An Examination of the Use of Oral Communication Strategies by Second-Year University Undergraduate Students in Intensive Speaking Class

For many university-level EFL students, speaking in a second language can be quite a challenge. It often involves grappling with the complexities of the L2 language. To help tackle these hurdles and boost students' speaking confidence, Oral Communication Strategies can be quite beneficial. In this research, we used a mixed-method approach, which included surveys via questionnaires and in-depth interviews. We received responses from 110 completed questionnaires and gained further data by interviewing 10 students. The findings revealed that students tend to rely on Oral Communication Strategies when they face difficulties in communicating in a second language. They often resort to such strategies, such as using gestures, facial expressions, miming, or sound imitation, especially when they struggle to explain a vocabulary item. These results are anticipated to be a valuable resource for educators and practitioners, assisting them in tailoring the curriculum and providing a more enriching learning experience for students learning a second language. The study's findings can help language learners and educators in higher education by using oral communication strategies to create effective learning environments for improved communication


INTRODUCTION
Language is essential for communication as it allows people to convey their thoughts, emotions, and ideas.According to Chomsky (2007), language is also a means of expressing thoughts.With over 6,000 to 7,000 languages spoken worldwide (Lewis, 2009), language varies based on culture, country, and civilization, which can create communication barriers and lead to failure due to linguistic constraints (Byram, 1997;Gerard, 1987).
Some countries differentiate between English as a foreign language (FL) and English as a second language (ESL) (L2).English usage has been classified based on its intended application, including education, commerce, and tourism (Hülmbauer et al., 2008).Qian (2020) and Fantini (2019) agreed on statement that suggested the use of language as a medium in some important sectors of education, whereas English as a Foreign Language is described as the principal language of advanced study, but it is limited as a medium of instruction and as a major instructional language.According to Syamsudin (2015) English was designated as a Foreign Language in Indonesia.
Oral communication strategies are systematic approaches that a speaker uses to convey their ideas when faced with language barriers and communication difficulties.EFL learners have also employed oral communication strategies to communicate with others and achieve specific goals during conversations (Chairat, 2017).
The term 'communication strategies' in L2 contexts was first introduced by Selinker in the 1970s.It gained attention in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a psycholinguistic approach to problemsolving in interlanguage errors.The strategies were defined as mechanisms to compensate for non-native speakers' linguistic deficiencies when communicating with native speakers.
In the past, such as Zhao (2013), Dornyei (1997), Nakatani (2006) have attempted to categorize oral communication styles.However, the conceptual differences among communication strategy researchers have led to a wide range of communication strategy classifications.Dornyei's (1997) communication methods are one of them.

Topic Avoidance
Avoiding topic areas or concepts that pose language difficulties.

Circumlocution
Describing or exemplifying the target object or action (e.g., the thing you open bottles with for corkscrew).

Approximation
Use an alternative term that expresses the meaning of the target lexical item as closely as Pedagogy: Journal of English Language Teaching, ( 12)1: 100-116  Learners need to acquire certain knowledge to communicate effectively.
According to Syamsudin (2015), language learners should comprehend three elements of information: 1) Grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation rules -This means using the right words in the right context and pronouncing them correctly.2) Transaction and interaction function -Learners should understand that clear communication is essential for effective conversation.3) Knowledge of culture and social norms -This includes understanding the rate of speech, turn-taking, the roles of participants, and the length of pauses between speakers.Additionally, learners must be able to anticipate who is speaking to whom, when they are speaking, what they are talking about, and why they are speaking (Savignon, 2017).
Learners may face a particular problem while learning the target language.According to Byram (1997), language learners are frequently inadequate in recalling words to understand a topic, and therefore communication fails to develop.As a result, the adoption of Oral Communication Strategies is required to assist language learners in improving their speaking skills.Furthermore, Gerard (1987)

