Strategies used by undergraduate Englishmajored students in oral communication

156 L.V.Tuyen, H.T. An, T.K.Hong / VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.1 (2020) 156-179
STRATEGIES USED BY UNDERGRADUATE ENGLISH-
MAJORED STUDENTS IN ORAL COMMUNICATION
Le Van Tuyen*, Huynh Thi An, Tran Kim Hong
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH)
475A-Dien Bien Phu Street, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City-Vietnam
Received 16 December 2019 
Revised 28 January 2020; Accepted 14 February 2020
Abstract: Communication strategies (CSs) play a significant role in enabling EFL students to achieve 
a higher level of English proficiency and good ability in oral communication. Helping both EFL teachers 
and students gain awareness of CSs is essential in the Vietnamese context. This study, therefore, aimed 
to explore the most commonly used strategies in English oral communication among English-majored 
students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH), Vietnam. Two instruments were 
employed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, namely (1) the questionnaire and (2) the focus 
group with the participation of 213 English-majored sophomores, juniors and seniors. The findings of the 
study revealed that the most commonly-used speaking strategies are ‘fluency-oriented’, ‘message reduction 
and alteration’, and ‘negotiation for meaning while speaking’, and that the students used achievement 
strategies more often than reduction ones; and the most commonly-used listening strategies are ‘negotiation 
for meaning while listening’, ‘non-verbal’ and ‘scanning’. The findings also revealed that there are no 
significant differences in the use of CSs among the three academic levels of students. It is expected that the 
findings of the study would partly contribute to the enhancement of communicative competence (CoC) and 
the use of CSs among students at HUTECH in particular and at the Vietnamese tertiary level in general.
Keywords: communicative competence, communication strategies, English-majored students, academic 
levels, Vietnamese context
1. Introduction
1The process of integration into the 
region and the world requires Vietnam to 
train high quality manpower. It is the duty 
of universities to provide most of the skilled 
manpower resources to society. Regional and 
global competition and the era of industry 4.0 
entail students’ integration of their language 
skills and their specialized knowledge to 
compete on the demanding job market and 
keep up with the world. For students, it is not 
easy to accomplish this task. After many years 
of learning English both at secondary school 
* Corresponding Author: Tel.: 84-982362727
 Email: lv.tuyen@hutech.edu.vn
and at university, a majority of Vietnamese 
students, after graduation, can neither speak 
English fluently nor confidently (Tran, 
2013). Their real level of English cannot be 
significantly improved and is still very far 
from the requirements of their future jobs 
(Le, 2013). “Who or what is to blame for 
this deficiency, teachers, non-native speaking 
context, or students themselves?” Or “Should 
other reasons be discovered?” 
Second or foreign language acquisition 
and the development of CoC require language 
students to participate in real-life interaction, 
which demands ample efforts and abilities to 
deal with unexpected situations and problems 
when interacting with both native and non-
native English speakers (Peloghities, 2006). 
157VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.1 (2020) 156-179
Thus, CSs play an integral part for students 
to cope with speaking and listening problems 
in the process of language acquisition. 
Nevertheless, most of the EFL students in 
Vietnam are not aware of the importance 
of using CSs; and their use of strategies in 
English oral communication is still limited 
(Le, 2018). Therefore, raising students’ 
awareness of the use of CSs is a must. 
According to Stern (1983), to have in-
depth understanding of the use of CSs, studies 
should be conducted in different contexts, 
under different language learning conditions, 
and at different levels of language proficiency. 
So far CSs seem to have been a major area 
of investigation and exploration in the field 
of second or foreign language acquisition. 
That is because these strategies do not only 
help overcome problems but they can also 
significantly contribute to improving and 
building up strategic competence (SC) for 
English users (Ounis, 2016); especially, 
different learning contexts may have different 
impact on students’ use of CSs and their 
communicative performance (Kitajima, 
1997). Nonetheless, a review of the 
relevant literature revealed that studies with 
respect to the use of CSs by Vietnamese 
tertiary students are quite few. To fill this 
gap, this study aims to investigate the use 
of strategies in oral communication by 
English-majored students at tertiary level 
of Vietnam. More specifically, it attempts 
(1) to explore the common strategies used 
to deal with speaking and listening skills 
among English-majored students at Ho 
Chi Minh City University of Technology 
(HUTECH); and (2) to examine whether 
there are significant differences in the use of 
CSs among three academic levels, namely 
sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
Based on the objectives, the current 
study attempted to answer the two following 
questions: 
1. What are the most common strategies 
used in oral communication by English-
majored students at HUTECH?
