Communication Strategies of Chinese EFL Learners - Literature review Example

? A Study of Communication Strategies Employed by Chinese EFL Learners in Oral Contexts Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………….2 1.1 Definitions………………………………………………………………...…...2 1.2 Research Questions…………………………………………………………....5 2. Literature review…………………………………………………………………..6 2.1 Canale and Swain’s Framework of Communicative Competence………….…6 2.2 Classifications of Communication Strategies and Elicitation Methods of Communication Strategies…………………………………………………….….7 2.3 CSs use and Learners’ Target Language Proficiency………………………..11 2.3.1 Significance of Training CSs in the Class…………..………………….13 2.3.2 Factors affecting learners' choice of CSs……………………………....14 2.4 Communication Problems of Chinese EFL Learners………………………..15 References……………………………………………………………………………17 1. Introduction For communication to take place, a message needs to be transferred from the sender to the receiver. But sometimes the communication process may break down when the intended message fails to be sent to the receiver. In those situations, the speaker will try to solve the problem and re-establish the conversation by adopting certain techniques. These techniques are commonly known as “communication strategies” (CSs). It was a term firstly coined by Selinker (1972) in his paper on “Interlanguage”. Selinker considered these strategies as one of the five processes central to second language learning. All language users need communication strategies to help them convey their intended meaning. Due to limited target language (TL) knowledge, communication breakdowns happen more often to second language (L2) learners than to native speakers, thus the former use CSs more frequently than the latter. Communication breakdowns apply to learners’ four language skills, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these, breakdowns happening in learners’ oral production have been most studied. The time constraints of naturally-occurring conversations impose an extremely heavy burden on these learners, forcing them to retrieve appropriate TL items from their memory and respond quickly. As claimed by Wagner and Firth (1997), “CS is a very prominent element in speech production and therefore an important element in natural discourse” (p. 342). 1.1 Definitions In the past three decades, a great amount of scholarly research and discussion has been generated on the nature, taxonomies and use of CSs (Dornyei and Scott, 1997). For so many years, however, the definition of CSs has still remained controversial. Although Selinker was the first to put forward the term “communication strategy”, he did not dig deep into the nature of such strategies. The first ones to provide a definition of CS were Tarone and her associates (1976), who defined it as “a systematic attempt by the learner to express or decode meaning in the target language, in situations where the appropriate systematic target language rules have not been formed” (p. 78). Moreover, Tarone (1980) emphasized that “CS relate to a mutual attempt of interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared” (p. 420). This definition introduces an interactional perspective. In Tarone’s words, “communication strategies are seen as tools used in a joint negotiation of meaning where both interlocutors are attempting to agree as to a communicative goal” (p. 420). Simply put, it means that both parties in the communication process try to compromise on meaning by adjusting their perspectives to see just one meaning both of them understand, and this may include some repair mechanisms in the breakdown of communication. If those repair mechanisms were applied to “clarify intended meaning rather than simply correct linguistic form” (p. 424), Tarone considers them communication strategies. Similarly, Corder (1983) thought it as “a systematic technique employed by a speaker to express his meaning when faced with some difficulty. Difficulty in this definition is taken to refer uniquely to the speaker’s inadequate command of the language used in the interaction” (p. 16). Both of these definitions utilized the word “systematic”, but the meaning of “systematic” is somewhat ambiguous. Canale (1983) extended the concept of CS, proposing that CSs involve “Strategies to compensate for breakdowns due to limiting conditions in actual communication or to insufficient competence in one or more of the other areas of communicative competence, and strategies to enhance the effectiveness of communication” (p. 11-12). By using this definition, Canale narrowed down the scope of CSs to the phase of speech production. Contrary to the above interactional view, a broader definition of CSs was proposed by F?rch and Kasper (1983a), who adopted a psycholinguistic approach and considered CSs as “potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal” (p. 36). According to them, there are two phases included in speech production: the planning phase and the execution phase. For a communicative goal to be successfully achieved, a plan is firstly created in the planning phase, and is then correctly implemented in the execution phase. The speaker selects what he considers as the most appropriate rules and items to execute a plan and such execution will lead to verbal behaviour intended to