This section looks at CSs research which has been conducted in Thailand. According to Kongsom (2009), most research studies support investigation of CSs that are related to various factors such as tasks and proficiency level. It is seen in Table 2.16 that most studies tried to involve strategy in order to improve task performance. These empirical studies are reviewed as follows.
Wongsawang (2001) examined the use of communication for culture–specific notions in L2. She applied communication strategy taxonomies developed by Tarone (1980), Bialystok (1990) and Dörnyei (1995) in this investigation. There were thirty Thai speakers as participants. All of them were in the intermediate English level. They were required to perform two tasks which were composed of culture–specific notions. For the first task, they had to explain to an American friend about paying respect to their teachers as a part of Thai ceremony. The second task combined two parts; retelling story and presenting the notion of „make merit‟. The research focused on 14 concepts which were considered problematic. The findings demonstrated that approximation and circumlocution were the learners preferred choices of strategies. This investigation proposed that the concept of which L2 speakers were familiar with did not assist them in coping with their problem in communication. Even though, the tasks were created to be as realistic as possible, the fact that the participants did not have any interlocutors may affect their choice of CS.
Table 2.16 : Studies on CSs in Thailand ( taken from Kongsom (2009 p. 53 –54)), and adapted from Metcalfe and Noom–Ura (2013, p. 71–72) )
Researchers Subjects Method CS Taxonomies
Adoption Findings
Wongsawang (2001) 30 Thai native speakers with intermediate English proficiency
–two tasks contain culturespecific notions
Taone (1980), Bialystok (1990),Dörnyei (1995)
– circumlocution and approximation were the most preferred strategies Wannaruk (2003) 75 Thai students at
Suranaree University of Technology
–interviews Dörnyei (1995) – the most frequently used CS was modification devices
– students used different CSs to different degrees of their language level Weerarak (2003) 16 first year students
majoring English
– classroom observation – speaking tasks
* cannot be found – the participants used five types of CSs: modification devices, target language–based strategy, nonlinguistic strategy, L1–based strategy and avoidance strategy.
–The less able group used CSs more frequently than the more able one.
Researchers Subjects Method CS Taxonomies
Adoption Findings
Pornpibul (2005) 200 second–year Thai undergraduate students
–questionnaire – video tapes of three different tasks
–retrospective interviews
Brown 2000–adapted from Dörnyei (1995)
–participants often
employed appeal for help, approximation, avoidance, non–linguistic signals, circumlocution, and code– switching
Kongsom (2009) 62 fourth year Thai students majoring in Engineering
–self–report strategy questionnaire
– attitudinal questionnaire –four speaking tasks – retrospective protocols
Tarone (1983)‟s five main categories
Dörnyei (1995) Faerch and Kasper (1983)–e.g. code switching, foreignizing, word–coining, non– linguistic strategies and appeal for help.
– students considered pause fillers, hesitation devices, approximation, self–repair and
circumlocution beneficial after receiving a teaching of CS.
Chuanchaisit and Prapphal (2009)
300 Thai students – self–report questionnaires
–speaking task inventory
– risk–takingand risk avoidance CSsmodified from Corder (1983), Dörnyei and Cohen (2002), and Nakatani (2005, 2006)
– high proficiency learners were likely to apply more risk taking techniques : social– affective, fluency– oriented, and help– seeking strategies. – low proficiency were using more risk
Researchers Subjects Method CS Taxonomies
Adoption Findings
Prapobratanakul and Kangkun (2011)
– fourth grade Thai students
– speech production task (object description)
Tarone (1981) Faerch and Kasper‟s (1983b)
– Paralinguistic strategies: (e.g. gestures, facial expressions) were frequently applied.
– Intralinguistic strategies: (e.g. circumlocution and approximation) were also occasionally applied by the students.
Metcalfe and Noom–Ura (2013) 104 first–year Thai undergraduate students at Chulalongkorn University. – self–reporting questionnaires – Nakatani (2006)‟s Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI) adapted from Dörnyei and
Scott(1997)
– message reduction, alteration and negotiation for meaning were applied by students respectively.
Wannaruk (2003) examined the use of communication strategies among students at Suranaree University of Technology according to communication strategies taxonomies categorized by Dörnyei (1995). There were seventy–five Thai students majoring in agriculture, engineering and information technology that took part in this research. The students were gathered into three groups in accordance with their oral proficiency level of high, moderate and low. Data were collected from students‟ interviews by native English lecturers. After that, the data were analyzed using mixed methods. The results disclosed that modification devices were the most frequently used CS, whereas the other strategies used were non–linguistic strategies, L1–based strategies, target language–based strategies and avoidance strategies respectively. It was also found that the students applied various CSs to their degree of language proficiency. It was claimed that Wannaruk‟s study only emphasized the interview task and the relationship between strategy usage and oral proficiency. Thus, Kongsom (2009) suggested that other factors like attitudes and learners‟ personal characteristics should be looked at for a further study.
The communication strategy research by Weeraruk (2003) was to investigate oral communication strategies used by first year students at Rajabhat institute in Thailand. The students who participated in the study were majoring in English. They were separated into two groups; the more able and the less able group according to their speaking test scores. The main research method was classroom observation. Apart from that, the observation form and four speaking tasks were employed as research tools. The speaking tasks were: explaining the meaning of words, describing pictures, having conversation and having oral interview. The result revealed that students employed five types of CSs which were avoidance strategy, modification devices, L1–based strategy, non–linguistic strategy and target language–based strategy. Also, the less able group employed communication strategies more often compared to the more able group. Similar to Wannaruk‟s (2002) research, Weeraruk‟s study only placed an emphasis on the relationship between strategy usage and oral proficiency of the students or
other factors which might have impacts on learners‟ choice of communication strategies.
