nghiên cứu việc sử dụng chuyển giao ngôn ngữ với tư cách là một chiến lược giao tiếp và chiến lược học tập của sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường đại học ngoại thương hà nội

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TABLE OF CONTENT
Candidate‟s statement i
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study 1
2. The objectives of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methods of study 2
5. Significance of the study 3
6. Design of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1 Communication strategies 4
1.2 Second language learning 5
1.3 Learning strategies 6
1.4 Learning strategies and communication strategies 8
1.5 Language transfer 10
1.6 Transfer as a communication strategy 11
1.7 Transfer as a learning strategy 11
1.8 Related studies 12
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 16
2.1 Population 16
2.2 Measuring instruments 16
2.3 Data collection procedure 18
2.4 Analyzing data procedure 19

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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 22

3.1 Research findings 22
3.1.1 Transfer as a communication strategy 22
3.1.1.1 Language switch 22
3.1.1.2 Literal translation 33
3.1.2 Transfer as a second language learning strategy 44
3.1.2.1 Language switch 44
3.1.2.2 Literal translation 46
3.2 Comparing to the original research 47
3.2.1 Transfer as a communication strategy 47
3.2.1.1 Language switch 47
3.2.1.2 Literal translation 49
3.2.2 Transfer as a second language learning strategy 50
3.2.2.1 Language switch 50
3.2.2.2 Literal translation 51
PART C: CONCLUSION 52
1. Summary of the findings 52
2. Pedagogical implications 54
3. Limitations of the research 55
4. Recommendations for further research 56
5. Conclusion 56
REFERENCES 57
APPENDIX

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Statement of the problem and rationale
Terence Odlin once stated that “language contact situations arise
whenever there is meeting of speakers who do not all share the same language and
who need to communicate. When the communicative needs of people go beyond what
gestures and other paralinguistic signal can achieve, some use of a second language

becomes necessary.” The speakers may use language mixing, that is the merging of
characteristics of two or more languages. If mixing does occur, the speakers use their
native language to overcome the difficulties they encounter in communicating with
others. In other words, the mother tongue has influence on the target language.
Another kind of mixing is in the form of borrowings from a second language into the
native language. For example, Vietnamese people use the word “meeting” in English
to talk about a certain kind of assembly with a little different in spelling, or the use by
English speakers of the loan word ”croissant” from French to describe a certain type
of pastry. Last but not least, the speakers may use code switching, in which there is a
systematic interchange of words, phrases, and sentences of two or more languages.
From the researcher‟s own experience, there are some cases when students use
language transfer. When they are asked to work in pairs or in groups during their
English lessons, and when they talk to the native teachers, it is amazing that they can
communicate effectively despite their low proficiency in the target language. In
addition to body language such as gesture, mime, facial expression, sometimes, they
replace the target language by a native one, translate word for word. It can be seen
that the mother tongue plays an important role in second language learning, even has
big impact on the achievement of the learners. However, many language teachers in
Vietnam do not recognize and make use of the native language. With the hope of
discovering the influence of Vietnamese in communication in English, and how it
affects the studying of a second language, the researcher conducted this study.
Besides, I also expected to find out some possibly applicable methods in teaching
English.


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2. Objectives of the study
This research is carried out in order to get sufficient understanding of language
transfer as a communication and learning strategy, and how this strategy works in the
case of study with first year students at FTU during 2009-2010 academic year as well

as propose some suggestions to improve teaching methods.
3. Scope of the study
Four first year students from different classes at FTU are involved in the
study. The participants include two male and two female students. This helps to
reduce the effect of gender in communicating.
Two productive skills, speaking and writing are investigated.
The following research questions are addressed.
1. How is transfer employed as a communication strategy
by a group of students at FTU in the performance of oral and writing
tasks?
2. Are there similarities and differences in the way transfer
is employed as a communication strategy in the oral and writing
tasks?
3. What is the potential learning effect of transfer when
employed as a communication strategy in these tasks?
4. Methods of study
This research collects multiple sources of evidence, which are the results of
three oral tasks, the writing task and observation of classroom activities. It studies the
subjects from real-life contexts (how they produce English in their English classes).
The study employs the ethnographic approach in its qualitative-interpretive
mode, using the principles of discourse analysis.


