Communication Strategies Used by Middle Estern Postgrduate Students at Service

Introduction

Communication strategies are strategies that learners employ when their communicative competence in the language being learned (L2) is insufficient. This includes understanding in the L2 and having others help them understand the L2.

Learners use communication strategies to offset any inadequacies they may have in the grammar of the language and also in vocabulary. Communication strategies aid learners in participating in and maintaining conversations and improving the quality of communication. This, in turn, enables them to improve their exposure to and opportunities to use the L2, leading to more opportunities to test their assumptions about the L2 and to receive feedback. Research in communication strategies began in the early 1970s. In the early 1980s, the real study of communication strategies became the concern of many researchers. Canale and Swain (1983), as cited in Dornyei and Scott (1997), included communication strategies in their model of communicative competence as part of strategic competence, which is the learner’s ability to use communication strategies and cope with various communication problems they may encounter.

International students at the University of Malaya face several problems when trying to communicate in English. In the process of communication, these students often find themselves in a position whereby they have to improvise in order to get their messages across and overcome any momentary inadequacies. Usually, the obstacle in communication is the lack of vocabulary items, which either have not been learnt or cannot be recalled at that point in time.

Another problem faced by International students is the inadequate knowledge or competence in the grammar of the English language. Problems arise among international students who have to communicate in English. This research describes the communicative strategies used by international postgraduate students at the University of Malaya when communicating with the front desk officers of the Institute of Postgraduate Studies (IPS).

The objective of this study is to examine the problems faced by international students of Middle Eastern origin when communicating in English. The study will describe strategies used by international students from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Oman, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen when communicating with officers of the Institute of Postgraduate Studies (IPS) at the University of Malaya. Language is strategic when it is used for a purpose. In this study, I consider CSs to be used by Middle Eastern non-native English speakers to overcome communicative lexical problems. In this case, the analysis has been restricted to lexical problems which may be occasioned by the lack of knowledge of L2 terms the speaker wishes to communicate, by retrieval problems or by insecurity as to the lexical item selected to express a meaning.

Research Questions

In order to fulfill the objectives of the study as stated above, it aims to answer the following research questions:

RQ 1: What are the strategies used by postgraduate Middle Eastern students at the University of Malaya to overcome communication problems with staff (in service encounters at the Institute of Postgraduate Studies)?

RQ 2: Which types of communicative strategies are most frequently used by them?

Research Methodology

The participants were enrolled with the Institute of Postgraduate Studies division of the University of Malaya. The participants (student) were from 6 different Middle-East countries, namely: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Syria and Yemen. Out of 90 participants, 28(31%) participants were from Iran, 24(27%) participants were from Iraq, 15(17%) from were Saudi Arabia and8 (9%) were from Oman, 8 (9%) were from Syria and 7(7%) from Yemen. students being chosen randomly to participate in this research. These participants were doing their Master’s degree or Doctoral degrees at the University of Malaya. All of them had to take an English placement Test set by the university. Permission was granted by both the counter staff and students to conduct video-recording at the service counters at IPS.

A SONY Video camera has been used in this study because of its high quality and ability to record clear and good quality images and sound. Mini Video tapes were used to record the conversations. A Personal Computer with Power DVD program was also used. This made it easy for the writer to view the data that has been collected. Data for this study was collected in two different ways. In order to obtain information about the language learners and their background, interviews were conducted with the participants to gather information pertaining to their nationalities, the Universities where they did their first degree, the medium of instruction in their previous university/institute/college, their first language, the number of years they had been learning English and their own evaluation about their English proficiency. In order to get a clear picture of verbal as well as nonverbal communication strategies, the conversations between postgraduate students and counter staff at the IPS were video recorded.

A qualitative analysis was carried out. Simple frequency counts were made according to the types of communication strategies used. The findings were presented using tables. The frequency counts were converted into percentages for ranking. In addition, relevant extracts from the transcriptions were used to help explain the findings. The data were analysed as soon as they were collected. This was done in order to avoid a lapse of time, which might affect remembering details from the interview conducted. The analysis is descriptive in nature.

The tabulation of the data in figures and percentages was done in order to count the number of times the participants used a particular strategy. The tabulation is presented. The table also represents the percentage of the frequency distribution of communication strategies employed by the participants. Throughout the study, the types of strategies used by the participants to solve their communication problems were also observed. This study was concerned only with communication strategies used when participants lacked lexical items. It can be described as:

“The common factor to all communication strategies is that the inter language learner has to deal with not knowing a word in the target language. It is vocabulary lack that is crucial. The strategies exit the plug gaps in the learners‟ vocabulary by allowing them to refer to a things orwhich they don’t know the target language.”(Cook, 1991:69)

Data Analysis and Finding

The study examined the interactions between International postgraduate Middle- Eastern students with IPS counter staff in the University of Malaya. The study was based on data that video recoded natural conversation which took place while the participants were acquiring information. The use of triangulation method of data collection supported the finding that emerged from the study. The data were collected through the use of video recordings, an informal interview, and transcriptions. The study shows that language learners were able to maintain the flow of their conversation by using different types of communication strategies.

The study answered the following research questions:

How do postgraduate Middle Eastern students at University Malaya overcome communication problems with staff at service encounters in the Institute of Postgraduate Studies (IPS)?

Generally, the researcher found that the language learners employed different types of communication strategies to avoid conversational breakdown. The strategies used by the participants were determined by the knowledge of the language they possessed. The learners fell back on strategies as a result of the imbalance between their communicative needs and their actual ability to use the target language.

It also appears that in solving their communication problems, the learners drew on other knowledge sources such as non-verbal communication strategies to compensate for their deficiencies in the target language. The use of non-verbal communication strategies enables learners to convey messages which their linguistic resources do not permit them to express successfully.

