Based on Speaking Proficiency Levels, How Do Students Perform Communication Strategies (original) (raw)

Communication strategies are believed by many experts to overcome breakdowns in communication and help speakers to attain the communication goal. This research aims at investigating communication strategies based on students' speaking proficiency levels. Qualitative research was used as an approach to capture what happened in the classroom setting. This study involved 24 participants from English department students at a university in Padang, West Sumatra. Students' utterances in a transcript text were used as the data obtained from the video recording of two session observations and one session of Stimulated Recall Interview (SRI) in their speaking task. The findings revealed that higher speaking proficiency level (HSPL) performed circumlocution, approximation, code-switching, filler and gambit, and meaning-negotiation strategies. Besides, lower speaking proficiency level (LSPL) students reported using approximation, non-linguistics means, code-switching filler and gambit, appeal for help, and negotiation strategies. Both HSPL and LSPL students might perform similar strategies but they performed at different frequencies of time. Certain strategies such as circumlocution can indicate that students carried extending strategies while the other strategies conducted by them can be assumed that students found more problems in communication than the other students did.