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5. Significance of the study
It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefits to
teachers of English as a second language in general, to Vietnamese ones in particular,
especially those who are teaching beginners or elementary students of English. The
study contributes to our understanding of the language transfer between English and
Vietnamese in certain situations and offers some suggestions of activities, games, and

exercises for teaching low proficiency students.
6. Design of the study
This thesis contains three parts.
- Part A presents the state of the problem and rationale, the objectives, the
scope, as well as the significance of the study.
- Part B prepares the theoretical background for the thesis concerning
communication strategies, learning strategies, and language transfer in the first
chapter. Then chapter two describes in details the methodology underlying the
research. The final chapter provides specific description of research findings, a
thorough discussion of the findings of the study and some recommendations as well.
- Part C is the conclusions.
- The Appendix is the last part of the study, following the references.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter will present the theoretical background needed for the research
by discussing the definition, different views of communication strategies, learning
strategies, language transfer, their relationships, as well as the related studies.
1. 1 Communication strategies
We are living in a society where communities and individuals within the
society must communicate with each other. The communication tools are diverse.
They can be written, oral, pictorial or even non-verbal, as in body language where
mood and compliance or demand may be made through gesture rather than text.
Communication comprises more than simply the speech of one individual to another.
Successful and productive conversations are inevitably multi-directional, with
responses between the participants taking a pattern in which one speaks while the
others listen and, in turn, respond. However, people sometimes face difficulties in
communicating due to the low communicative competence. To have successful
conversations, they use “communication strategies”.

According to Canale and Swain (1980), the ability to use communication
strategies constitutes strategic competence, which is a component of communicative
competence. They define strategic competence as “the verbal and non verbal
communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for
breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient
competence”. Meanwhile Faerch and Kasper (1983) see communication strategies as
“potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a
problem in reaching a particular communicative goal”. The main distinguishing
criteria in this definition are problem-orientedness and consciousness. Faerch and
Kasper contend that L2 learners want to express something through the second
language but encounter problems as a result of their limited interlanguage. They
therefore resort to communication strategies, which are solutions to the
communication problems encountered. For example, if a speaker want to express the
meaning of “waiter”, but he does not know the equivalent in the target language, he

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may paraphrase “someone who bring the food from the kitchen to the table for the
customer”.
Faerch and Kasper (1983) emphasize that the speaker‟s choice of a
communication strategy is influenced by his underlying behaviour. They explain that
there are two kinds of behaviour that the speaker can adopt, avoidance or achievement
behaviour. If the speaker chooses avoidance or to opt out of the problem, then he may
change his communicative goal. He gives up, avoids or revises his original plan. On
the other hand, he attempts to reach his original targets. In this case, he uses language
transfer, appeals, paralinguistic means, word coinage, and circumlocution.
Second language learning
There are two broad views to language learning – the behaviouristic view
and the cognitive view. This cognitive view believes that “in learning a second
language, the learner actively constructs the rules of the second language from the L2
data he encounters and gradually adapts these rules in the direction of the

second language system” (Paramasivam, 2009). The processes are called rule
formation, including the formation and testing out of hypotheses about rules of the
target language are. In the first step, the learner forms a hypothetical rule of the
second language based on the L2 data he is exposed to. Then this hypothetical rule is
subsequently checked for its validity by being used in communication or, in
formal learning settings, in exercises etc. In the second step, the hypothesis is
tested to be confirmed or rejected. With positive feedback from the interlocutor, the
hypothesis is confirmed and the hypothetical rule becomes a fixed rule of the
learner‟s interlanguage system. On the other hand, the negative one leads to
hypothesis rejection and induces the learner to either look for new L2 data or to
use the feedback to form a revised hypothesis. The procedure of hypothesis
formation and testing is repeated until the learner‟s hypothesis is confirmed and
gets stored as a fixed rule. Once a fixed rule is established, the learner is said to have
stopped learning in this particular interlanguage area (Paramasivam, 2009).
However, second language learning constitutes more than the mere
construction of L2 rules. It also constitutes the automatization of L2 rules so that they
can result in fluent performance in communication (Faerch and Kasper, 1980;
Spolsky, 1989). This is to say that the learner not only has to learn L2 rules but also to
develop his ability to use these rules in communication. Faerch and Kasper (1980)
see no contradiction in emphasizing the importance of rule automatization and

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holding a cognitive view of language learning at the same time. They contend
that “since there is no direct way from the integration of an interlanguage rule
into the learner‟s cognitive structure to the free availability of that rule in
communication, i.e., without the learner having to monitor” (p. 76), it is
necessary to assume rule automatization as an intervening variable which can account
for the difference between these two stages in L2 learning. They state that in order to
achieve a more or less automatic access to the interlanguage system the most obvious
plan to follow is to practice L2 in a variety of communicative situations.