2. What are the differences in the use of 
strategies in oral communication among three 
academic levels of English-majored students 
at HUTECH?
2. Literature review
2.1. Strategic competence
Strategic competence is one of the 
components of CoC which was proposed 
explicitly by Canale and Swain (1980) and 
Bachman (1990) or implicitly by Hymes 
(1967), CEFR (2001) and Littlewood (2011). 
Accordingly, all the components of CoC 
mention both knowledge of the contents and 
ability to use it. For example, sociolinguistic 
competence refers to knowledge and ability 
to use the language appropriately in different 
social contexts. SC refers to the ability to use 
verbal and non-verbal strategies to compensate 
for breakdowns in communication due to 
insufficient grammatical and sociolinguistic 
competence, or to enhance the effectiveness of 
communication (Canale & Swain, 1980). It is an 
important part of all communicative language 
use. SC is regarded as a capacity that puts 
language competence into real communication 
contexts. It may include strategies which are 
not linguistic (Bachman, 1990). It consists of 
such strategies as paraphrasing grammatical 
forms, using repetition, structures, themes, 
reluctance, avoiding words, guessing, changing 
register and style, modifying messages, and 
using gestures and facial expressions, fillers 
and comprehension checks, etc. (Canale & 
Swain, 1980). 
It is undoubted that SC not only 
emphasizes the use of CSs which can help to 
overcome deficiency of language knowledge 
in a particular area but the use of all types 
of CSs in different communication contexts 
(CEFR, 2001). SC is considered to be 
important for EFL language students at all 
levels, especially for students of low English 
proficiency. It may be used as solutions for 
them to deal with problems or challenges in 
communication. 
158 L.V.Tuyen, H.T. An, T.K.Hong / VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.1 (2020) 156-179
2.2. Communication strategies 
2.2.1. Defining communication strategies
When the concept “communicative 
competence” was introduced, components 
related to it were also developed by scholars 
and researchers. One of its components is 
SC which mentions CSs. CSs are seen as 
tools for negotiating the meaning between 
two interlocutors based on communication 
desire and as facilitators in the process of 
communicating orally in L2 (Tarone, 1981). 
A variety of definitions of CSs were also 
proposed. From interactional perspective, 
according to Tarone (1980), Canale (1983) and 
Nakatani (2006), CSs refer to the agreement 
with a meaning through mutual attempts of 
two interlocutors in communication situations. 
From psycholinguistic perspective, Corder 
(1983) defined a CS as a systematic technique 
employed by a speaker to express the meaning 
when he or she is faced with some difficulty or 
problems. Similarly, according to Færch and 
Kasper (1984), CSs are related to individual 
language users’ experience of communicative 
problems and solutions they pursue, and to 
an individual’s attempt to find a way to fill 
the gap between their communication effort 
and immediate available linguistic resources 
(Maleki, 2007). According to Ellis (1994), 
CSs refer to the approach that is used by 
language students to deal with the deficiency 
of their interlingual resources. 
Based on the above definitions and the 
two perspectives: the interactional view 
reflecting meaning-negotiating activities and 
psycholinguistic one reflecting problem-
solving ones, it can be inferred that CSs are 
both verbal or non-verbal means or tools 
employed by two or more interlocutors to 
negotiate meaning or overcome difficulties 
which they experience in terms of both 
speaking and listening skills so that they can 
agree on a communicative purpose.