meet the original goal. Communication strategies are considered to be a constituent of the planning phase. When second language learners face any problem, they resort either to avoidance behaviour (adopting avoidance strategies), or to achievement behaviour (adopting achievement strategies). They defined communication strategies by placing them in their model of speech production, in which their function may be characterised through the relationships between ‘processes’ and ‘plans’. Faerch and Kasper (1983a) found that in the planning phase, language learners retrieve items from the relevant linguistic system. The product of the planning process is a plan that controls the execution phase. The execution phase consists of psychological processes. When non-native speakers of a target language encounter a problem during the course of communication, due to the lack of linguistic knowledge at either the planning or the execution phase of speech production, they produce a plan to overcome the problem. For them, communication strategies can be placed “within the planning phase…within the area of the planning process and the resulting plan” (1983a, p. 30). F?rch and Kasper (1983a) conceive plans as being of three types: (1). those which are always consciously employed; (2). those which are never consciously employed; (3). those which to some language users and/or in some situations may be consciously used and in others, unconsciously used. F?rch and Kasper (1983a) further claimed that communication problems can not only be worked out via the mutual attempt of two interlocutors, but also be resolved through the speaker’s own effort. For example, a speaker may opt to describe the characteristics of an object when he or she does not know or cannot remember the name of the object. This prompted the need for more research about learners’ cognitive competencies such as communication strategies in deriving solutions for lexical problems (Poulisse, 1987; Poulisse, Bongaerts, & Kellerman, 1987). Among the above various definitions, I am in favour of F?rch and Kasper’s definition, because it traces back to the origin of communication strategies and gives a systematic explanation of how and why CSs are created and applied, rather than simply focusing on the phenomena themselves. In addition, in their definition, F?rch and Kasper neither restrict communication strategies to the negotiation of meaning between two interlocutors, nor do they restrict their use to non-native speakers. Therefore, I will adopt the definition given by F?rch and Kasper to guide me through this study, since a major source of concerns is the “potentially conscious plans” that mainly arise during the speech planning phase, which is not directly accessible. This study will use verbal report techniques (i.e. eliciting learners’ underlying cognitive process through retrospection) to gain insights into L2 learners’ CSs use. Having chosen the definition and the appropriate research method, another point worth mentioning is that this study deals solely with communication strategies, not learning strategies, because people may sometimes confuse the notion of learning strategies with communication strategies. As Bialystok (1983) defined it, learning strategies “refer to activities in which the learner may engage for the purpose of improving target language competence” (p. 101), therefore “the basic motivation is not to communicate but to learn” (Tarone, 1981, p. 295). In contrast, CSs are solely for the purpose of communicating meaning. 1.2 Research Questions In this paper, I will first describe how researchers have defined and classified communication strategies. I will then demonstrate why CSs are important for L2 learners. After that, I will focus on a group of Chinese EFL learners and use a communication task to elicit their use of CSs. The data from this study will then be analysed and discussed. Finally, I will describe some areas in which further research is needed. The following research questions are intended to be answered in this study: What are the different types of communication strategies used by first year university EFL learners in an English medium university in China when they are doing information gap task? What, if any, are the major differences between the use of communication strategies by high versus low English proficiency groups in the target population? 2. Literature review 2.1 Canale and Swain’s Framework of Communicative Competence To begin with, it is important to figure out why it is necessary to investigate into the use of Communication Strategies. For this, we should bring in the notion of “Communicative Competence”. Communicative competence, according to the widely cited framework proposed by Canale and Swain (1980), covers four main aspects. The first one is Linguistic competence or one’s adeptness in the use of language codes. These include grammatical rules, vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling, etc. The second aspect of communicative competence is the Sociolinguistic competence or the mastery of the socio-cultural code of language use. This includes appropriate application of vocabulary, register, politeness, and style in a given situation. It also refers to the acceptable usage within the speech community, dealing with what is socially appropriate in