In short, second language learning includes both cognitive aspects and
behavioural aspects. The cognitive aspects involve rule formation and the
behavioural aspects involve rule automatization. With this understanding, learning
strategies are discussed in the following section.
Learning strategies
Many people say learning strategies are devices which learners make use of to
learn a language. However, Rubin (1975) sees them in a broader sense as “the
techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge”. Faerch and
Kasper (1980), on the other hand, propose a psycholinguistic definition in which
they define a learning strategy, as they define a communication strategy, in
relation to problem-orientedness and consciousness. The criterion of problem-
orientedness implies that the learner is having a problem in reaching a particular
learning goal, whereas the criterion of consciousness implies that the learner is
consciously aware of his having the problem. As a result, Faerch and Kasper (1980)
view learning strategies as “potentially conscious plans for solving what to an
individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular learning goal”. The
learning goal is in relation to constructing and mastering the rules of the target
language. Since language learning constitutes of rule formation and rule
automatization, the learning problems may lie in hypothesis formation or it may be in
hypothesis testing and in increasing automatization. Accordingly, they classify
learning strategies as “psycholinguistic” and “behavioural” learning strategies (Faerch
and Kasper, 1980). “Psycholinguistic” learning strategies are used when the
learner encounter a problem in hypothesis formation meanwhile “behavioural”
learning strategies are found in hypothesis testing or in increasing automatization.

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As the two linguists explain, learners form hypotheses basing on two sources which
consist of their L2 input and their prior knowledge and experience relating to
language learning. Psycholinguistic learning strategies are classified based on the way
the learner makes use of their experience in language learning. In this way, they

differentiate the psycholinguistic learning strategies of “induction”, “inferencing”
and “transfer” and “behavioural learning strategies” composing of strategies that
allow for practice of the L2 rules like “appeal” where the learner appeals directly to
some authority, for instance, a native speaker, or looks up reference materials like
dictionaries or textbooks to test the validity of a hypothetical rule (Paramasivam,
2009). However, Naiman et al. (1978) propose five broad categories and a number of
secondary learning strategies. The primary classification composes of an active task
approach, realization of language as a system, realization of language as a means of
communication and interaction, management of affective demands, and monitoring of
second language performance. The active task approach means students react
positively to learning opportunity or search for and exploit learning environment; they
add concerning language learning activities to regular classroom program; and
practice the target language. The realization of language as a system refers to the
analysis of individual problems, the comparison between the mother tongue and the
second language, the inferences from the target language, and the use of language as a
system. The realization of language as a means of communication and interaction
overweighs fluency over accuracy, and finds opportunities to speak English with other
learners. The management of affective demands finds socio-cultural meanings and
copes with affective demands in learning. Finally, monitoring of second language
performance means constantly revises L2 system by testing inferences and asking
L2native speakers for feedback.
Similarly, Rubin (1981) divides learning strategies into primary and
representative secondary ones. The former consists of strategies that directly affect
learning, including clarification or verification, monitoring, memorization, guessing
or inductive inferencing, deductive reasoning, practice and processes that contribute
indirectly to learning referring to create opportunities for practice and production
tricks.

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Nunan (1999) says “learning strategies are the mental and communicative

procedures learners use in order to learn and use language”. He classifies learners into
different types with different learning preferences. The first kind is “concrete
learners” who acquire the target language through audio-visual teaching methods, i.e
pictures, video, films, cassette players, and communicative activities like talking in
pairs and practicing English outside the classroom. The second type is “analytical
learners”. They prefer to learn formal written English independently. As its name
suggests, “communicative learners” learn effectively in “native environment”, i.e
exposing to the native speakers, learning through talking and listening. The last type
“authority-oriented” ones “prefer the teacher to explain everything, like to have their
own textbook, to write everything in a notebook, to study grammar, learn by reading,
and learn new words by seeing them”.
Jones, et al. (1987) found that “effective learners aware of the process
underlying their own learning and seek to use appropriate learning strategies to
control their own learning”. Besides, O‟Malley and Chamot (1990) discover that
“students who were designated by their teachers as more effective learners use
strategies more frequently, and use a greater variety of strategies than students who
were designated as less effective”.
1.4 Learning strategies and communication strategies
There are many different views about the relation between communication
strategies and learning strategies. Brown (1980) notes that they are clearly different
because “communication is the output modality and learning is the input modality”.
Yet, he makes an exception for rule transference noting that this strategy may have a
dual function. For example, a learner may apply the strategy in learning a language as
well as when communicating in it. Similarly, Ellis (1986) also finds the differences
between communication strategies and learning strategies. He in fact argues that
“successful use of communication strategies may prevent learning since skilful
compensation for lack of linguistic knowledge can make the need for learning
unnecessary”. (Ellis, 1986 quoted in Paramasivam, 2009).
However, some researchers are for the opposite opinion. Tarone (1980)
suggests that the learner may be exposed to language input that may result in language

