3)in the types,high-proficiency subjects prefer to adopt achievement strategies and L2-based strategies,while low-proficiency subjects are more dependent on the reduction strategies and L1-based strategies.The results of the survey show some pedagogical implications on learning,teaching and testing:(1)For students,the author believes that more communication strategies should be provided for beginners or low level learners,especially achievement strategies;encouraging learners to communicate with native speakers;providing more opportunities for low level learners and practicing with high level learners at any time and anywhere.(2)For teachers,it is possible to integrate the communicative strategy into the spoken language teaching in accordance with the actual situation of the learners? communication strategies.And systematic training is needed.Specifically,designing some oral communicative activities that are slightly beyond the current language level of learners,so as to encourage learners to use communicative strategies.Teachers can design the spoken language tasks like used in this study to promote the learners to solve the difficulties encountered in communication with the help of various communicative strategies,and ultimately achieve the purpose of communication.(3)Teachers can judge their communicative competence through the application of different language proficiency learners? communication strategies.The conclusion of this research can be summarized as follow:(1)Guilin college English learners mainly using reduction strategies and a variety of achievement strategies to fill lexical gaps when they encounter difficulties in oral communication and thus to achieve their original goal.In addition,what is special is that they frequently use repetition strategy and seldom resort to paralinguistic strategy.(2)There are significant differences in the frequency and types of communication strategies between the high-proficiency learners and the low-proficiency learners.In the frequency,the communication strategies used by low-proficiency learners significantly outnumber those employed by high-proficiency learners.In the types,low-proficiency learners are inclined to use avoidance or reduction strategies,while high-proficiency learners are prone to adopt achievement strategies.Moreover,high-proficiency learners tend to employ significantly more L2-based communication strategies than low-proficiency learners do whereas the latter prefers L1-based communication strategies and repetition strategy.(3)In foreign language learning,Learners should be encouraged to communicate with native speakers and given more chances to practice for only through practice can these strategies be internalized and automatized;In foreign language teaching,teaching communication strategies through the examples and practice can make learners deepen their understanding of the nature,the concepts,the major types and the communicative potential of communication strategies,and eventually improve their awareness of communication strategies;In foreign language testing,the notion of communication strategies could be useful for evaluating foreign language learners? communicative performance since it suggests an alternative way to assess learner?s communicative competence.