Philippine E-Journals

Communication Strategies in Second Language Learning of College Freshman Students

Raissa M. Ponce

Discipline: Language Arts, Discipline

 

Abstract:

This study was conducted to determine the communication strategies of the 83 respondents randomly selected from the college freshman students at Western Mindanao State University enrolled during the second semester ofSY 2010-2011. This was done to provide empirical data to support or reject Bialystok’s theory on communication strategies and the extension of such theory using the influence of gender, course and first language. To pursuewith its objectives, the study used the descriptive research method with the Communication Strategy Questionnaire as the main instrument, and t-test for independent sample and Analysis of Variance as the main statistical tools for analysis. The study yielded the following findings: a) The respondents actually utilized all the three communication strategies, such as: avoidance (49%),compensatory (64.9%) and time-gaining (56%) communication strategies. b) They used the avoidance communication strategy somewhat prevalently while the compensatory and time-gaining communication strategies prevalently. c) There was a significant difference in the respondents’ time gaining communication strategies when data were grouped according togender. It implied that the students in the two courses were indeed utilizing communication strategies during classroom oral activities. Of the threeindependent variables such as gender, course and first language, only genderhad a significant influence on the students’ communication strategy along thetime-gaining strategy in favor of the female respondents who employed thisstrategy more prevalently than the males. Course and first language did nothave much influence on the students’ communication strategies since theypractically employed similar communication strategies during classroom oraldiscussions.