Investigating the Impact of Teaching Oral Communication Strategies to Improve English as a Foreign Language Learners’ Strategic Competence: The Case of Third-year Students at Biskra University

Abstract

A number of studies on communication strategies have, for some time, been conducted since most foreign language learners’ conversational skills were problematic. Owing to this issue, strategy-training emerged as a potential solution. Motivated by an observed inadequacy in the oral performance of third-year students of English at Biskra University, as well as a reluctance in the explicit teaching of strategic competence by teachers in the same context, this small-scale study sought to test the effectiveness of a strategy-training program in developing learners’ strategic behavior. In this regard, three communication strategies, namely circumlocution, use of fillers, and comprehension checks were taught to our purposefully chosen sample (n=18). The study also aimed to explore the nature of strategic awareness among teachers of oral expression and language mastery (n= 4) in the said context. To frame this work methodologically, a pragmatist research paradigm concurrent with a Mixed-methods approach were adopted in this project. Subsequently, a convergent parallel design was followed in the data collection process, which was undertaken via a self-report questionnaire, tests, an interview, and an attitudes questionnaire. The analysis of the quantitative data was carried out by means of descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS, while MAXQDA software was employed to conduct a thematic analysis on the qualitative findings. The results of the thematic analysis indicated that both students and teachers lacked awareness on the pivotal role this type of competence bears. In addition, the findings of the quantitative data outlined a significance in the posttest results (x̄= 4.3889) which were configurated by the one sample paired t-test (.001) and the Shapiro-wilk test of normality (.244), confirming that the strategy-training program contributed to the integration of effective strategies. It also raised more awareness among the targeted population on the openness towards the teachability of strategic competence.