Description
This poster consists of the rationale, methodology, results, and discussion of an exploratory study with the purpose of focusing the potential scope of research possibilities regarding the use of conversation strategies in first-year English Communication, or EC1, courses at Sojo University. Conversation strategies have been included as a component of the EC1 and 2 curriculum in part since 2019. The purpose of this research is to gather and analyze general data is gathered about students’ knowledge of communicative competence, opinion of strategic competence in conversation, and perceptions of the specific strategies learned in their first English Communication course, or EC1. Communicative language teaching targets improving a language learner’s communicative competence. The theory on which the inclusion of conversation strategies in EC1 is that strategic competence is an integral part of communicative competence, and it is believed that communication strategies perform an important function in the development of strategic competence, and therefore the development of a learner’s overall communicative competence (Canale and Swain, 1980). Data consists of a survey which addresses students’ knowledge and opinion of conversation strategies, as well as test transcripts which were analyzed for the presence of conversation strategies in use by the students. Results of data analysis show a generally positive opinion on the inclusion of strategies in the course, as well as their usefulness in spoken conversation. The results of this study will inform the design of a more in-depth, larger scale project in the future.