learning even though they are lack of grammar and vocabulary. She then concludes

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that communication strategies can help learners expand language. Rubin (1981) views
communication strategies as indirect learning strategies. He refers communication
strategies to production tricks that can “indirectly help contribute to language
learning” (quoted in Paramasivam, 2009). Using communication strategies is
therefore seen as a springboard to language learning.
The distinction between a learning strategy and a communication strategy, in
fact, lies in the difference between learning and communication. Firstly, about second
language learning, there are two broad views to language learning – the behaviouristic
view and the cognitive view. The latter one believes that in second language learning,
the learner actively forms the rules of the target language from the L2 data he
encounters and gradually adapts these rules in the direction of the second language
system. Besides, second language learning also constitutes the automatization of L2
rules so that they can result in fluent performance in communication (Faerch and
Kasper, 1980; Spolsky, 1989). In other words, the learners do not only learn L2 rules
but also put these rules into practice in real life communications.
Faerch and Kasper (1980) contend that “since there is no direct way from the
integration of an interlanguage rule into the learner‟s cognitive structure to the free
availability of that rule in communication, i.e., without the learner having to monitor”.
Therefore, it can be said that second language learning consists of both cognitive
aspects as well as behavioural aspects. The cognitive aspects involve rule formation
and the behavioural aspects involve rule automatization.
However, communication does not involve rule formation and rule
automatization but ways of using the interlanguage system in interaction as
communication provides exposure to the target language which is a necessary
criterion for learning the language. The more the learner communicates in the target
language, the more chances he has to practice his interlanguage and test it.
As learning and communication are closely related, it is not always easy to

distinguish a learning strategy from a communication strategy, especially in actual
communicative situations (Tarone, 1981; Ellis, 1994; Brown, 1994). The difference is
distinguished according to the problem which the strategy attempts to tackle. Learning
strategies like “transfer”, “inferencing”, “induction”, “word coinage”, “appeal” will
solve troubles in hypothesis formation, hypothesis testing and increasing
automatization processes. Meanwhile, communication strategies, such as reduction
strategies consisting of “avoidance” and “omission”, and achievement strategies like

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“code-switching”, “translation”, “restructuring”, “circumlocution”, “word coinage”
are used to cope with problems in the planning and realization of speech production.
Apart from the differences above, a communication strategy can function as a
learning strategy at the same time. Faerch and Kasper (1980) state that a
communication strategy enhances learning when it contributes to the two important
aspects of language learning – hypothesis formation and automatization. As discussed
above, a strategy is used when the learner encounters a problem in communication.
The reason may be his interlanguage system does not yet contain the appropriate item
(planning problem), or that the appropriate interlanguage item is difficult to retrieve
or is considered problematic from a correctness or fluency point of view (realization
problem). Therefore, they conclude that communication strategies that aim at solving
problems in the planning phase can lead to L2 learning with respect to hypothesis
formation, and that communication strategies which attempt to tackle problems in the
realization phase can lead to learning with respect to automatization. Nevertheless, a
communication strategy can only lead to learning if it is governed by achievement
rather than avoidance behaviour. If a leanrner avoids communicating his intention,
hypothesis formation and automatization do not occur. His interlanguage system
remains unaffected which means learning cannot occur.
1.5 Language transfer
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, language transfer (also known
as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and cross meaning) refers to speakers or

writers applying knowledge from their native language to a second language. They
classify language transfer into the positive and negative one. When the relevant unit
or structure of both languages is the same, linguistic interference can result in correct
language production called positive transfer. Therefore, it can be inferred that the
more similar the two languages are, the more the learner is aware of the relation
between them, the more positive transfer will occur. However, most of language
transfer is negative. It occurs when speakers and writers transfer items and structures
that are not the same in both languages.