2.2.2. Taxonomies of communication strategies
As mentioned above, scholars and 
researchers have conducted studies on CSs 
from two major perspectives: the interactional 
view and psycholinguistic view. Some 
scholars support the former (e.g., Tarone, 
1980); meanwhile, others support the latter 
(e.g., Faerch & Kasper, 1983). That is why 
taxonomies of CSs also vary significantly 
(Rababah, 2002). Researchers have confirmed 
several major taxonomies of CSs as follows: 
(a) Tarone’s taxonomy (1983) consists 
of five main categories: (1) Paraphrase 
including approximation, word coinage and 
circumlocution; (2) Transfer including literal 
translation and language switch; (3) Appeal 
for assistance which means that the learner 
asks for the correct term or structure; (4) 
Mime refers to the learner’s use of non-verbal 
strategies to replace the meaning structure; and 
(5) Avoidance consisting of two subcategories: 
topic avoidance and message abandonment; 
(b) Bialystok’s Taxonomy (1983) contains 
three main categories: (1) L1-based strategies, 
(2) L2-based strategies and (3) paralinguistic 
strategies; (c) Faerch and Kasper (1983) 
proposed two categories of strategies in 
general for solving a communication problem: 
(1) avoidance strategies and (2) achievement 
strategies. Avoidance strategies include formal 
reduction strategies and functional reduction 
strategies. Achievement strategies comprise 
compensatory strategies and retrieval strategies; 
(d) Corder’s (1983) taxonomy includes two 
categories: (1) message adjustment strategies 
and (2) resource expansion strategies; (e) 
Dornyei and Scott’s taxonomy (1995) seems to 
be a summary of all the taxonomies available 
in CS research (Rababah, 2002). Their 
taxonomy includes three main categories: (1) 
direct strategies including resource deficit-
related strategies, own-performance problem-
related strategies, and other-performance-
related strategies; (2) interactional strategies 
including resource deficit-related strategies, 
own-performance problem-related strategies, 
and other-performance-related strategies; and 
(3) Indirect strategies including processing 
time pressure-related strategies, own-
performance problem-related strategies, 
159VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.1 (2020) 156-179
and other-performance-related strategies; 
(f) Rababah’s taxonomy (2002) includes 
(1) L1-based strategies including literal 
translation and language switch; (2) L2-based 
strategies including avoidance strategies, 
word-coinage, circumlocution, self-correction, 
approximation, mumbling, L2 appeal for 
help, self-repetition, use of similar-sounding 
words, use of all-purpose words, and ignorance 
acknowledgement. 
It can be concluded that all CSs seem to 
share three main features as stated by Bialystok 
(1990): (a) Problematicity – this refers to strategies 
adopted by speakers when perceived problems 
may interrupt communication; (b) Consciousness 
– this refers to speakers’ awareness of employing 
the strategy for a particular purpose which may 
lead to an intended effect; and (c) Intentionality 
– this refers to speakers’ control over those 
strategies so that particular ones may be selected 
from a range of options and deliberately applied 
to achieve certain effects. Moreover, CSs have 
been developed in different stages with different 
types. They may be positive or compensatory 
strategies and negative or reduction strategies 
(Willems, 1987). They may be L1- or L2-based, 
implicit or explicit, verbal or non-verbal, and 
linguistic or non-linguistic strategies which 
are employed to support speakers in dealing 
with problems in oral communication which 
contains both speaking and listening skills. 
Nonetheless, it seems that no researchers 
identified which strategies are for coping 
with speaking problems and which ones are 
for coping with listening problems except 
for Nakatani’s (2006) strategies which were 
investigated and developed from interactional 
perspective. 
3. Research methodology
3.1. Participants
This study was conducted at Ho Chi Minh 
City University of Technology (HUTECH) in 
Vietnam. The participants of the study consisted 
of three cohorts of English-majored students who 
were in their second, third and fourth academic 
years. The total number of participants was 213 
students including cohort 1: 75 sophomores 
(second-year students), cohort 2: 69 juniors 
(third-year students) and cohort 3: 69 seniors 
(fourth-year students); 108 of them are female 
(50.7%); and 105 of them are male (49.3%). 
Their ages range from 19-20 (34.7%), 21-23 
(62.0%), and 24-over (3.3%). Because they 
major in English, their English proficiency 
may range from intermediate to advanced 
levels. They study English in class 4 hours a 
day in average with both non-native and native 
English speaking teachers. Especially, they 
have various opportunities to communicate 
with foreigners outside the classroom. 
3.2. Instruments
The current study collected both 
quantitative and qualitative data, so two 
instruments were employed: (a) the close-
ended questionnaire was used for collecting 
quantitative data. The questionnaire could 
help obtain information from a large number 
of students’ knowledge, perceptions and 
beliefs with respect to the use of CSs (Burns, 
1999; Bulmer, 2004). The questionnaire was 
adopted from Nakatani (2006). It consisted 
of three parts. The first part included 3 items 
used to explore demographic information 
of the students. The second part included 
8 categories with 32 items used to explore 
the students’ perceptions of the use of OCSs 
in speaking and the last part consisted of 7 
categories with 26 items used to explore the 
students’ perceptions of the use of OCSs 
in listening (Refer to Appendix A). The 
questionnaire used five-point Likert scale 
ranging from never, rarely, sometimes, often 
to always; and (b) to obtain triangulation of 
data for the study, the focus group was used 
for collecting qualitative data. The focus group 
with 16 questions (Refer to Appendix B) was 
used after the survey questionnaire to help 
interpret and obtain more insights (Krueger & 
Casey, 2000) from the students’ perceptions 
of strategy use and explore their personal 
experiences in oral communication.
