The Use and Benefit of Communication Strategies

This is my assignment for my MA TESOL, module 1 for those colleagues and students who expressed an interest in the final version. Thanks to everyone who shared their time and opinions.

1.0  Introduction

Communication Strategy (CS) – a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared. (Tarone 1980:419)

Communication strategies have been defined differently over the past 40 years since their first appearance in ELT literature.  The most widely quoted in the literature discussed here is Tarone (1980), whose definition covers both inadequate linguistic and sociolinguistic structures. As a result of these differing definitions, several taxonomies have been suggested with a greater or lesser degree of detail (Dornyei and Scott 1997, Dornyei 1995), although as Bialystok mentions, there is a great deal of overlap, and taxonomies ‘differ primarily in terminology and overall categorizing’(Bialystok cited in Dornyei 1995).

Besides disagreement over what constitutes a communication strategy, views also differ over whether communication strategies should or even can be taught. As Willems points out ‘… [strategies] cannot always be identified unambiguously… because they may be unmarked’ (1987:352) and how can we teach what we cannot identify? However, if we assume that strategic competence is an integral component of communicative ability (Canale 1980), and that this in turn is the goal of CLT, we cannot neglect its significance in our classroom.

In this small study I hope to discover which strategies are used and which are neglected by my students. I expect to see a difference in the frequency and the type of strategy used by children as opposed to adults. As they are both exam classes, I hope there will be an awareness of strategies and their usefulness. I will attempt to prove through my review of relevant literature that communication strategies are both beneficial and teachable, despite all the disagreements over taxonomies. I will come to a conclusion about the implications for my own future teaching.

2.0 Literature Review

In this section I present current definitions of communication strategies, as well as their classification and benefit for learners in the communicative classroom. I ask whether students should be aware of the strategies they use and whether it is possible to teach such strategies. Finally I highlight the significance of the Critical Period Hypothesis for the learners in my study.

2.1 Communication Strategies as part of the Communicative Approach

In the introduction, I quoted Tarone’s (1980) definition of communication strategies. Let us now compare it to Brown’s statement that we teach ‘for the ultimate goal of communication with other speakers of the second language’ (Brown 1994:226). If it is true, as I believe, that we value successful communication over, although not to the exclusion of, all else, then we must facilitate communication by teaching not only linguistic features, but also strategies to cope when linguistic resources are not sufficient. As Willems states, ‘the exact nature … of the communicative situations … is highly unpredictable’ (1987:351). Strategic competence is one of the four sub-divisions of communicative competence (Canale and Swain 1980) and as such is inextricable from the communicative classroom.

2.2 Taxonomies and Classifications

            For a speech act to be considered a communication strategy, Tarone suggests the following criteria:

(1) a speaker desires to communicate meaning x to a listener;

(2) the speaker believes the linguistic or sociolinguistic structure desired to communicate

meaning x is unavailable, or is not shared with the listener; thus

(3) the speaker chooses to

(a) avoid-not attempt to communicate meaning x-or

(b) attempt alternate means to communicate meaning x. The speaker stops

trying alternatives when it seems clear to the speaker that there is shared

meaning. (Tarone 1981:288)

Such strategies should not be confused with production strategies, because, as seen in the above definition, an interlocutor is essential. Many modern exams of oral proficiency involve a dialogue between a pair of candidates, eg. Cambridge Main Suite, and since communication strategies are always interactional, there is a great value in encouraging exam candidates to be aware of them and to put them into practice.

Broadly speaking, communication strategies can be divided into achievement strategies and avoidance or reduction strategies, common examples of which agreed upon by most researchers are the following (for detailed definitions see Appendix I):

Achievement Strategies

·         Paraphrase

·         Language-switch

·         Appeal for help

Reduction Strategies

·         Topic Avoidance

·         Message Abandonment

According to Brown, ‘Strategies vary intraindividually; each of us has a whole host of possible ways to solve a particular problem and we choose one – or several of those in sequence – for a given problem’ (1997:104). However, it can be agreed that an over-reliance on reduction strategies is ultimately a bad habit, whereas it is generally accepted that students who are prepared to take risks with their learning and communicate even without being sure of the accuracy of their speech are more likely to succeed. Willems (1987) emphasises that teachers should be aware of the existence of reduction strategies, even if they are not immediately identifiable.