terms of communication. Thirdly, the Discourse competence refers to one’s adeptness to put together language structures to come up with various kinds of meaningful material such as letters, speeches, poems, essays, etc. which have a coherent flow. Lastly, Strategic competence consists of “verbal and non-verbal CSs that may be called into action to compensate for breakdown in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence” (p. 30). This enables people to overcome challenges experienced during the knowledge of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies which can enable us to overcome difficulties when communication breakdowns occur. Thus, it enhances the efficiency of communication. Foreign language learners usually employ strategic competence because it involves strategies that they can use when they find communication difficult. Competence is determined by one’s mastery of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be utilized for two main reasons. First, strategic competence is called upon to compensate for breakdowns in communication. Such breakdowns may result from limitations in actual communication like inability to recall something or insufficiency in one’s competence in one or more areas of communication. The other reason for using strategic competence is to enhance the effectiveness of communication through various methods such as deliberately slowing down speech in order to be understood or to create a rhetorical effect. Other examples of strategies used are paraphrasing, avoidance of difficulties, requests for repetition, simplification or clarification (Canale and Swain, 1980). Canale and Swain’s main contribution to communicative competence theory is the integration of communication strategies that people use in order to cope with communication difficulties. 2.2 Classifications of Communication Strategies and Elicitation Methods of Communication Strategies From the introduction part, we have seen how different researchers, adopting different theoretical approaches, could generate various definitions of the term “communication strategies”. The conceptual differences of CS researchers have led further to the complexities of classifications of CSs. After reviewing a number of previous studies on CSs, a variety of taxonomies of CSs has been found (Tarone, 1977; F?rch & Kasper, 1983; Bialystok, 1983; Bongaerts and Poulisse, 1989; Dornyei and Scott, 1995a, 1995b). Among these, Tarone’s (1977) taxonomy is one of the earliest. She distinguished five main categories, namely avoidance (including topic avoidance and message abandonment), paraphrase (including approximation, word coinage and circumlocution), conscious transfer (including literal translation and language switch), appeal for assistance and mime. Although being one of the oldest, Tarone’s taxonomy is still considered as the most influential one (Dornyei and Scott, 1997) because several researches that followed based their CS studies on it. Six years later, F?rch and Kasper (1983) published an edited volume, Strategies in Interlanguage Communication, which collected many of the major CS related papers in the 1970s and 1980s. In their own contribution, Faerch and Kasper categorized CSs into two types: achievement strategies and reduction strategies. The former enables learners to deal with the problem directly by coming up with an alternative action (F?rch and Kasper, 1983), whereas the latter allows learners to avoid solving communication problems and give up or replace the original communicative goal. In the same year, inspired by Tarone’s taxonomy, Bialystok (1983) developed a new taxonomy based on the source of information used by language learners, which drew distinctions among three main categories of CSs, namely the L1-based strategies (based on first language), L2-based strategies (based on second language) and non-linguistic strategies. L1-based strategies include switching, foreignising and literal translation. Language switch is the “insertion of a word or a phrase in a language other than the target language, usually the learner’s native language”, whereas foreignising is the creation of non-existent or inappropriate target language items “by applying L2 morphology and/or phonology to L1 lexical items” (Bialystok and Frohlich, 1980, p. 10). In the 1980s, Kellerman, Bongaerts & Poulisse conducted a series of the most comprehensive projects on communication strategies to date. Done at the University of Nijmegen (Netherlands), they claimed that “the study of communication strategies should reach beyond description to prediction and explanation” (Kellerman et al., 1990, p.164). Criticizing early taxonomies for emphasizing linguistic form resulting from a strategy than on the process leading to the use of such strategies, the Nijmegen group aimed to come up with a process-based taxonomy of CS. They designed it to be parsimonious or having less categories, generalisable or usable across speakers, tasks, languages and levels of proficiency and psychologically plausible that can replace the existing taxonomies (Kellerman & Bialystok, 1997). With the belief that CSs are mental processes, the Nijmegen group purported to investigate cognitive processes that underlie strategic language usage. Focusing on the surface structures of strategic language behaviour