1.6 Transfer as a communication strategy

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As a communication strategy, transfer refers to “the use of items from a
second language, typically the mother tongue, particularly syntactic and lexical, to
make good the deficiencies of the interlanguage” (Corder, 1992). In other words, the
second language learner expresses his intended meaning in the second language by
using some aspects of his mother tongue. Tarone (1983) calls it “borrowing” strategy
where the learner either translates word for word or uses the L1 to convey his
meaning. Faerch and Kasper (1984) refer to this similar strategy as “L1/L3 strategies”
where the learner uses the features of his native language or second or third language
to express his intended meaning in communication. Poulisse (1987) refers to the
strategy as “transfer” where the speaker transfers one language to the other. If the
learner exploits the similarities between languages and transfers from one language to
the other, he is said to have used the transfer strategy. Transfer is manifested either by
a “language switch”, where the learner uses words from the L1 or any other language
to express his intended meaning in the target language, or “literal translation”, where
the learner literally translates his intended meaning from one language into another.
1.7 Transfer as a learning strategy
According to Faerch and, language transfer may or may not enhance learning
depending on the context in which it is used. It does not support language learning if

the learner does not use the second language at all or he uses this strategy to deal with
language problem only. The speaker therefore does not learn the L2 item of the
problematic word. However, if the learner uses L1 in order to communicate, he may
be aware of his limited vocabulary. After the activity, he can resort to sources of
authority like a dictionary or the class teacher or his friend to learn the English
equivalents of the problematic words. In this indirect way, language transfer may be
viewed as having the potential as a language learning tool.


1.8 Related studies

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In 1998, Shamala Paramasivam who is a lecturer at the Department of English,
Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, University Putra Malaysia,
carried out a large research on communication strategies. She used a group of
undergraduate Malaysian students who learn English as a second language. She found
out that language transfer was used as a communication strategy as well as a learning
strategy. Then she published her report on Asian EFL Journal (2009).
Paramasivam selected four Malay (two males and two females) first-year
students. They were studying at the Science and Computer Department, Faculty of
Science and Environmental Studies, University Putra Malaysia. They were pursuing a
Degree in Computer Science, and were at the intermediate level of English
proficiency.
To make it easier and more reliable to define the level of their English,
Paramasivam chose only Malaysian students. Also, in order to reduce the influence of
gender on the use of language, an equal number of male and female participants were
used. They all had learnt English as a second language for eleven years, in six
years of primary education and five years of secondary education.
Basing on Anderson, Brown, Shillcock and Yule‟s (1984) classification of oral
tasks, Paramasivam used three types of oral tasks, which are static task, dynamic task,

and abstract task.
To collect data, the researcher put the students in four pairs. They are named
Pair 1 Male-Male (P1Mi & P1Mii), Pair 2 Female-Female (P2Fi & P2Fii), Pair 3
Male-Female (P3M & P3F) and Pair 4 Female-Male (P4F & P4M) respectively. Each
pair performed the three mentioned above task-types, the Instruction-Giving Task
(Task A), the Story-Telling Task (Task B) and the Opinion-Giving Task (Task
C).
In the first part of data collection, all four pairs performed the Instruction-
Giving Task (Task A). P1 (Male-Male pair) and P2 (Female-Female pair) were
required to repair a leaking tap. P3 (Male-Female) was asked to fix a wire into a
three-pin plug and P4 (Female- Male) had to make a flower out of ribbon. In the
second part, a person of each pair was given a picture story to look through for two

18
minutes before telling his/her partner a story based on it while the second person in
the pair listened. In the third part, the four pairs performed the Opinion-Giving Task
(Task C). They were each given a survival situation for which they had to put the
items in order of importance which they need to survive.
After transcribing the recorded data, the researcher firstly identified the
discourse units that contained the communication strategy on the basis of problem
indicators like hesitation phenomena and temporal variables such as laughs,
repetitions, mimetic gestures, pauses , false starts , sighs rising intonation and
comments like “what you call”. Then Paramasivam compared the respondents‟ L1
and corresponding L2 utterances of the task to see exactly what the learner wanted
to say in English and the learner‟s adjusted meaning or message. The third stage
of the identification procedure involved the use of the learners‟ retrospective
comments obtained from an interview session with the subjects.
After that, the recordings were analyzed. Firstly, the researcher described the
communication problems that the participants encountered. Afterwards, basing on
Poulisse‟s (1987) taxonomy of communication strategies, Paramasivam classified the

ones used by the students, then compared then analyzed for the application purposes.
Finally, Paramasivam found out that the students switch language in all the
three task-types to solve language problems at the word level. A Malay word was
used to express the target word. Moreover, literal translation was used in all the three
task-types to deal with problematic word or message. Besides, she also pointed out
the effect of language transfer on second language learning.
In addition to Paramasivam, many other researchers have conducted studies on
the related fields. For example, Bialystok1(983), Paribakht (1985), Corrales (1989)
Fernandez Dobao (2003) investigate transfer as a communication strategy in relation
to learner variables like the learners‟ level of L2 proficiency or Palmberg (1979)
studies learners‟ L1 or Corrales (1989), Poulisse and Schils (1989), Yarmohammedi
and Seif (1992) conduct researches on nature of communication task.
Bialystok (1983) examined communication strategies used by advanced and
regular 17-year-old students learning French as a second language and found that
advanced students used proportionately more L2-based strategies than the regular

