strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in english of freshman students in thai nguyen university bais for a proposed drill exercises

STRATEGIC, LEXICAL AND SYNTACTIC COMPETENCIES IN ENGLISH OF FRESHMAN STUDENTS IN THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY: BASIS FOR A PROPOSED DRILL EXERCISES A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty o

STRATEGIC, LEXICAL AND SYNTACTIC COMPETENCIES IN ENGLISH

OF FRESHMAN STUDENTS IN THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY:

BASIS FOR A PROPOSED DRILL EXERCISES

A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of Graduate School

Batangas State University

Batangas City, Philippines

ABSTRACT

Title :Strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in

English of freshman students in Thai Nguyen

university: Basis for a proposed drill exercise

Author : Nguyen Thi Thanh Hong

Course :Doctor of Philosophy major in English language and

This study made use of the descriptive method and utilized researcher-constructed questionaire and teacher made test For objective interpretation and analysis of the study, the data were subjected to the following statistical treatment: frequency, percentage, ranking, independent t-test and standard deviation

The findings of the study revealed that majority of the freshman students of Thai Nguyen University employed strategic competencies to cope and promote their communication skills Further, freshman students have poor performance in the areas of vocabulary, idioms and word formation but have better performance in synonyms and antonym; they demonstrate poor performance in the areas of verb tenses, direct and indirect speech, but have better or remarkable performance in the areas of subject verb agreement, pronoun references and phrases and clauses In addition, There is no significant relationship exists between students’ lexical and syntactic competencies There exists a relationship between teachers’ assessment and the level of students’ lexical and syntactic competencies Students did not frequently used or practice their lexical and syntactic skills as indicated by their mean score of 3.0 The drill exercises formulated contains activities geared towards improving freshman students’ lexical and syntactic competencies in Thai Nguyen university

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This dissertation wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the support, love, patience, and generosity of many people, who have helped me in their own incredible way to deal with myself while trying to find my voice in what I do

I would especially like to acknowledge and thank Dr Amanda G Banaag, who as a major professor and director of my dissertation opened my eyes to see the details in the “big picture” I highly admire her scholarship, dedication, efficiency in decision-making, valuable advice, to Dr Maltida H Dimaano, who has enormously helped me to keep on moving Had it not been for her constant administrative and academic support, I doubt I would have finished the Program and my dissertation in such a timely manner There isn’t a quantifier in the English language that can express how grateful I am for everything that she has done for me during the past four years I would also sincerely like to thank Dr Corazon Cabrera, who has always been full of new ideas and contagious enthusiasm and who has encouraged me to be respectful to the papers that I’ve written I have a special thank for Dr Remedios P Magnaye as well, whose energy and resourcefulness have been inspiring Finally, I a big “thank you” should go to the

participants in this study and especially to a good friend and colleague

of mine at Thai Nguyen University, who graciously helped me with collecting the data for the study

My greatest thanks go to my nearest and dearest – my family and my friends - whom I selflessly and unconditionally love, and I know they love me back I thank my mother for giving me life, love, values, and belief that I can accomplish anything I set out to do Thank you, Mum, for sacrificing so much to make this Possible for me! All I have ever wanted was to make you proud of me! And thank you to my sisters, who have always given me a lot of encouragement I also don’t think it would have been possible to write this dissertation without my husband, and

my sons My husband’s patience and high level of tolerance to all my academic queries, intellectual quests, and unpredictable mood swings have been more than highly appreciated My son’s well-being, love, and encouragement have been my guiding light Finally, I am entirely indebted to all my friends for their spiritual generosity and for being my friends Thank you!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE I

TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF FIGURES vii

CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM 11

Introduction 11

Statement of the Problem 20

Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study 21

Significance of the Study 22

II REVIEW OF LITERATURE 23

Conceptual Literature 23

Competence in the English Language 23

Research Literature 70

Synthesis 78

Theoretical Framework 82

Conceptual Framework 86

Hypothesis 89

Definition of Terms 89

III RESEARCH METHOD AND PROCEDURE 80

Research Design 80

Subjects of the Study 80

Data Gathering Instrument 82

Data Gathering Procedure 83

Statistical Treatment of Data 84

IV PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA 85

V SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 143

Summary of Findings 143

Conclusions 153

Recommendations 154

APPENDICES A Questionnaire for Students 164

B Questionnaire for Teacher’s -Part 1 175

C Questionnaire for Teacher’s - Part 2 180

D Validation Letter of the Questionnaire for Students 186

F Letters of Request to the Head of Institution 189

H Documents for Validation of Questionaires in Batangas State University 194

K: Photographs of the Research Sites 195

L Photographs of the Approval Test Administration of the Head

of Institutions 196

M Photographs of the Teachers Respondents 197

N Photographs of the Students Respondents 198

P Psychrometric Conversion Table 199

CURRICULUM VITAE 201

LIST OF TABLES

1 Distribution of the respondents of the study 81

2 Strategic competencies of Freshman students 85

3 Student skills according to the frequency of use as strategic competencies 90

4 Degree of importance of strategic competency 93

5 Performance of student on Lexical Competence 94

6 Performance of student on Syntactic Competence 98

7 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for each lexical test 104

8 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for each syntactic 105

9 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for lexical vs syntactic test 106

10 List of student skills validated by 60 teacher respondents as lexical and syntactic competencies of Freshman students 108