            2.3 Benefits

Dornyei and Scott (1997:183) suggest that the need for communication strategies comes from the following three issues:

·         Learners have insufficient language resources to express their message

·         Learners have insufficient resources to cope with the interlocutor’s language

·         L2 speakers require longer processing time.

However, opinions differ. According to Lightbown and Spada (2006:31), ‘some researchers have suggested that the use of these cognitive skills – so valuable for so many kinds of tasks – can actually interfere with language acquisition”. Tarone (1980) agrees when she says that learning may not always happen as a result of the use of communication strategies. Yet the following points demonstrate that there is much evidence to support the use and the teaching of communication strategies:

                                i.            “Learners seem to think that there must be a “correct” way of saying what they have in mind. If they do not have this correct formulation at their disposal they prefer saying nothing.” (Willems 1987:354) Most teachers will have experienced this while teaching adult classes. As Lightbown and Spada put it, “Children are willing to make an attempt with language even if they are not correct, while adults will hesitate and try to be grammatically accurate before they venture a comment” (1996:31). Therefore according to Cook (1997) cited in Manchon (1999:15), a feature of L2 learning is the inability to complete tasks fully, which leads us to the next point.

                              ii.            Since teachers are attempting to encourage the best possible achievement of tasks, the use of communication strategies motivates weaker students as they can complete a greater portion of tasks even without full grammatical or lexical resources. (Willems 1987)

                            iii.            Willems (1987:354) also mentions research which shows that ‘street-learners’ employ communication strategies more effectively than ‘classroom-learners’. Since classroom learning does not naturally provide full practice in these strategies, teachers must consciously include strategy training to compensate for this lack.

                            iv.            Adults may possess transferable knowledge about communication strategies in their L1, but young learners are still developing this awareness and therefore can benefit from explicit teaching (Willems 1987).

                              v.            Knowledge of strategies leads to autonomy, and autonomy is ‘one of the most important goals of language training’ (Brown 1996:124). Dickenson (1992, 1993) cited in Manchon (1999) states that three out of five features of autonomous learners are connected to strategy use.

Based on these reasons we conclude that it is beneficial to use appropriate communication strategies, but how should they be taught?

2.4 Student Awareness and Teachability

In contrast to the wealth of research on the taxonomies of communication strategies, little has been said about how to actually teach them (Manchon 1999). Tarone (1981) alternately defines them as ‘a systematic attempt’ or ‘a conscious attempt’ to compensate for linguistic difficulties. Faerch and Kasper quoted in Yule and Tarone (1991) suggested that these strategies are potentially conscious, which seems a more likely definition.

However, if learners are conscious of their attempts, then it must be possible to specify these strategies and then teach them. Some researchers claim it is frequency of input, not awareness of it, which induces learning (Lightbown and Spada 1996:45), yet others emphasise the necessity of raising students’ awareness of strategies to foster acquisition.

‘Richard Schmidt (1990, 2001) proposed the ‘noticing hypothesis’ suggesting that nothing is learned until it has been noticed. Noticing in itself does not result in acquisition, but it is the essential starting point.’ (Lightbown and Spada 1996:44)

As Dornyei (1995) points out, communication strategies are also employed in L1, but the range will necessarily be different and so we cannot expect logical transfer of strategies to the L2, although others disagree (Canale and Swain 1980). It is an important point that some strategies may be more easily taught than others. Dornyei (1995:62) mentions that there has been research into specific strategies, but research into all strategies has by no means been thorough or complete. Of course it goes without saying that certain strategies such as message abandonment or topic avoidance are undesirable and should not be taught.