19
students, who relied more on L1-based strategies, did. L2 strategies referred to
approximation, circumlocution and word coinage, whereas L1-based strategies
referred to borrowing, language switch and literal translation.
Fernandez Dobao (2003) who investigated communication strategy use of
Galician learners of English across proficiency level when performing three types of
oral tasks (picture story narration, photograph description, and conversation) also
found that elementary students used more avoidance and transfer strategies compared
to intermediate and advanced students. However between the intermediate and
advanced learners, there was a higher use of transfer among the advanced students as
she found they resorted to this strategy in their desire to be highly accurate and
detailed. Transfer included both language switch and translation.
Corrales (1989) investigated communication strategies in relation to nature of
the oral task amongst Spanish students of English and found that the Simulated

Conversation Task elicited significantly more transfer strategies than the
Structured
Question Task. She noted that this was because the Conversation Task
prompted the learners to monitor their speech more than they did in the Question
Task, causing native language features to surface more frequently.
Poulisse and Schils (1989) conducted an analysis of communication strategies
across three oral tasks - picture description, story telling and an interview – amongst
Dutch learners of English who were required to perform these three oral tasks with a
native speaker of English. Poulisse‟s taxanomy, which consists of three major
communication strategies, namely reduction, interactional and achievement strategies,
was used to identify and classify the strategies used by the learners. The researchers
found that the subjects predominantly used analytic conceptual strategies most in the
picture description task and frequently resorted to holistic conceptual strategies and
transfer strategies in the story telling and the oral interview tasks.
Yarmohammedi and Seif investigated (1992) task-type and communication
strategy of intermediate Persian learners of English. Three types of tasks were used in
their study: writing a composition on a series of pictures, translation and the narration
of a completed picture story. The tasks involved both written and oral productions of
the subjects. The findings revealed that achievement strategies were employed more
frequently than reduction ones in both the written and oral tasks. However, a number
of strategies such as cooperative, mime and retrieval strategies were more specific to

20
the subjects‟ oral performance. In the written production of the story, there was a
greater use of the literal translation strategy than in the oral production, and the
reverse was true for code-switching.
Summary
This chapter has covered theoretical background needed to support the study.
That background includes the clear definition, different views of communication
strategies, learning strategies, language transfer, their inter-relationships, as well as

the related studies. The next chapter describes the research methodology in detail.

21
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents a detailed description of the research methodology the
author chose for the achievement of the aims and objectives of the study and the data
collection and analysis procedures.
2.1. Participants
The subjects of the study are first-year students from two classes, including
two male and two female, studying at Foreign Trade University, Hanoi at 2009-2010
academic year. All respondents have learnt English as a second language for seven
years, four years of junior secondary education and three years of senior secondary
education. They are all native Vietnamese. They are all nineteen years old. An equal
number of males and females were used to minimize the influence of gender on
the use of communication strategies and to ensure that there would be sufficient talk-
time for each task-type in order to establish a reliable profile of strategy use for each
task-type.
2.2. Measuring instruments
For the oral tasks, the participants will be paired off. They will perform the
given tasks. These task-types are selected based on Anderson, Brown, Shillcock and
Yule‟s (1984) classification of oral tasks involving static, dynamic, and abstract
relationships.
If the speaker is asked to describe static relationship among objects like
describing a picture, giving instructions, following route directions and diagram
drawing, they are involved in static tasks. These tasks require the speaker to give
sufficient information to the listener to identify the objects and their spatial
relationships.
On the other hand, dynamic tasks pose a higher degree of communicative
demands on the speaker. These tasks ask the speaker to describe events or
relationships which change over time and space, or in other word, dynamic. Some

examples of the tasks are telling a story and narrating an event like an accident.

