Communication strategies (CSs) are a mutual attempt of the speakers =to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared‘ (Tarone, 1983, p. 65). In the English learning context, most studies on CSs had focused on those used by adults and only a limited number of studies were concerned about CSs used by Young Learners (YLs). Thus, this present study was conducted to answer the following questions: (1) What CSs are employed by more successful and less successful YLs? and (2) What factors contribute to the use of CSs by more successful and less successful YLs?
This study is a case study and descriptive statistics is used to classify, count, and present the CSs used by YLs. The participants of the study were five more successful YLs (MSYLs) and five less successful YLs (LSYLs) of grade six Mutiara Bunda Elementary School. The data were collected through a speaking test which consists of four tasks (i.e. find the difference, odd-one-out, picture story, and personal information interview) as well as retrospective interview. Then, the CSs were classified based on Tarone and Swierzbin‘s taxonomy (2009), i.e. appeal for assistance, mime, approximation, circumlocution, word coinage, Native Language (NL) borrowing, and avoidance.
This study revealed that both MSYLs and LYSLs used all types of CSs in all tasks, but they did not employ word coinage in the picture story task. Word coinage was also used the least frequently by them in the other three tasks. It was also found that the MSYLs and LSYLs employed CSs differently: (1) the MSYLs used less number of CSs than the LSYLs, (2) the MSYLs mostly employed approximation while the LSYLs employed NL borrowing predominantly, and (3) the most frequently type of CSs used by the MSYLs and LSYLs in each tasks were different. Additionally, it was known that the past and present learning context and the present communication context (i.e. task demands, context, time available, and the presence of an interlocutor) were factors contributing to the use of CSs by the participants of the study. |