In Chapter 6 of Lightbown and Spada (1996) it is suggested that certain linguistic elements can be taught at any moment in a learner’s development, eg. lexical items, while others can only follow on after a particular sequence. The use of most communication strategies is possible from the early stages of learning, and indeed arguably is most necessary then as linguistic resources are at their most limited. Dornyei (1995:63) offers a useful list of six methods by way of which we can teach strategies. (See Discussion section for details)

2.5 Critical Period Hypothesis

The critical period hypothesis states that there is a predetermined period of life when it is easier to learn a language (Brown 1996:52), usually assumed to be around puberty. In this study I have chosen to investigate two groups which vary greatly in age and which therefore presents the question whether younger children use fewer strategies than adults as they are potentially better language learners. ‘Older learners draw on their problem solving and metalinguistic abilities precisely because they can no longer access the innate language acquisition ability they had as young children’ (Lightbown and Spada 1996:31).

3.0 Method

This section presents the participants, their tasks and the collection of results.

3.1 Participants

The participants in this study are two groups of learners who study twice a week long-term in a private language centre. Group 1 are 9-11 year-olds studying for the Cambridge ESOL Flyers exam, while Group 2 are adults preparing for Cambridge Advanced. Despite the differences in age, maturity and other factors, both groups are preparing for a Cambridge exam and therefore need appropriate communication strategies to ensure that they complete the spoken tasks. They were recorded within their regular lesson. Students were recorded working in pairs to allow for the use of L1 if desired.

3.2 Task 1

Students were asked to tell a story based on a series of six pictures (Appendix II). For both groups the task could be achieved with, but not restricted to, familiar vocabulary. In order to eliminate possible personal influence or bias because of knowing the students well, I chose not to create my own tasks for these students, but instead to use pre-prepared tasks which had already been used for a somewhat similar study by Tarone and Swierzbin (2009, pp. 163-164).

3.3 Task 2

Students were asked to compare two photographs (Appendix III) in a minimum of ten ways and to speculate about who might live in the houses illustrated. As with task 1, the materials come from Tarone and Swierzbin, 2009. This involved a considerable number of unknown elements such as parts of a house, eg. for the children: roof, steps; for the adults: porch, shutters, blinds. Students were given a minimum time limit (3 mins.) to ensure that there would be sufficient data, but no upper limit, to allow maximum collection of data.

3.4 Task 3

The adult group were given questionnaires (Appendix VII) and asked to mark which communication strategies they believe they use often, sometimes or never. The aim was to correlate students’ beliefs with the results of the study in order to assess their awareness of their strategy use.

The children were not asked to complete this questionnaire for the following reasons:

·         The time needed to explain the task would have been detrimental to their study programme.

·         The task was judged to be too cognitively difficult for this age group.

·         Students would give answers which they consider would please the teacher rather than tell the truth.

3.5 Data collection

Students were voice-recorded and the results for tasks 1 and 2 were recorded in a tally table (Appendix IV) which shows the frequency of each communication strategy among the children, the adults and the two groups combined.

The results of the questionnaires were compared with the findings of the recording and recorded in graphs (Appendix VIII).

The taxonomy chosen (Appendix I) comes from Dornyei and Scott’s (1997) summative table of various taxonomies. I preferred this taxonomy for its detail and pedagogical interest, but I chose to use a simpler and clearer taxonomy (Dornyei 1995) on which to base the student perception questionnaires, which will allow both the teacher (myself) and the students to discuss and learn from the results.

4.0 Results

Using Dornyei’s (1995) taxonomy to classify strategies as either achievement strategies or reduction strategies, we see that the overwhelming majority of strategies used by the students fall into the category of achievement. In fact, of the 64 instances of a communication strategy being used, 55 were achievement strategies and 9 reduction. This is, however, to be expected, given that there are only 2 reduction strategies in the taxonomy.

The adult group chose message abandonment, paraphrasing and code-switching to cope with their communication problems. There was also considerable use of approximation, restructuring, self-repair, verbal strategy markers and direct appeals for help.

The commonest strategies used by the group of children were message abandonment and code-switching. Paraphrasing and restructuring were also among the most frequently used.

Many strategies in the taxonomy were not used by either group, and so are not displayed in the graph of results. Such strategies include response and some form of clarification, mumbling, omission and own accuracy checking.