METHOD
To address the research questions, the researcher has outlined different approaches and research designs that may be suitable.The current study utilizes a Mixed Methods approach.The prevailing issue identified among students is their tendency to make several mistakes, which creates barriers to communication.Therefore, the researcher aims to identify communication strategies employed by students to overcome these barriers.Additionally, to pinpoint the underlying problem, the researcher has decided to administer a questionnaire and conduct interviews to inquire about students' communication styles.110 second-year undergraduate students majoring in English Education took part in the study.The participants were chosen from both high-achieving and low-achieving classes to assess their tendencies to make mistakes.
The research involved second-year English major students enrolled in Intensive Speaking programs at an Indonesian Public University.There were about 110 learners, divided into four intensive speaking classes, each with 28 students.
To evaluate the Oral Communication Strategies (OCS) used by the students, the researcher used questionnaires adapted from Hua et al. (2012).Hua et al. used the same questionnaire in a previous study.The questionnaire included five choices for students to indicate how often they used OCS during communication in a foreign language: (a) Always, (b) Often, (c) Sometimes, (d) Seldom, and (e) Never.In addition to the questionnaires, interviews were conducted to gain insight into the reasons behind the use of OCS in the intensive speaking classes.
The questionnaire was found to yield accurate results.The researcher chose to adapt the questionnaire because it covers all 12 categories of OCS classification according to Dornyei's taxonomy.The other instrument used was interviews.The researcher followed the steps and interview guidelines outlined by Boyce and Neale (2006) for conducting these in-depth interviews.To collect data, the purposeful sampling technique was used, following the interview guidelines outlined by Boyce & Neale (2006).The study results are based on two approaches, the questionnaires' result are analyzed using SPSS, and the interview results are gathered and analyzed based on Dornyei's classification of oral communication strategies (1995).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION RQ1; Oral Communication Strategies Used by Students
The questionnaire divides the aspects of oral communication methods into two categories: avoidance/reduction strategies and achievement/compensatory strategies.Compensatory techniques are further subdivided into two subdimensions: interlingual strategies (strategies involving transfer from L1 to L2) and intralingual strategies (strategies that involve only L2).The findings were categorised by the researcher depending on each sub-dimension.

Avoidance
The questionnaire includes two items in the sub-dimension of Avoidance.In question 1 'You begin to explain about a topic but are unable to continue and leave a message unfinished due to linguistic issues,' students chose 19.4 percent of never, 14.8 percent of seldom, 30.8 percent of sometimes, 31.5 percent of often, and 3.7 percent of always, according to able 3.   The use of oral communication strategies is strongly connected to students' English proficiency.Previous studies have outlined various reasons why students employ these strategies.Ahmed & Pawar (2018) discovered that high-ability EFL students often use effective strategies such as paraphrasing and seeking help, while low-ability students tend to avoid the topic or switch to their mother tongue when encountering communication barriers.The study also notes that students' lack of exposure and training hampers the effective use of communication strategies.
In a study by Rohani (2021), it was observed that students with higher proficiency in a foreign language tend to use social affective strategies in oral communication.This study involved 110 students in the Business Administration Department of the State Polytechnic of Malang, Indonesia.The findings also suggest that teachers can utilize this information to create more opportunities for students to enhance their foreign language communication strategies.
Meigouni & Shirkhani (2020) explained in their study that when it comes to using oral communication strategies and their relationship with learners' selfefficacy beliefs and anxiety levels, students tend to avoid abandoning their message.The study revealed that when dealing with speaking problems, students mainly focus on accuracy, and abandoning the message is their least frequently used strategy in such situations.This low frequency of "message abandonment" shows that learners are willing to do their best to express themselves.
The comparative studies also highlight the results of the present studies, showing that most language learners view these strategies as the least used.This is evident from Table 15, where "Massage abandonment strategies" have a mean of 2.85, and "topic avoidance strategies" has 2.83.Furthermore, these results highlight that avoidance strategies are barely used by the students.

Interlingual strategies
The questionnaire includes three items from the subdimension of interlingual techniques.The third question, 'You described or exemplified the object or action instead of utilizing the proper target language item or structure,' yielded the following results: 0.9 percent never, 20.4 percent seldom, 39.8 percent sometimes, Pedagogy: Journal of English Language Teaching, ( 12 Table 5 shows the computation.Question 4 is also classed as an interlingual strategy.According to Table 6, students perceive the question 'You make up a non-existing target language word that shares enough semantic features in common with the desired lexical item (e.g.ship for a sailboat)' as 12.0 percent never, 24.1 percent seldom, 28.7 percent sometimes, 33.3 percent often, and 1.9 percent always.The use of oral communication strategies in the Intralingual sub-dimension is closely correlated with how language learners tackle language barriers within these four problems, reflecting the underlying difficulties and challenges faced by students.