Pornpibul (2005) examined how Thai undergraduate students employed communication strategies in order to communicate in English. He utilised Brown (2000) communication strategies taxonomies adapted from Dörnyei (1995) to investigate CSs found in this study. The number of participants was two hundred second–year students who were willing to attend a speaking and listening course at Thammasart University. The research methods employed were questionnaires, videotapes recording three tasks, retrospective interviews and observations. The results suggested that the strategies used in order of frequency were (1) appeal for help, (2) approximation, (3) avoidance, (4) nonlinguistic signals, (5) circumlocution, and (6) code–switching. The findings also revealed that the high achievement group of students employed circumlocution more frequently. On the other hand, the lower achievement one used strategies such as code–switching, appeal for help and avoidance. These strategies are regarded as less dependent on the knowledge of English strategies. Different factors which potentially influenced students‟ choice of communication strategies were disclosed in the findings. Eventually, the researcher made some comments for the instructors to raise students‟ awareness of applying advance communication strategies in classroom. Therefore, the comparison of data was taken from a multi–method approach involving the triangulation of the findings of the strategies which were employed by students.
Kongsom (2009) carried out an investigation to address a problem regarding the impact of teaching CSs to Thai students learning English at King Mongkut‟s University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand. This interventionist study collected both quantitative and qualitative data. Kongsom adopted three CS taxonomies in her work: Tarone (1983)‟s five main categories, Dörnyei (1995), and Faerch and Kasper (1983)–“e.g. code switching, foreignizing, word–coining, non–linguistic strategies and appeal for help” (Kongsom, 2009, p.26) There were sixty four fourth year students majoring in Engineering participated in the study. The participants had a 12–week learning and training of „communication
strategy–based instruction‟. After that, twelve students were inquired to accomplish retrospective protocols and four speaking tasks. As mentioned in Table 2, data had been collected from: (1) retrospective protocols, (2) transcription data of four distinct speaking tasks, (3) self–report strategy questionnaire, and (4) attitudinal questionnaire. The findings revealed that instructions of communication strategies were beneficial to the students. They also expressed good feelings as well as positive attitudes toward the instructions of communication strategies. Moreover, students had considered pause fillers, hesitation devices, approximation, self–repair and circumlocution beneficial for learners after receiving a teaching of communication strategies instruction.
Chuanchaisit and Prapphal (2009) conducted a research in order to address an issue of low–ability students in choosing different types of communication strategies that might have an impact on their communication proficiency. This study adopted a various classification system based on the utilisation of risk– taking strategies versus risk–avoidance strategies which were made up of nine subcategories modified from Corder (1983), Dörnyei and Cohen (2002), and Nakatani (2005, 2006). There were three hundred Thai university students who took part in this investigation. One hundred students were chosen to participate in the „Strategies Used in Speaking Task Inventory‟. The researchers claimed that these strategies had been developed for eliciting learners‟ usage of CS responses. The results after collecting quantitative data showed that Thai students who posessed low English proficiency were likely to apply risk–avoidance strategies or techniques; the use of time gaining strategies. These students also needed support so that they could employ risk–taking techniques; for example, circumlocution, help–seeking, fluency–oriented, and social–affective strategies.
Prapobratanakul and Kangkun (2011) examined communication strategies applied by young Thai students. Tarone‟s (1981) and Faerch and Kasper‟s (1983b) taxonomies were adopted for the investigation. There were twenty fourth grade Thai students who participated in this research. The research method employed was video recordings of speech production tasks in which students were inquired
demonstrated that the young Thai learners utilized paralinguistic strategies, paraphrasing, code–switching and avoidance strategies respectively. They also made a notice to the fact that: not only these low–proficiency Thai learners could apply communication strategies such as code–switching and paralinguistic strategies but adults also utilized the same types of communication strategies.
Metcalfe and Noom–Ura (2013) examined communication strategies used by Thai students regarding their general English proficiency and oral fluency. There were 104 first year undergraduate students at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand who took part in this study. The Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI) or it is known as self–reporting questionnaires adapted from Nakatani (2006) were used in order to assess communication strategy applied by Thai students. The findings of the study pointed that the students often applied message alteration and reduction as well as negotiation for meaning whilst listening strategies respectively. Besides, low proficiency students frequently applied message abandonment and less active listener strategies. On the other hand, high proficiency students tended to apply circumlocution, negotiation for meaning whilst speaking, fluency–oriented and social–affective strategies. Moreover, Metcalfe and Noom–Ura (2013) also suggested that it would be very useful if there will be further research into the impact of communication strategies training especially for low proficiency groups of students.
To sum up, most studies on communication strategies of Thai students were employed by questionnaires and speaking tasks as the main research tools. Most of these recent researches also disclosed that Thai students use various communication strategies in accordance with their language levels. Meanwhile the recent studies present useful findings on the overviews of communication strategies applied by students as participants. It is necessary to systematically examine how Thai undergraduate students apply communication strategies and cross–cultural communication strategies in the real Thai EFL classroom settings. Therefore, findings and knowledge received from such studies can lead to a proper development of communicative capability amongst Thai learners.