In the course of two tasks over approximately 20 minutes there were 44 instances of communication strategies being used among the adult group, while the children used a strategy 22 times. As there were thirteen adults in this study, on average each adult used a strategy 3.38 times, and the 5 children observed had an average of 4.4. Of course, these averages do not give an accurate picture of each student’s ability, as some students used a wide variety of techniques to cope with their lacking language skills while others used none at all.

It is interesting to note that those young learners deemed in the teacher’s (myself) subjective opinion to be weaker students used many more strategies than their more capable counterparts, while in the adult group the reverse was true. The weakest adult, who often struggles to express himself, did not show any examples of communication strategies during the test period.

Since the students were voice-recorded rather than on video, it is impossible to tell whether there was use of mime as a strategy, however no extended pauses where gestures could be filling the gap, so we can assume that use of mime is minimal. If is used at all, it is not effective, as the interlocutor at no point guesses the speaker’s message.

If we compare what students believe their use of strategies to be and the results of the study, we see that the students are by no means aware of their performance. Student’s A and B (Appendix VIII) were the most realistic in the appraisal of their strategies, while most students have probably marked strategies as ‘often’ because they know or feel that they are important, rather than because they actually are aware of their use.

5.0 Discussion

            4.1 Achievement vs. Reduction Strategies

Willems (1987:354) states that reduction strategies are ‘a major obstacle to language development’, so it is pleasing to note the decided preference among the students for achievement strategies. However, it is alarming that students choose to break off their message so frequently, rather than attempt another means of communication. Message abandonment was commonest among the children, which points logically to the fact discussed in the Review, that they are still developing these strategies in the L1, as well as to the need to expand and encourage their use of achievement strategies instead.

It is interesting to note that the adult group employed strategies such as use of fillers, retrieval, self-repair, verbal strategy markers and direct appeals for help, all of which require quite conscious effort, showing that they are aware of the potential failure to communicate accurately and desire to solve this problem immediately. The children’s complete lack of repair strategies may point to their dismissal of accuracy as important to communication as long as communication takes place. This age group can still be somewhat described as ‘selfish’ learners; that is, they prefer speaking to listening to others. This is illustrated in their rejection of strategies such as appeals for help, comprehension checking etc. to concentrate on their own choice of words.

            4.2 Strategies and their Benefits

            The following strategies were used by one or both groups of students. Willems (1987:156) states that the hierarchy of which to teach most is clear. Nonetheless, here I elaborate on chosen strategies and why they would be beneficial to my learners.

·         Message Abandonment – undesirable reduction strategy leading only to a failure to communicate.

·         Message Replacement – undesirable reduction strategy leading to a potentially incorrect or incomplete message.

·         Paraphrase – as it is impossible to know every word in a language, this strategy is invaluable, and can be fostered with activities such as Taboo.

·         Approximation and All-purpose words – will not demonstrate a very high level of lexis, but can be used as a stop-gap solution when paraphrase seems unnecessarily long-winded.

·         Word-coinage – accuracy fails but knowledge of certain grammatical and linguistic features of the L2 is demonstrated.

·         Restructuring – although less desirable than paraphrase, this strategy at least avoids outright grammatical error which would be marked down in an exam.

·         Literal translation, Foreignising and Code-switching – undesirable and only possible if the L1 and L2 share many common characteristics.

·         Use of similar-sounding words – a strategy used even by L1 speakers but which only aids communication flow and may not aid clarity.

·         Retrieval and Self-repair – if a candidate is aware of his mistakes, it is recommended to repair them instantly where possible.

·         Use of fillers and Verbal strategy markers – useful strategies for exam situations in which the candidate is obliged to speak and yet needs time to formulate his ideas.

·         Direct or indirect appeal for help – given that an interlocutor is always present and that communication is by nature an interactive activity, students should not be afraid to use whichever resources are available to them to provide assistance.

·         Asking for confirmation, Expressing non-understanding, Comprehension check and Response: repair – a lack of understanding is not always the speaker’s fault, so it is important to state when communication has failed and try to repair it before the misunderstanding becomes a problem.

