This study aims to examine the different communication strategies (CSs) EFL learners employ when communicating orally, and determine the relationship between the learners' proficiency level and their CS use. Spoken data from three conversations held by Spanish learners of English of different levels were analysed in order to determine the type of CSs they used when interacting with a native speaker (NS) in an informal environment outside the classroom. The identification of the CSs was carried out following Dörnyei and Körmos' taxonomy (1998). Overall results show that there is an association between the learners' proficiency level and their CS usage. Results from a detailed analysis confirmed this relationship and revealed that the learners' linguistic competence is not only related to the frequency of the CSs used but mostly to the type of CS. INTRODUCTIONThe various mental processes that L2 learners go through during their IL development have become clearer thanks to Selinker's proposal (1972) of the Interlanguage (IL) Theory as well as Cognitivist (Ellis & Robinson, 2008) and Interactionist theories (Long, 1980) of language learning. It is within this context of IL development that much interest has been given to the way that L2 English learners try to communicate in the target language (TL), and thus to the communication strategies (hereafter CSs) used to overcome the difficulties which arise when attempting to produce the language (Tarone, 1977;Corder, 1983;Faerch & Kasper, 1983;Poulisse, 1990;Kellerman, Ammerlaan, Bongaerts & Poulisse, 1990). These CSs have been found to be useful tools for L2 learners to fill the gap between their communicative needs and the limited resources in the L2, thus leading them to find a balance between what they learn in the classroom, and the resources necessary to better interact in the L2 (Tardo, 2005). This paper focuses on the CSs utilised by Spanish learners of English with different proficiency levels when interacting with an English native speaker (NS) outside the classroom setting. The term 'second' language will be indistinctively used to refer to 'second' and 'foreign' language following Ellis definition (1997: 3): "any language that is learned subsequent to the mother tongue, independently of the conditions in which the language is being learned". The final aim of this study was to identify the CSs used by these learners in an interactional context and to determine a possible relationship between their proficiency level and CS usage. The identification of these learners' strategic use of the L2 as related to their proficiency level -thus the identification ResumenEl objetivo de este estudio fue analizar las diferentes estrategias de comunicación (EsC) que utilizan aprendices de inglés como L2 al comunicarse oralmente, y determinar la relación entre la competencia lingüística de estos estudiantes y el uso de las EsC. Se analizó un corpus oral obtenido de tres conversaciones entre estudiantes de inglés de distintos niveles de competencia con el propósito de ...
This study investigates the effects of Spanish L2 learners’ proficiency levels on their use of communication strategies in face-to-face interactions. Spoken data was elicited by means of a task-based methodology from different level learners in interaction with other learners and Spanish NSs. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to investigate a possible association between the learners’ proficiency levels and their communication strategy use. The analysis drew on Dӧrnyei & Kӧrmos’ (1998) taxonomy. Findings indicate a higher strategy use in beginner levels, and their tendency to tackle lexis-related problems, as well as less complex grammatical features of the language. Higher level learners, however, focused more on grammar-related problems, as well as on more complex aspects of the target language.
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