only would result in taxonomies with doubtful validity (Kellerman et al., 1990). Hence, they followed a process-oriented classification of CSs by dividing them into conceptual strategies and linguistic strategies. Under the holistic strategy, the language user relies on a referent similar to the target referent, for example, shirt for clothes, piano for musical instrument. The referent represents something from one selected category (other examples: apple for fruit, cabbage for vegetable, etc.) On the other hand, an analytic strategy uses a “conceptual analysis of the originally intended concept” (Poulisse, 1990, p. 61). The language user uses more descriptive language to refer to the intended word, like saying “a talking bird” for parrot or “one who lives in the mountain alone” for hermit. The linguistic strategy sees the language user exploiting knowledge of rule systems of languages he is familiar with and the insights he holds regarding the correspondences between the rule systems of different languages (Bongaerts & Poulisse, 1989). Two sub-types fall under linguistic strategy. One is morphological creativity or the use of the target language’s morphological rules in creating new words. The other is the strategy of transfer, meaning he transfers or translates words from one language to another. This is also known as ‘literal translation’ or ‘foreignising’ (ibid.). Dornyei and Scott’s (1995a, 1995b) taxonomy was the most extended one. They reviewed much of the earlier research and tried to take account of earlier taxonomies, and finally came out with a result containing a detailed list of 32 types of CSs. Dornyei (1995) suggested the addition of stalling or time-gaining strategies like the use of pause fillers or hesitation gambits in the repertoire of communication strategies. Such strategies do not reflect language deficiency in the language user, but instead, help him gain time while coping with a communication difficulty while keeping the lines of communication open. These pause fillers are considered important strategies although not really as problem-solving tools. These provide conditions for achieving “mutual understanding: preventing breakdowns and keeping the communication channel open” (Dornyei and Scott, 1997, p. 198). So far it should be pointed out that almost all of the above taxonomies represented the communication strategies exclusively in terms of oral production, indicating that oral communication is the most important part of people’s communication activities. In order to analyze the use of communication strategies in speech production, CS researchers have tried many different ways to elicit data from language learners. Elicitation methods include picture reconstruction task, the subjects are asked to give detailed descriptions of a picture, according to which a native speaker reconstructs the picture (Bialystok and Frohlich, 1980); narration, subjects are instructed to retell a story (Dechert, 1983; Raupach, 1983); instruction, subjects are instructed by the researcher in a non-verbal action to conduct a certain task, and they could ask as many clarification questions as they like (Wagner, 1983); and interview, the subjects are interviewed by a native speaker (Raupach, 1983). In describing pictures as a learning task, the learner is expected to describe the picture for the listener to select the appropriate picture matching the description (Bialystok, 1983). There are restrictions imposed for both listener and speaker in order for the language being learned to be elicited properly (Green, 1995). For example, as much as possible, the reconstructor is refrained from speaking (Bialystok, 1983). Also, the listener was not permitted to clarify any unclear descriptions (Yule and Tarone, 1990). Another restriction may also be imposed on the speakers “who were asked to try to convey the items to their interlocutors without using the exact target word” (Paribakht, 1985, p.134). Bialystok (1990) designed a game-like task of pairs of subjects assigned as “director” and “matcher”. The director is asked to describe her board to the matcher while the matcher reproduces the order in the director’s board as he understands it. Other ways of eliciting narrative-like speech are language learners asked to describe related series of drawings (Dechert, 1983; Green, 1995) or to retell a story already heard in their native language (e.g. Bongaerts and Poulisse, 1989). Asking learners to give a series of instructions in doing an activity such as creating a house out of clay or Lego blocks (Wagner, 1983) or assembling a Christmas tree stand (Yule and Tarone, 1990) is another common task. Still, other examples include role-playing (Corrales and Emily, 1989; Khanji, 1996) or interviews with native speakers of the target language (e.g. Poulisse, 1990, Klosek, 1982, Corrales and Emily, 1989). Although the foregoing tasks have been successful in eliciting strategic behaviours in language learning, many of them are not really practiced in real-life communication, so data about it is less accessible. Some researchers have derived their data from video-recorded conversations of language learners with native speakers (Faerch and Kasper, 1983a; Haastrup and Phillipson, 1983; Klosek, 1982). For example, Faerch and Kasper (1983a) have recorded face-to-face conversation between Danish learners at various educational levels and English language native speakers conversing about common topics. However, such recorded conversations may be contrived due to subjects’ knowledge that they are being recorded. Even if they manifest that they are relaxed, the knowledge of being tested may have affected their oral performance. 