At the same time it is important to remember Willem’s (1987:152) warning that communication strategies must not be used at the cost of accuracy.

           

            4.3 Awareness

As we have seen, if a student is conscious of a strategy, he can choose to employ it, therefore awareness-raising is a desirable classroom aim. Dornyei and Scott (1997) mention that consciousness might many different aspects of the same idea, but in this study we are concerned only with students’ awareness of their chosen strategy. Dornyei and Scott refer to Gass and Selinker (1994), who pointed out that frequent use of particular strategies leads to automisation and students may therefore fail to even realise which strategy they are employing, so it is to some extent expected that there will be differences between students’ perception of the strategies they use and the reality.

Strategic competence is tested in Cambridge exams. Students preparing for Flyers are required to answer questions using whatever language they have at their disposal. Although, of course, accuracy is tested, if a student is unable to find the correct word, he will at least be given some credit for communicating however he can, as long as he can convey his message. At CAE, students must keep dialogues going for set time periods. This may require strategies such as the use of fillers to ‘buy’ time as they search for the best collocation or paraphrase when they are unsure of the exact word necessary. They are also explicitly tested on interaction skills, which might require comprehension checking or asking for confirmation, not to mention asking for repetition or even feigning understanding if their fellow candidate is perhaps not expressing himself clearly.

Adult learners on an exam preparation course will certainly be aware of problems in communication, as they are trained to complete very specific tasks with a clear end goal. They are aware of the need for a strategy to overcome this problem, and they are also aware of certain undesirable strategies, such as translation. It would be interesting to investigate how many strategies they are aware exist.

Young learners are much less likely to be conscious of the strategies they use, or even of the range of possibilities, but if strategy training is to be encouraged among adults, there seems no reason not to apply the same policy to younger groups.

4.4 Implications for the Future

According to Hedge (2000:53) ‘Second language acquisition research suggests that the exposure of learners to language provided at a point of need and in a meaningful context which they have created for themselves in trying to express something is a good situation for acquisition’. This statement can just as well be applied to the teaching and learning of strategies as to grammar and vocabulary and justifies a more consistent approach. Although Canale and Swain (1980:27) may not agree on the teachability of communication strategies, they do say that strategic competence is as important as grammatical competence. Nakatani (2005:77) agrees when he interprets Bachman and Palmer (1996) as saying that foreign language learning requires knowledge of metacognitive strategies.

A very useful list of classroom procedures for teachers to follow in the teaching of communication strategies is given by Dornyei (1995:63):

·         Raising awareness

·         Encouraging risk-taking

·         Providing models

·         Highlighting cross-cultural features

·         Teaching strategies directly

·         Providing practice in strategy use

Hedge points out that learners are most likely to use communication strategies in situations which ‘push them to the limit of their language resources’ (2000:266). This is a helpful indicator for the teacher of whether the chosen activity is really encouraging learning or simply providing familiar practice.

Johnson (1995:166) states that ‘extending classroom communicative competence means enabling second language students to develop a broader repertoire of linguistic and interactional competencies so that they can successfully participate in a wider range of classroom events.’ This means that in order for the students in the study to succeed in their current goal of passing Cambridge ESOL examinations they must be given explicit and regular practice in noticing and employing interactional achievement strategies, regardless of their age or level.

           

5.0 Conclusion

The aim of this study was to judge the type and benefit of communication strategies among my students. I have learnt that my children choose to abandon their message almost a quarter of the time, which dictates that future teaching must involve explicit practice of more desirable achievement strategies. I have seen that adult learners are aware of many types of strategy, but are not always sure of their own performance, and therefore they will benefit from their attention being drawn to strategy use in communicative activities.

This study shows the potential of further research into this area. It would be interesting to record a sequence of at least eight lessons covering a much wider range of task types. This would create opportunities for a greater variety of strategies. I will show my results to my adult students, which should lead to interesting discussions, hopefully encouraging them to reject reduction strategies for more beneficial achievement strategies.