"It's Like Chicken but Bigger": Effects of Communication Strategy in the ESL Classroom

Abstract

This paper reports the effects of communication strategy instruction on second language performance (communicative success, speech rate, message abandonment) and on the use of communication strategies (paraphrase). Two classes of adult immigrants, enrolled in a full-time intermediate proficiency ESL program at a post-secondary institution in Canada, participated in this study. One class received 12 hours of direct communication strategy training, and the second served as a comparison group. Speaking tasks (picture story narratives, object descriptions) were administered as pretests at Week 1, immediate post-tests at Week 5, and delayed post-tests at Week 10. Post-test results showed a direct effect in favour of the communication strategy condition on range of strategies used in the object description task, which was more effective than the narrative in eliciting communication strategies. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the ESL classroom.