2.3 CSs use and Learners’ Target Language Proficiency Now, the relationship between communication strategies and its effectiveness in learning the target language becomes a point of interest. Faerch and Kasper (1980) stand firm in suggesting that some CSs promote learning such as paraphrase and circumlocution, while others like mime and language switching do not. The studies of Paribakht (1985) and Poulisse and Schils (1989) explored the relationship between one’s language proficiency level and the use of CSs. Paribakht (1985) did a study comparing native and non-native speakers’ use of CS in a task requiring subjects to describe concrete and abstract concepts. It was found that all subjects used the same type of communication strategies, however, beginning learners resorted to knowledge sources which differed from their second language than did their advanced counterparts. This finding would lead one to believe that there is a relationship between the learner’s proficiency level and his use of CS. However, Poulisse and Schils (1989) criticized Paribakht’s work by saying that there was only one type of task involved in the study, thus, it is not representative of an actual communication event. Likewise, Paribakht also used product-oriented taxonomy of communication strategies adapted to her data and her results ended up as not generalisable. In Poulisse and Schils’ (1989) research, they focused on the use of compensatory strategies and considered the effect of the type of task in the employment of CS of learners. The study grouped Dutch learners of English into three groups, each with a different task. One group did picture description, another group did story retell and the third group engaged in an oral interview with a native speaker. Poulisse and Schils found that the type of task determined the type of CS chosen by the subjects, however, the type of compensatory strategy selected by the subjects was not related to their proficiency level. The more proficient the subject, the less compensatory strategies he resorted to. Poulisse and Schils (1989) recommend further research on this area. Dornyei’s (1995) study investigated how strategy training affected the qualitative and quantitative aspects of strategy use, how learners’ proficiency affected the results, as well as the students’ affective dispositions toward the training. Instruction of three strategies was the basis of the study. The strategies employed were topic avoidance and replacement, circumlocution and using filler and hesitation devices. The subjects of the study were categorized into three groups. One received no treatment and followed the usual EFL curriculum. Another group was provided conversational training but did not focus on any specific strategy. The third group was given a specific and content training to focus on. The strategy training was offered in three lessons per week lasting for 20-40 minutes throughout all of six weeks. Pre- and post- oral and written tests were given to the subjects before and after the training. The oral test included topic description, cartoon description and definition formulation. Dornyei (1995) found that communication strategies treatment was successful in improving students’ quality of definitions. He added that students’ quality and quantity in their strategy use were predetermined by their fluency in the pretest. There was no significant difference between the treatment and non-treatment groups and explains that this may have been because communication activities often included information-gap elements which are considered indirect practice in the use of strategies, so this may have reduced the difference between the two types of training. It is believed that language learners can improve their communication skills by developing their ability to use CSs. Therefore, it is important to study different L2 learners’ CSs use in order to determine what kind of CSs are successful in helping them to solve communication problems. Then teachers can focus on the teaching of these CSs and help L2 learners compensate for their TL deficiency and improve their communicative competence. This is especially valuable for Chinese EFL learners, who form one of the largest groups of L2 learners in the world and are generally considered to be low performers in oral English communications. However, most researchers in China seem to be more concerned with developing learning strategies and test-wise strategies for the passing of international tests rather than oral CSs. Even those who are interested in CSs have merely done some review of CSs research in other countries (Dai & Shu, 1994; Wang, 2000). Only a few researchers have actually conducted empirical research on oral CSs used by Chinese EFL learners. For example, Chen (1990) conducted an empirical research into the nature of the relationship between Chinese EFL learners’ L2 proficiency and their strategic competence by comparing the type and frequency of communication strategies used by low and high proficiency learners. Similar to Chen’s research, An and Nathalang’s (2009) study examined how different task types, academic fields and proficiency levels can affect Chinese college EFL learners’ use of communication studies. 