160 L.V.Tuyen, H.T. An, T.K.Hong / VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.1 (2020) 156-179
The reliability of the questionnaire was 
tested through Cronbach’s Alpha with the 
coefficient of .840 for 32 speaking strategies 
and .823 for 26 listening ones, which proved 
a highly acceptable internal consistency. 
For convenience reasons, the questionnaire 
items were translated into Vietnamese and 
the interview questions were designed in 
Vietnamese and later translated into English.
3.3. Nakatani’s (2006) oral communication 
strategy inventory (OCSI)
One of the latest inventories which were 
developed by researchers for investigating 
CSs is Nakatani’s (2006). This inventory 
has been highly estimated and widely used 
by many researchers because of its details, 
reliability and validity. The OCSI is divided 
into 2 parts. The first part consists of 8 
categories with 32 strategies (variables) for 
coping with speaking problems, and the 
second part consists of 7 categories with 26 
strategies (variables) for coping with listening 
problems (pp.163-164). Strategies for coping 
with speaking problems include (a) social 
affective strategies, (b) fluency orientation, (c) 
meaning negotiation, (d) accuracy orientation, 
(e) message reduction and alteration, (f) non-
verbal strategies, (g) message abandonment, 
and (h) attempt-to-think-in-English. Strategies 
for coping with listening problems include (a) 
meaning negotiation (b) fluency maintenance, 
(c) scanning, (d) getting-the-gist strategies, (e) 
non-verbal strategies, (f) less-active-listener 
strategies, and (g) word-oriented strategies 
(Refer to Table 1). 
Table 1. Nakatani’s (2006) oral communication strategy inventory
No Categories of speaking strategies Categories of listening strategies
1 Social affective Negotiation for meaning
2 Fluency-oriented Fluency-maintaining
3 Negotiation for meaning Scanning
4 Accuracy-oriented Getting-the-gist
5 Message reduction and alteration Non-verbal
6 Non- verbal Less-active-listener
7 Message abandonment Word-oriented
8 Attempt-to-think-in-English
 Source: Nakatani (2006, p.161)
Literature shows that previous studies 
which employed Nakatani’s (2006) OCSI were 
conducted in different EFL contexts like in 
Taiwan (Chen, 2009), in Iran (Mirzaei & Heidari, 
2012; Rastegar & Goha, 2016), in Turkey (Sevki 
& Oya, 2013), in Malaysia (Zulkurnain & 
Kaur, 2014), in Tunisia (Ounis, 2016), and in 
Thailand (Chairat, 2017). The findings of these 
previous studies confirmed that Nakatani’s OCSI 
is a reliable tool. This inventory has a clear and 
detailed factor structure (Zulkurnain & Kaur, 
2014). As calculated by Nakatani’s study, the 
Alpha coefficient for 32 speaking strategies 
was .86 (p.154) and for 26 listening ones was 
.85 (p.156), which indicates a highly acceptable 
internal consistency. The OCSI was developed 
for the Japanese students who learn EFL like 
Vietnamese ones. The two contexts may be 
considered to be similar because both Japan and 
Vietnam are in the Expanding Circle. Nonetheless, 
one particular concern is that the constructs of the 
questionnaire developed by Nakatani (2006) need 
to be further clarified and statistically validated 
to convince the end-users of their reliability and 
validity (Mei & Nathalang, 2010). More studies 
need to be conducted using this inventory so 
that more insightful findings from different EFL 
contexts could enrich our understanding of the 
use of English OCSs and contribute more to EFL 
teaching and learning; and strategies should be 
investigated in accordance with the culture they 
are used in (Yaman & Özcan, 2015). Vietnam has 
161VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.1 (2020) 156-179
witnessed its tremendous growth in the number 
of students who learn EFL; and certainly an 
investigation into students’ strategy use in 
oral communication is of vital importance and 
necessity. From the interactional perspective, the 
current study employed Nakatani’s OCSI as the 
tool for investigating the use of strategies i