22
Yet, the abstract tasks require the speaker to communicate abstract notions.
Apart from static and dynamic tasks when students are provided with all information
needed to communicate, the speaker in abstract tasks has to think of the actual content
to be communicated with the help of stimulus material.
The purpose of using different oral tasks on the difficult scale is to investigate
the use of language in different communication problems. All tasks reflect realities of
real-life communicative situations and involve pair-work.
1. Static Task: Instruction-giving task (henceforth referred to as Task A)
One of the pairs gives instruction for the other student to perform a task
like making a flower or repairing a leaking tap. The respondents can ask for
clarifications.
2. Dynamic Task: Telling a story (henceforth referred to as Task B)
One member of the pair is asked to tell a story basing on a sequence of
given pictures while the other of the pair listens and asks for clarifications if
necessary.
3. Abstract Task: Opinion-giving (henceforth referred to as Task C)
The students are required to exchange opinions and try to reach an agreement
on the rank of importance of selected items which help them survive in a survival
situation.
The students‟ performance in these tasks was recorded then analyzed.
In addition, students are given a series of pictures. They have to write a
composition basing on the pictures taken from “Listening extra” book by Miles
Craven (2000) (see appendix)



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2.3. Data collection procedure
The data collection procedure was divided into two main phases. The first one
follows Pamavasima‟s research and the second one is based on Yarmohammedi and
Seif‟s study in 1992.
In the first phase, the subjects were paired off into four groups as the
followings.
- Pair 1 Male-Male (P1Mi & P1Mii): Cuong-Tuan Anh
- Pair 2 Female-Female (P2Fi & P2Fii): Ngoc-Ha
- Pair 3 Male-Female (P3M & P3F): Cuong-Ha
- Pair 4 Female-Male (P4F & P4M): Ngoc-Tuan Anh
Each pair performed the three task-types mentioned above. All three tasks
were first performed in English and then immediately in Vietnamese. Data collection
involved three parts.
In the first part, all four pairs performed the Instruction-Giving Task (Task A).
- P1 (Male-Male pair) and P2 (Female-Female pair) performed
a task that required the pair to repair a leaking tap.
- P3 (Male-Female ) and P4 (Female- Male) had to make a
flower out of ribbon.
In the first stage of data collection for this task-type, the researcher
instructed a member of the to repair a leaking tap and to make a flower out of ribbon.
Then the student had to perform the task themselves. Meanwhile, the researcher
evaluated how well the instruction is understood. In the second stage, these subjects
instructed their partners to do the task. The subjects were allowed to ask as many
questions and to request for as much clarifications as they required.

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In the second part, the four pairs performed the Story-Telling Task
(Task B). Two picture stories were taken from Heaton‟s (1976) Beginning

Composition through Pictures. In this part, one person in each pair was given a
picture story which he/she looked through for two minutes before telling his/her
partner a story based on it while the second person in the pair listens. The second of
the pair was also instructed to participate as naturally as he/she would in a real life
situation.
In the third part, the four pairs performed the Opinion-Giving Task (Task C).
They were each given a survival situation for which they had to rank a list of items in
order of importance for survival purposes. The two survival situations used referred
to as Survival Situation 1 and Survival Situation 2, are taken from Ur (1981).
In the second phase, the students were given a set of pictures taken from the
book “Listening extra” by Miles Craven (2000). Then they had ten minutes to
compose a story basing on the given pictures without any dictionary.
2.4. Analyzing data procedure
After transcribing the recorded data, the researcher identified the discourse
units to discover the communication strategies used. To get a reliable identification of
the strategy used, three identification procedures were used, including pointing out the
problem indicators, comparing the respondents‟ L1 and L2, and the use of the
learners‟ retrospective comments.
Firstly, I indicated the discourse units containing the communication
strategy on the basis of problem indicators which include hesitation phenomena and
temporal variables like pauses, sighs, laughs, repetitions, false starts, mimetic
gestures, rising intonation and comments like “what you call”, “how to say”.
However, the purpose of using such problem indicators may be different. The students
paused to give themselves more time to think or to organize his ideas. The use of
hesitation might refer to the choice of the words used. In other words, this stage alone
was not sufficient. As a result, the researcher then had to come to the second step.

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In this step, I compared the respondents‟ L1 and corresponding L2 utterances
of the task. The respondents in L1 were the intended meaning, or what exactly the

participants wanted to express. On the other hand, what they said in L2 reflected their
adjusted meaning. The strategy which the students used was identified by putting the
corresponding L1 and L2 versions of the task together then comparing to show where
they did not coincide.
According to Palmberg (1979), there are four possibilities of the presence of
a particular intended meaning in the L2 version of a task were used to determine the
instances of strategy use.