The study shows that although the learners faced communication problems, this did not prevent them from attempting to solve these problems. The learners were able to use different communicative strategies to improve their chances of being understood.

What are the types of communicative strategies used by postgraduate Middle Eastern students at University Malaya in oral communication with staff at service encounters at the Institute of Postgraduate Studies (IPS)?

In order to answer this question, qualitative analyses were carried out. The data used in the analysis were taken from the recordings of strategies used by 90 Middle Eastern postgraduate students at service counters in IPS.

The Overall Frequency Distribution of Communication Strategies employed by Participants shows as following table:

Based on the transcriptions, the researcher identified the frequency of communication strategies used by the participants. Modification strategies were most frequently used by participants, followed by interactional strategies, compensatory strategies, avoidance strategies, and non-verbal communication strategies.

Clennel’s (1994) study indicates that compensatory strategies are the most commonly used by L2 learners, while Kebir (1994), Chen (1990), and Whilliam et al.(1997) report that interactional strategies are the most popular among L2 learners.

The finding on the use of compensatory strategies among the participants revealed that when communication problems occurred, the students preferred to get their ideas across by themselves rather than ask for help from their interlocutors or abandon the conversation. They usually tried to fill the conversation gaps by making an effort to convey the intended message meaningfully, so they took risks to explain, create, or guess the problematic word(s).

The finding supports Wenden’s (1991:41) statement that “the good language learner is willing to take risks”. These students are willing to take risks in order to communicate, using any means at their disposal to convey meaning. This often involves the use of circumlocution, paraphrases, and gestures, and may sometimes involve the creation of new words by analogy with familiar forms.

In order to avoid interruptions in the conversation and to achieve mutual understanding, interactional strategies were used by the participants to ensure that their interlocutors understood the intended messages completely. In conversations, communication problems might occur, but the use of interactional strategies helps the speakers expand their conversation through smooth turn-taking.

After compensatory strategies, avoidance strategies were the next most frequently used. When the participants could not transmit their intended message, they avoided those problematic messages. In order to avoid making mistakes and increase fluency in conversation, the participants occasionally used avoidance strategies, namely message avoidance. Topic avoidance was not found in this study.

Faerch & Kasper (1983), as cited in David (1999), explain the reason for using avoidance strategies:

In order to avoid producing non-fluent or incorrect utterances by using sufficiently automised or hypothetical rules/items, learners may decide to communicate by means of a reduced system, focusing on stable rules and items which have become reasonably well-automised.

David (2003) proposes that the elimination of certain formal elements of the target language does not always interfere with the transmission of meaning if learners use them appropriately. In fact, learners benefit from the use of avoidance strategies because they do not need to stop the conversation immediately, but can try to replace the problematic word(s) or sentence(s) with a new one.

Non-verbal strategies were also used in the study to compensate for the participants‟ lexical gaps in the TL. Most uses of these strategies aimed to replace their messages to make them clearer and more understandable.

Recommendation

The findings have implications for the field of second language teaching. These include the teaching of CSs, syllabus design, and materials design.

Teaching CSs

Many studies show that communication strategies in the teaching-learning context can help learners improve their skills in real-life language use. Savigon (1990), Taron (1984), and Tarone and Yule (1989) believed that it is possible and desirable as strategic competence is part of the learner’s communicative competence. It involves transferring L1 skills, bridging the gap between classroom and real-life communication, and contributing to students’ sense of security, self-confidence, and motivation to communicate. The teaching of CSs may also involve raising learners’ awareness about the nature and communicative potential of CSs and encouraging students to be willing to take risks and use CSs (Dornyei 1995, p.80). This study showed that the participants were able to employ some of the CSs. Unfortunately, they were not able to use all types of CSs, and thus they were unable to use them effectively and spontaneously. Hence, if EFL teachers can make learners more aware of the range of communication strategies, learners can utilize a wide range of CSs creatively and effectively.

Curriculum and Course Design

In situations where language curriculum and course contents are to be designed for the non-native speaking background learners, strategies of communication can be taught for effective use in real life. This will improve learners' confidence in selecting and implementing appropriate strategies in communication (Dornyei and Thurrell, 1994); Dornyei, 1995; Corder, 1983; Bialystok, 1981). Since strategic competence is one of the important components of communicative competence, it should be included in the goals of teaching English language course.

David (1999) argued for the possibility of consciousness-raising regarding communication strategies as a tool to improve the language proficiency of L2 learners. Therefore, a course should be designed to create situations that will promote the development of learners‟ strategic competence and their ability to use communication strategies to deal with different communication problems they might encounter.

Material Design and Teaching

Williams (2006) suggested that teachers should make students aware of communication strategies and teach them to use communication strategies in the classroom. Teaching materials should be chosen and developed to provide learners with opportunities to identify potential communication breakdowns and ways to overcome them. Teachers can devise exercises and activities whenever possible for learners to practise and use CSs. The use of video recordings will be useful in helping learners become more aware of their communicative performance. Playback will provide learners with an avenue for analyzing, discussing, and getting feedback regarding their oral communication. Playback is also important for learners to understand that non-verbal signals such as gestures, eye contact, and body movements also play a role in oral communication.

Conclusion

Communication strategies play an important role in oral communication. They are also an important aspect for English language learners to learn towards achieving successful communication and competence. They encourage language learners to find ways of avoiding communication breakdowns with their interlocutors to achieve their communication goals.

This study shows that ESL learners are able to overcome their communication problems by using communication strategies during their interaction with the counter staff. There are limitations to this study. However, the information and knowledge can inform EFL learners, particularly UM international students, on how to communicate even when they lack lexical items.

References