ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics - Volume 145, Issue 1, 2004

Communication strategies (CSs) are important in helping learners to communicate successfully when they are faced with a production problem due to their lack of linguistic knowledge. This paper aims to support the importance of developing second language learners’ strategic competence and making communication strategies part of an ELT syllabus. This paper first discusses the various definitions of strategic competence and communication strategies. Then it briefly presents various communication strategies used by second language learners to solve their communication problems. The major portion of this paper is devoted to strategy training and its advantages in language learning. Finally, the paper concludes with the importance of introducing tasks and activities on communication strategies in an EFL syllabus, and suggests ways of improving teaching methodology.

This paper reports on two phases of a study of a group of advanced TEFL (teachers-of-English-as-a-foreign-language) students. To raise their awareness of the importance of discourse intonation while they were receiving teacher training, this study focuses on examining their sociocultural and psychological inclinations in the choice of phonological models. The first phase is an exploration of their attitudes toward, a native-speaker variety (British English) and a nonnative (Chinese EFL-speaker) variety of English pronunciation and intonation. The second reports on a didactic intervention study of the impact of activities that engaged the students in the awareness-raising of the importance of suprasegmental features, especially discourse intonation, on self-perceptions of their efficacy and confidence in communication. The results showed a systematic pattern of participant endorsement for a native-speaker model and a clear improvement in theIr perceptions of the importance of suprasegmental features of standard English because of teacher-student co-construction of meaning through interactive awareness-raising activities. The findings are discussed with reference to the students' sociocultural and psychological needs in TEFL training, particularly with reference to recent academic discourse on the issue of “linguistic imperialism” (Canagarajah, 1999; Phillipson, 1992, 1996) and ElL in pedagogy (Jenkins, 1998, 2002) and their wider implications in typical EFL contexts.

This research aimed at studying the efficacy of Audiolingual and Total Physical Response (TPR) methods in helping the Iranian Elementary EFL learners learn and recall new vocabulary items. In the Audiolingual method new vocabulary is taught through repetition, mimicry, and memorization (Richards & Rodgers, 1986), while in TPR this is done through synchronization of the new vocabulary items with the learners’ body movements (Asher, 1965 & 1977). Sixty elementary male students participated in this study in two groups of 30. Both groups took the Nelson test, a vocabulary test, and recall test at the beginning of the research program. T- test analyses revealed no significant differences between the two groups in any of the three tests. One group (exp 1) received its vocabulary lessons in the Audiolingual method and the other group (exp 2) did this in TPR. The students covered six units of the book “Headway, Elementary” in 15 sessions. After the treatment, they took the same vocabulary and recall tests they had taken at the outset of the study. T-tests on the data gathered from the two groups on pre-tests and post-tests of vocabulary and recall revealed significant differences between the two groups after the treatment. These analyses showed that the subjects who received their vocabulary lessons in TPR out-performed those who received their vocabulary lessons in the Audiolingual method, both in vocabulary learning and vocabulary recall.