Developing an oral communication strategy inventory

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Developing an oral communication strategy
inventory

• Yasuo Nakatani
• The Modern Language Journal 90,ii, 2006

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Questions to be discussed

• What variable is measured in this questionnaire?
• Definition (conceptual vs. operational)
• How is the questionnaire developed?
• How many stages did the researcher go through
  for constructing the questionnaire?

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Question One

• Variable
• Oral communication strategy
• achievement strategies or compensatory strategies
• reduction strategies or avoidance strategies

Oral communication strategies specifically focus
on strategic behaviors that learners use when
facing communication problems during
interactional tasks
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Three stages

• Stage One
• Use an open-ended questionnaire to elicit a
  variety of strategy items
• Stage Two
• Pilot study (400 subjects)
• Stage Three
• Validation (400 subjects)

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Stage One

• Selecting questionnaire items
• use an open-ended questionnaire
• complete the statements such as When I am
  speaking English, I pay attention to., When I
  am listening to other people speaking English, I
  try to
• 80 students in the first semester EFL lessons

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Stage Two

• Constructing a pilot test questionnaire
• 40 items for strategies for coping with speaking
  problems
• 30 items for strategies for coping with listening
  problems
• Use the five-point likert-scale
• 400 university students
• 8 items from speaking and 4 items from listening
  were deleted due to their low item-total
  correlation

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Stage Three

• The final factor analysis
• 400 university students responded to the
  questionnaire (45 men and 55 women)
• Made a factor analysis

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Oral communication problems

• What communication problems might people
  encounter in interaction?

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As a speaker

• Your partner cannot understand you.
• You are not familiar with the topic.
• You do not have proper language to express what
  you want to say
• I feel nervous while speaking.
• You find the question difficult to answer.
• You often produce grammatical errors in your
  speaking

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As a listener

• You cannot understand your partner.
• Your partner uses difficult language
• You are not familiar with the topic.
• I feel nervous while listening.

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You cannot understand your partner.

• 22. I ask for repetition
• 21. I make a clarification request
• 20. I ask the speaker to use easy words
• 19. I asks the speaker to slow down
• 23. I make clear to the speaker what I havent
  been able to understand.

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You cannot understand your partner.

• I try to translate into L1 little by little.
• I pretend to understand it.
• I only pay attention to what I have understood.

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An open-ended questionnaire

• When I am speaking English, I try to
• When I am listening to other people speaking
  English, I try to
• What helps me most when I communicate with others
  is