Communication Strategies of English Learners with Different Language Proficiency and Hemispheric Dominance

Abstract

This qualitative and quantitative study aimed to identify communication strategies applied in an oral narrative task by English learners with different language proficiency and hemispheric dominance; to investigate their different use; and to explore relationships among their English proficiency, hemispheric dominance and communication strategy use. The participants included 100 English major undergraduates in an international program at a private university in Southern Thailand. The instruments covered the Quick Placement Test (QPT), the Brain Dominance Inventory (BDI), a narrative task material, retrospective comments, and semi-structured video-stimulated recall interviews. Data analysis was based on Dornyei and Scott's (1997) communication strategy taxonomy. Descriptive statistics were applied together with Mann-Whitney U Test and Pearson's correlation. The findings indicated that achievement, direct and indirect strategies were more applied by the low proficient learners than the highly proficient ones who were the greater users of avoidance strategies. Significantly different communication strategy use between the two proficiency groups was discovered at mime strategy (p = .03). Among the three groups of different hemispheric dominance, it was found that achievement, direct and indirect strategies were more frequently used by the whole- brained and the left-brained learners than their right-brained counterparts who were the most frequently users of avoidance strategies. Message reduction (p = 0.04) and use of fillers (p = 0.05) strategies were applied differently among the users with different brain patterns. Message reduction was used significantly differently (p = 0.04) among the six groups of learners with different hemispheric dominance and proficiency. Negative correlations (p = 0.05) were discovered among left and right hemispheric dominance with different proficiency in application of avoidance, achievement and indirect strategies.