Intended meaning
in L1 version
Intended meaning
in L2 version
Possibility 1
Present
Present
Possibility 2
Present
Absent
Possibility 3
Absent
Absent
Possibility 4
Absent
Present
Finally, basing on the retrospective comments obtained from an interview
session with the subjects which helped to identify the problems encountered by the
participants, the researcher confirmed that the discourse studied was the result of a
linguistic handicap.
After that the discourse units containing communication strategies were
analyzed following three stages. Firstly, the researcher described the problems which

the students encountered in the three given tasks. Then using Poulisse‟s (1987)
taxonomy of communication strategies, what strategies the students used were divided
into different types according to their linguistic configuration, communicative
function and communicative intent in each of the task-types. Afterwards, the
researcher compared the types to find out the similarities as well as the differences
among them. Then, each type of communication strategy was analyzed for its
potential learning effect.
Similarly, the second phase of the study was analyzed. The researcher first
compared the compositions both in Vietnamese and in English to identify the intended

26
meaning conveyed in the mother tongue and how they expressed in the target
language. Then, the problems encountered by the students were identified basing on
an interview session with the subjects. Finally, the discourse units containing
communication strategies were analyzed following three mentioned above stages.
Summary
This chapter presented the research population, the research methodology,
instruments of data collection, and procedures of data analysis. To achieve data for
the research, different instruments were used including three oral tasks and a writing
task. These instruments were employed in the hope to gain triangulation and more
reliable and valid data. Next chapter will present the data analysis and discussion.

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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS
Chapter Two presents the chosen research methodology and instruments of
data collection, which included three oral tasks and a writing task. This chapter
analyzes the data as well as compares to the findings of the original research.

3.1 Research findings

3.1.1 Transfer as a communication strategy
In order to overcome the difficulties they encounter when communicating, the
students apply different types of strategies which can be summarized as language
switch and literal translation. The first strategy means the respondent used a
Vietnamese word to replace its equivalent in the target language to express his
intended meaning. Meanwhile, the latter one can be understood as literally translated
his intended meaning from Vietnamese into English.

3.1.1.1 Language switch
Language switch was used as a communication strategy in all the three task-
types to solve language problems at the word level. A Vietnamese word was used to
express the target word.
In Task A, language switch was used to refer to objects used in the task and to
explain the non-verbal aspects of the task, which is the actions required for
performing the task.
In example 1, this strategy was used to refer to the “tap”, the “screw”,
“spanner” which the instructor did not have the English equivalent for. He referred to
as “vòi nước”, ốc vít”, “cờ lê”.
Example 1: Task A-repairing a leaking tap
P1Mi: Now I want to show you how to cover “vòi nước” because it‟s
dropping water. So, first you have to use this “cờ lê” to twist this “ốc”.
P1Mii: This one? (point at the screw)
P1Mi: Right. Then you use the tape, the professional one and roll around the
tap.
P1Mii: Ok.
P1Mi: Now you put the “ốc” back and twist it again.
The second pair had a similar problem. The instructor had difficulty in finding
the English words for his intened meaning.

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Example 2: Task A-repairing a leaking tap
P2Fi: Today I will tell you how to repair a pipe that is „rỉ nước”. Firstly, you
must get the tools ready. You need a roll of “băng dính”and “cờ lê”.
P2Fii: OK. I‟m ready.
P2Fi: Now you use the “cờ lê” to open the pipe then you put the tape over and
over it until you don‟t see water any more.
P2Fii: Ok.
P2Fi: Then you put the “ốc vít” back then “vặn” it to the right position.

As can be seen from this example, the instructor use “rỉ nước”, “băng dính”,
“cờ lê” “vặn” instead of “leaking”, “tape”, “spanner”, “twist”due to his lack of the
target vocabulary.
In example 3 and 4, the pairs demonstrated the use of language switch by
replacing some Vietnamese words for their intended meaning.
Example 3: Make a flower out of ribbon
P3F: I love doing this. I‟ll tell you how to make a flower out of ribbon.
P3M: OK.
P3F: You have to “gấp” the ribbon like this (demonstrating the action at the
same time).
P3M: OK.
P3F: You keep doing like that until you make the enough big “flower”
Example 4: Make a flower out of ribbon
P4M: You need to be rather careful to make the flower out of this “ruy băng”.
You have to fold it to make a “nơ”. Then you continue making three more of them.
Finally, you tie them together to make the flower.
P4F: performed as instructed.
In task B, the students used language switch to describe the object, and its
parts as well as the actions in the stories.
Example 5 (pair 1 Male-Male (P1Mi-P1Mii)

P1Mi: Two children were playing … uhm …ping pong, but the table was too
high so the children take a “cưa” and “cưa” a….
P1Mii: the table?
P1Mi: No, a”chân” of the table.
P1Mii: Oh?