A.
ARTICLE REVIEW
I
would like to review the article under the title “Use of Communication
Strategies by Tourism-Oriented EFL Learners in Relation to Gender and Perceived
Language Ability”. The researchers of this article are Tao Zhao &
Channarong Intaraprasert. They come from School of Foreign Languages, Institute
of Social Technology, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand. This
article was published in English Language Teaching; Vol. 6, No. 7; 2013 ISSN
1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750 Published by Canadian Center of Science and
Education with 4 H index.
The
introduction is begun with the explanation from the researchers about the
English development in China. In China, English has nowadays been increasingly
learned and used as a foreign language with its rapid development of economy,
which also facilitates the development of the tourism industry because Chinese
governments are encouraging their citizens to learn English, parents are
persuading, even forcing, their children to speak it and college students are
doing English at the expense of their majors (Jiang, 2003). According to China
Daily (2004), the World Tourism Organization (WTO) predicted that China would
be the world's largest tourist destination by the year 2020 and English would
play a more important role in the development of the world's tourism industry.
The
tourism-oriented EFL learners in colleges or universities are expected to have
better English language proficiency, especially their oral communication
competence for the future career. However, compared with the EFL learners in
the developed areas of China, the EFL learners in underdeveloped or developing
areas find it difficult to orally communicate due to lack of communicative
opportunities and communication strategies while communicating with people
(Zhang, 2007).
The
researchers proposed two research problems, they are:
1.
What is the overall frequency of each
type of communication strategies employed by Chinese tourism-oriented EFL learners
in relation to gender and perceived language ability?
2.
Does the employment of strategies for
coping with oral communication problems vary significantly according to the
gender of students and their perceived language ability? If it does, what are
they?
The research design used was
experimental research. The participants
were 814 tourism-oriented EFL learners (261 males and 553 females) were
purposively selected from 6 universities (2 universities in Yunnan Province, 2
universities in Guizhou Province and 2 in Guangxi Province),
The instrument used was only
communication strategy questionnaire (CSQ), that contained 20 items of
strategies for coping with communication problems (CCP), 10 items of strategies
for understanding interlocutor’s messages (UIM), and 5 items of strategies for
carrying on the conversation as intended (CCI).
The research was conducted during November and
December, 2012, the researcher went to six universities in the Southwest China
in person to collect the data responded to the CSQ, to which 814 university
tourism-oriented EFL learners gave their responses and in analyzing the data
the researchers used Analysis of
Variance (ANOVA), Post-hoc Scheffe Test,
Chi-square Test.
The result of the use of CSs and
students’ gender, the other two individual items of UIM category was very
strong. It suggested that females were more interested in interaction, and more
cooperative to make themselves understood, obviously female students were
active in CSs use and showed significantly higher frequency of individual CSs
use and language strategy use is a gender-related issue. If females were more
active, positive and skillful in using certain strategies to learn a language,
then males may need more help in developing such strategies for communication.
Meanwhile, in the use of CSs and perceived language ability there is no
significant differences between CSs and CCP category and the significant
differences of CS employment were found in the UIM, CCI categories and
individual items of CS employment in relation to student’s perceived language
ability.
The conclusion is in terms of
gender, the results revealed that females were more interested in interaction
and more cooperative to make them understood, while males had greater
confidence, were more risk-taking, and more enjoyed doing the speaking activity
than female students. There is no significant difference according to three
aspects of the investigation related to gender and perceived language ability:
the overall CS use, the CS category, and the individual CSs. However,
interestingly, the findings showed that there were significant differences in
both the CS category and the individual CSs.
B.
CRITICS AND SUGGESTION
I
begin to criticize the introduction, in the introduction the researchers did
not explain the reason they chose gender to be searched. The researchers only
explained the need and importance of English in China and the development of
tourism in China nowadays. The researchers explained the definition of
communication strategies much more than the background.
The
researcher did not mention the significant of the study, they only mentioned
the research problem and objective of research. The most important part of the
research was the significant of the study, it should be clearly explained both
theoretically and practically.