Intralingual strategies
The questionnaire's third subdimension is intralingual strategies.This sub-dimension is derived from the achievement/compensatory tactics dimension.The things discussed in intralingual methods are communication strategies that solely use L2.
This sub-dimension consists of questions 6 through 12. Table 8 depicts students' perceptions of question 6: 'You create up a non-existing target language word based on a supposition (e.g.vegetarians for vegetarian).'According to the data, 15.7 percent of students choose never, 17.6 percent choose seldom, 25.9 percent choose sometimes, 31.5 percent choose often, and 9.3 percent choose always.Question 7 is also included in the intralingual strategies subdimension.This method is illustrated by the question 'You communicate using target language using mime, gesture, facial expression, or sound imitation.'Table 9 depicts students' perceptions of question number 7. It is revealed that 0.9 percent choose never, 10.2 percent choose seldom, 18.5 percent choose sometimes, 34.3 percent choose often, and 36.1 percent choose always.The researcher discovered the students' impression of oral communication tactics in the question 'You translated literally a lexical item, an idiom, a compound term or structure from a native language into a target language.'It shows that 4.6 percent of the 108 students chose never, 22.2 percent chose seldom, 33.3 percent chose sometimes, 26.9 percent chose often, and 13.0 percent chose always.The outcome of students' perception in question number 9 is shown in Table 11: 'You utilize an L1 term by adapting it to L2 phonologically (i.e., with an L2 pronunciation) and/or morphologically (e.g., by adding an L2 suffix to it).' In a total of 108 pupils, 13.0 percent chose never, 32.4 percent chose seldom, 26.9 percent chose sometimes, 19.4 percent chose often, and 8.3 percent chose always.Question number ten is part of the Intralingual Strategies sub-dimension.This method is illustrated by the question 'You utilize a native language word or phrase in the target language with a native language pronunciation.' Table 12 depicts students' perceptions of question number ten.It is revealed that 3.7 percent choose never, 23.1 percent choose seldom, 33.3 percent choose sometimes, 37.0 percent choose often, and 2.8 percent choose always.According to the data, 0.9 percent of students choose never, 16.7 percent choose seldom, 24.1 percent choose sometimes, 25.0 percent choose often, and 33.3 percent choose always.The final calculation is for question number 12: 'You employ filling words or gambits to fill pauses and gain time to consider (e.g., well, now let me see, in fact)'.In Table 14, the researcher discovered that 12.0 percent of pupils choose seldom, 46.3 choose sometimes, 30.6 choose often, 11.1 choose always, and none pick never.Prawiro et al., (2022)'s that focuses on undergraduate students in a debate class found that the most common strategy used is the "use of fillers/hesitation devices".This study also showed that students used various communication strategies to maintain communication, such as stalling, mixing languages, and expanding their communicative sources to solve problems.This previous study demonstrates that students' challenges in constructing spoken language are more effectively addressed using communication strategies rather than leaving the topic or message unaddressed.After distributing the questionnaire, the researcher obtained the following information on the students' oral communication strategies.The data is shown in Table 15.The mean data for questions 1 through 12 are displayed in the following order: 2.85, 2.83, 3.25, 2.89, 3.46, 3.01, 3.94, 3.21, 2.78, 3.12, 3.73, and 3.41.Based on the explanation, it is inferred that students favor approach number 7, which is 'You utilize Mime, Gesture, Facial expression, or Sound imitation to communicate using the target language,' with a mean score of 3.94.Several studies conducted by different researchers came to the same conclusion.Students can overcome language barriers by communicating more verbally when using this strategy.

RQ2; Dominant Strategies Used by Students
When the speaker is having difficulty explaining the target word, the following most popular method is used to help them communicate better by inviting interlocutors to interpret the meaning of some words (Chairat, 2017;Chew et al., 2018;Lai Kuen et al., 2017).The second most popular method is represented in question 11: 'You turn to the interlocutor for assistance (e.g., What do you call...?, Can you talk more slowly?, Do you understand?' with an average score of 3.73. Moreover, Questions 5 and 12 are two other popular solutions.'You employ a broad or empty lexical item to replace holes in vocabulary command (for example, the overuse of thing, make, do)' in question 5 and 'You employ filling words or gambits to fill pauses and gain time to consider (e.g., well, now let me see, as a matter of fact)' in Question 12 have a mean score of 3.41.Because these strategies appeared to be the next most popular, some students used them more frequently as a result of their high anxiety levels when communicating in the target language.
According to the research, Nugroho (2019) and Mir et al. (2020) agreed that lowachiever students are more likely to use OCS, and it has a strong relationship with their self-efficacy beliefs and anxiety level.
Furthermore, Questions 3 and 8 are two other tactics used in the middle range.Question 3 'You described or exemplified the object or action instead of using the appropriate target language item or structure' has a mean score of 3.25, and question 8 'You literally translated a lexical item, an idiom, a compound word, or structure from a native language into a target language' has a mean score of 3.21.The other methods' means are located beneath the average mean score of 3.20.Students will have a minor in those strategies.These findings are consistent with the findings of other studies.Mohamed et al., (2021) conducted research on debaters and their coping mechanisms when employing an oral communication strategy.According to the findings of the study, the preference for these strategies assists debaters in organizing ideas and articulating and confidently presenting arguments despite their own shortcomings and interruptions from opponents.
Discussing the most frequent strategies used by students in present studies, the researcher has classified several reasons why they employ communication strategies.Jaquen (2020) emphasizes that there are three oriented functions of communication strategies used by language learners: 1) language-oriented function, 2) context-oriented function, and 3) communicators-oriented function.The language-oriented problems are mainly caused by a gap between the required language resources and the immediately available linguistic resources for successful L2 communication.
Context-oriented functions suggest that limited opportunities for verbal communication in settings where English is not the primary language pose a challenge for individuals learning a second language.. Lastly, communicators' expectations and perceptions play a role in creating meaning and can lead to communication problems when disrupted.Issues in L2 oral communication are predominantly social occurrences influenced by how communicators perceive themselves and others in the interaction.
Concerning this, students' current study choices show that the main communication strategies they use (nonverbal means) are associated with the second function, which is context-oriented.The primary purpose of using these strategies is to extend the conversation and promote further discussion in the EFL context.Therefore, the use of these communication strategies is indeed beneficial for the learners' improvement.
In contrast, students seem to use the strategy of Foreignizing (utilizing a native language word or phrase in the target language with a native language pronunciation) the least during communication, and this is correlated with the third function.This is because of the small number of English native speakers to talk to, which means the function of being communicators-oriented is not being fulfilled.Additionally, students tend to use their native language when communicating with peers during class.As a result, this communication strategy appears to be the least used by most students.