2.3.1 Significance of Training CSs in the Class In communication, strategic competence is considered to be a major component. Dornyei and Thurrell (1991) even go on to suggest that the strength of this component determines the learner’s fluency and conversational skills. It is usual for teachers to be unaware of this component, thus activities to develop this component have not been emphasized during training. Thus, it follows that students lack fluency and conversational skills, and this may be disappointing to them. It is essential to stress the importance of including strategy training because not only does it help develop a learner’s confidence in conversations but it likewise “facilitates spontaneous improvisation skills and linguistic creativity” (Dornyei and Thurrell, 1991, p.22). Learning such strategies will definitely improve the learners’ performance skills, and that is the ultimate goal of teaching a foreign language. The fact that most textbooks are concerned not with communication but with language forms strengthens the need to learn more CS in EFL classes. Teachers must be obliged to educate their students on the importance and convenience of learning CS and the purposes behind the strategies employed. In this way, focus on communication itself instead of on language forms is encouraged. The students are able to apply this right away in their conversations in class, thus, the need to design more strategies to help keep the communication lines open. Nakatani (2005) conducted a study on 62 females in an EFL course and divided them into two groups. One group was given the regular communicative course while the other group was given the strategy training group which received meta-cognitive training, focusing on their oral communication strategies. Results revealed that students in the strategy training group remarkably improved in their oral communication proficiency than those in the control group. It implies that offering students regular communication courses is not enough to develop proficiency in their speaking ability, rather, empowering them with strategy training would help them better, as they would be able to utter longer sentences. This enriches their abilities to negotiate meaning and sustain a meaningful conversation flow with others. 2.3.2 Factors affecting learners' choice of CSs Si-Qing (1990) investigated the relationship between L2 learners’ TL proficiency and their strategic competence. 220 CSs used by 12 Chinese EFL learners of high and low proficiency were identified and analyzed. Regarding learners’ choice of CSs, Si-Qing found that linguistic proficiency was the main determinant in the selection of CSs. Another determinant is the linguistic concept a learner is tasked to interpret, as some concepts are most appropriately conveyed using certain CSs. A third determinant is the communicative task and communicative situation. When Si-Qing was able to control the communicative task and the communication situation was formalized, the subjects were discouraged from using avoidance CSs. Finally, willingness of the subject is identified as a determinant in the selection of CSs to be employed. Si-Qing claims that such willingness predicts how successful a communication task assigned to the subject will be carried out. 2.4 Communication Problems of Chinese EFL Learners For most Chinese EFL learners, listening and speaking abilities are comparatively weaker than reading and writing abilities. That is because Chinese students learn English through formal instruction, i.e. inside the classroom where all the language teachers are native speakers of Chinese (with very few exceptions of native English speakers as teachers). Therefore, Chinese EFL learners had little exposure to the English language on a daily basis, which causes several major problems when they communicate in English (Zhang, 2007). (1) Most students are not willing to participate into the communication in English and remain silent in class. This could be due to their lack of self-confidence and fear of making mistakes. (2) Unlike English and French or English and German, English and Chinese are two very different types of language and belong to different language families. So it takes much effort for a Chinese EFL learner to communicate in English fluently and vice versa. Moreover, most English teachers in China prefer the rote learning method, which means the students have to memorize and recite the articles in their textbooks in order to be considered as a “fluent speaker of English”. However, what they memorized is only a fixed model of expression. They may encounter other difficulties when facing different communicative situations. In addition, during this repetitive process, many learners lose their interest in learning the English language. (3) A large majority of students find it hard to deal with actual communication breakdowns. In other words, they do not know how to utilise proper communication strategies to help them keep the communication channel open. 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