The
participants in the research were chosen from six universities in three
provinces that were part of developing areas in China. It is representative
enough but unfortunately the researchers chose 553 females and 261 males. The
ratio of female and male were quite unfair, it will affect the result of
statistical calculation that females tend to be more dominant in the
communication.
The
instrument of this research was only questionnaire meanwhile the researchers
wanted to measure the effect of communication strategies related to gender and
perceived language ability. The instrument was quite not proper because in
questionnaire the participants could manipulate the data easily. The researchers
should measure the students’ communication strategy by using oral interview related
to Faerch and Kasper (1983) and Littlemore’s theories (2003). The aspect that
should be measured in the communication strategies are achievement strategies,
reduction strategies, substitution strategies and reconceptualization
strategies. When the researchers thought that conducting oral interview spent
very long time (553 females and 261 males), they could reduce the participants
or asking the collaborator to conduct the oral interview. The other instrument
that could be used was tape recorder, then the researchers could listen the
data more than once to avoid the data bias.
Faerch
and Kasper (1983) divided the communication strategies into achievement
strategies and reduction strategies. The achievement strategies applies inter language,
cooperative attitudes, and non-verbal languages meanwhile in the reduction
applies topic avoidance, message abandonment, and meaning replacement. Littlemore
(2003) stated more completely about the aspect of communication strategies,
they are substitution and reconceptualization strategies. Substitution
strategies apply original analogical/metaphoric comparison, conventional
analogical/metaphoric comparison, literal comparison, word transfer with L2
word approximation, super-ordinate, simple word transfer, and substitution plus
strategies. Meanwhile reconceptualization strategies apply componential
analysis, function, activity, place and emotion. Those strategies were quite
suitable and more valid to be used as instrument in this research.
It
is still related with the instrument that the content of the questionnaire were
not clear enough, e.g. Strategies to Cope with Communication Difficulties (CCP)
no 2: “Using familiar words, phrases or sentences”. The researchers did not
state clearly about familiar words, phrases or sentences. The familiar words,
phrases and sentences must be based on the student’s vocabulary, background of
knowledge, culture etc, therefore it is quite subjective. The researchers should
give the example the kinds of familiar words, phrases or sentences to make the
same understanding, comprehension between one and other participants.
Another
example of unclear instrument in the questionnaire was Strategies to Cope with
Communication Difficulties (CCP) no 5 “Using simple expressions”. The
researchers did not give the example of the simple expression. The participants
who almost never practice English would regard that most of expression were not
simple expression. The researchers should give the guidance the kinds of simple
expression.
The
researchers also translated questionnaire into Chinese language to make the
participants more understand and easy to fulfill the questionnaire. In my
opinion, it is not necessary for the researchers to translate because they
wanted to measure the participants’ communication strategy in English. It means
that starting from the questionnaire must be written in English only.
The
researchers discussed the result clearly and gave a lot of theories in the
discussion. Every result of the research was supported by theories. It makes
the readers more understand comprehensively.
Finally
I suggest that it is better for the researchers to conduct the qualitative
research to know absolutely about the communication strategies used by the
participants, both females and males. That qualitative research will give more
information of the kinds and types communication strategy used by participants
rather than statistical calculation. Theoretically, the result of the qualitative
research can give more information and theories of the way in teaching speaking
especially communication strategies. Practically, for the teacher and students,
they can also improve the way of teaching and learning English especially
speaking and communication strategies.
REFERENCES
China
Daily. (2004). China a Top Tourist
Destination by 2020. May 13, 2004. Beijing: China Daily.
Faerch,
C., & Kasper, G. (1983b). On Identifying Communication Strategies in
Interlanguage
Production. in
C. Faerch, & G. Kasper (Eds.), Strategies
in Interlanguage Communication. New York: Longman.
Jiang,
Y. (2003). English as a Chinese language. English
Today
Littlemore,
J. (2003). The Communicative Effectiveness
of Different Types of Communication
Zhang,
Y. (2007). Communication Strategies and
Foreign Language Learning. US-China Foreign Language
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