RQ3; The determinant reason of Using OCS
The researcher used the snowball sampling technique to find respondents, who are 10 English Education students who took the Intensive Speaking class.The researcher processed the data using Miles & Huberman (1994) collecting data technique.Table 16 displays the findings of the qualitative investigation.According to the results of Table 16, the Oral Communication Strategies that are commonly employed by ten students differ.Students' perceptions and motivations for adopting Oral Communication Strategies differ as well.Their preferences for using Oral Communication Strategies are strongly related to their level of English proficiency.Some students stated that they struggle with vocabulary mastery.Because most students are unable to recall certain English words, the use of Non-Linguistic Means strategies has become the students' preferred method (Demir et al., 2018;Su, 2021).
The attitude of students toward the use of oral communication strategies is strongly related to their intention to continue the conversation in the target language.Furthermore, the importance of speaking strategy training in learner education in terms of learners' attitudes toward language learning and oral language output should not be underestimated (McLaren, 2019;Rastegar & Gohari, 2016).The results of the In-Depth Interview for students are shown below; • Because of their inadequate vocabulary mastery in L2, the majority of students employed Oral Communication Strategies.
• Students are hesitant to explain a topic because they do not understand the proper sentence form.• When students lack a specific lexical item in L2, they tend to extend the dialogue with the interlocutor by using an empty lexical item such as thing, stuff, or make.
• Because they do not know the words, pupils explain the lexical item utilizing Mime, Gesture, Sound Imitation, and Facial Expression in order to keep the discussion with the interlocutor.• Students that have L1 exposure feel more at ease conversing in L1, thus they drag L2 and utilize it more in L1. • This approach is typically used when students who study L2 utilize L1 on a regular basis and it has become their habit, making it difficult for them to acquire a new form of L2. • This method might make kids feel satisfied when they find the answer after taking some time to think by utilizing the words "well," "now let me see," or even the term "hmm." It has been proven that Oral Communication Strategies (OCS) can be extremely helpful for students who are learning a new language, mainly English.However, to get the most benefit from OCS, it is crucial that the teacher or educator introduces the technique and assists in its usage during teaching and learning.Students often become nervous and anxious when faced with complex tasks and activities (Nova, 2022), and this is where teachers can help by introducing OCS.Using this technique can help students better cope with their problems and improve their language acquisition skills.

CONCLUSION
Finally, students tend to adopt Oral Communication Strategies to overcome any difficulties encountered while communicating in a foreign language.The study discovered that students had employed all forms of Oral Communication Strategies based on Dornyei's Taxonomy of Oral Communication Strategies (1995).The use of OCS is determined by the pupils' qualities in learning a foreign language.In certain situations, students must employ oral communication tactics.When students meet a foreigner who can only speak their native language, they usually employ mime, gesture, facial expression, or sound imitation to communicate in the target language when they don't know how to define a specific lexical item.Aside from that, the researcher discovered from the interview that students' reasons for using Oral Communication Strategies are (1) students' limited vocabulary in L2, which leads to the biggest gap and the main reason for using OCS; and (2) the student's responses also revealed that the communication strategies that they have used during Foreign-Language communication are not related to sentence structure and grammatical pattern.
The author also advises that future researchers take this study to the next level by adopting Nakani's (2006) Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (OCSI) classification and conducting research on the next level of speaking, such as public speaking, so that this research can be used as a reference.

Table 4
depicts students' perceptions of utilizing communication strategies in response to question number 2: 'You avoid talking about topic areas or concepts that pose language issues.'The outcome is 4.6 percent never, 28.7 percent seldom, 48.1 percent sometimes, 15.7 percent often, and 2.8 percent always.

Table 13
depicts students' responses to question 11: 'You turn to the interlocutor for assistance (e.g., What do you call...?, Can you talk more slowly?, Do you understand?)'