Turkish EFL learners’ use of communication strategies and its predictors

Yıl 2016, Cilt: 5 Sayı: 3, 178 - 192, 18.10.2016

Dilara Arpacı-somuncu

Öz

The present study investigates the predicting effects of willingness to communicate (WTC) and cognitive flexibility (CF) on oral communication strategy (OCS) use among Turkish learners of English as a foreign language. It was conducted at a state university in Turkey at the spring semester of 2015-2016 academic year. A total of 150 students (female N = 74; male N = 76) at the second half of the preparation programme participated in the study. In order to measure WTC of participants, WTC scale (McCroskey, 1992) was employed. Cognitive flexibility was measured by CF scale (Martin & Rubin, 1995) while OCS scale (Nakatani, 2006) was used to find out participants’ oral communication strategies. Pearson correlation coefficients revealed that each variable has positive correlations with each other. Standard multiple regression analysis indicated that cognitive flexibility was the best predictor for almost each strategy used in oral communication (social-affective, fluency oriented, negotiation for meaning, accuracy oriented, message reduction and alteration, message abandonment, and attempt to think in English). As the various individual differences were seen to have interrelations in the process of L2 learning, the study concludes that individual differences may lead learners to use some specific oral communication strategies.

Keywords: Oral communication strategies, willingness to communicate, cognitive flexibility