11 Students’ frequency of lexical and syntactic skills 111

12 Mean scores of student lexical and syntactic skills 113

13 Student's t-test comparison of the mean scores for lexical and

syntactic test 115

14 Areas under lexical- syntactic competencies to be used as

topics for the design of drill exercises and the basis of their

choice 118

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Title Page

1 Research Paradigm 88

In globalization where English language and communication play

a crucial role, the ability to communicate in English is now a necessity People with different linguistic background who believe that if one communicates in English fluently and proficiently have an edge , study English as it is the language of the global village and serves as a neutral language to all

In many countries, English has become the language of power and prestige As a gatekeeper to social and economic progress, many countries give importance to English language as it serves as a pathway towards progress and learning Understanding and

communicating English is a factor for a person to learn and progress faster because most of the information is available in the English language and for that reason to be globally competitive, communicating effectively in that language is a must

As an international language, English is spoken in many countries both as native and as a second or foreign language It is the world’s dominant language because aside from being designated as an official among sixty two nations, it has the greatest number of speakers It most international organization, English is the official and working language aside from being the most taught foreign language across the globe People with knowledge in English language has better career and pay as well as communication with the outside world Their desire

to learn the language is unsatiable

Further, often referred to as the world’s language, English is widely spoken In a number of jobs, professions and fields, a working knowledge of English becomes a need Knowledge also of the English language to enhance educational attainment through improved communication ability is also important

English as the lingua franca of the modern times of business and

of popular culture is also the language of computers and internet aside from being the language of globalization of international business,

politics and diplomacy It enables people of different countries to converse and do business with each other As a language that serves

as a common link for international and inter cultural communication in a global society, its use minimizes cultural diversity and expands cultural convergence The narrowing of cultural linguistic diversity, expansion of cultural and linguistic divergence as well as information and media advancement are some of the contribution of English language to globalization One of the biggest advantage of a country in a global job market is the proficiency of the skilled workers in the English language

In the field of education, proficiency in the English language also improves academic performance of students

Proficiency in the English language has been identified as a requisite in the globalized economy; with countries having a large number of its population capable of communicating in English being rewarded with economic advantages In Asian countries, this trend has been realized by both governments and individuals and are thus pushing the wide interest in English language study in the last ten years Vietnam is no exemption to this trend considering that it is one of the non-native speakers of the English language In the 2011 study of the organization EF Education First Ltd., Vietnam was shown to have

an EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) of 44.32 or very low

proficiency close to Thailand that is 39.41 This EF EPI is the first of its kind index comparing the English proficiency of non-native English speaking countries calculated from 2,368,730 test takers across 42 countries and two territories, accumulated from 2007 to 2009 In the following year that is in 2012, Vietnam showed and EF EPI of 52.14 or low proficiency, an improvement from the previous year in comparison with Thailand which got a value of 44.36 or very low proficiency

Vietnam issued the Government Decision 1400 in 2008 whose goal is to “renovate thoroughly the tasks of teaching and learning foreign languages within the national educational system” and through its Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) National Foreign Language 2020 Project, or Project 2020 aims to embark on an ambitious education reforms where all school levels will be required to have a minimum level of English by 2020 Under this program, Vietnam does not only want majority of its students to be able to use a foreign language, especially English, confidently in their study, daily communication and work in an integrated, multi-cultural and multi-lingual environment, making foreign languages a comparative advantage of development for Vietnamese people in the cause of industrialization and modernization for the country by 2020, but demands that its high school teachers are competent on the second

highest skill level (C1), the elementary school teachers on the fourth highest level (B1) and middle school educators the third-highest (B2)

According to Dudzik (2008), a senior fellow at an education ministry project on foreign language improvement, students who have studied English for seven years beginning in grade six are often not able to use English beyond simple greetings and questions such as

“hello”, “good-bye” and “what’s your name?” This problem is magnified when the students enter the tertiary level, as freshman students, when they definitely will be handicapped to tackle more advanced tasks in learning not only in the English language but in other subjects such as Science and Mathematics where English is the medium of instruction

Second language learners (L2) undergo developmental stages in their language process and are characterized to be longitudinal and sequential in nature Only when the L2 leaner has completely undergone the stages and undertook the maturation process where communicative competence emerge

As an applied component of language, communicative competence is the ability of the speakers to use different functioning rules of the system It involves speaker’s grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology and phonology It also includes the social knowledge of the speaker in the appropriate use of language Knowing

English involves speaking, writing, listening and reading Producing the language correctly as well as using the language for a particular purpose is part also of communication in English when speakers are able to perform the needed communicative functions, they achieve communicative competence in the language

It was further stated that competence aside from being referred to

as an idealized capacity, it is also the ideal speaker-hearers knowledge

of his or her own language and it is the “mental reality” which is responsible for all those aspects of language use which can be characterized as linguistics (Kroy, 1994) The grammar or set of language rules that is represented mentally and manifested based on the individual’s understanding of acceptable usage in a given idiom defines one’s competence (Evans et.al, 2006)

The summation of all effort in builiding strategic, lexical and syntactic competencies in English is to enable students to communicate with others and acquire one of the best lifeskills a person can develop in the 21st century It is because someone who can effectively communicate thought, ideas and feelings is better equipped for sucsess both on the job and in personal relationship

Together with all the learning competencies expected of a 21stcentury professional such as information retrieval and evaluation,

ethical reasoning, teamwork and leadership, creative thinking, computer literacy and entrepreneuraship, all these competencies in English will help learners become ready for the task aheadof them It will serve them a better place in the academic and professional world as the communicative competency expected of them include interpersonal skills through effective listening, establishing rapport, monitoring non-verbal signals and expressing awareness of and respect for sel and others using a variety of written, oral and non-verbal communication media.

Thus, the objective of the Vietnamese L2 learners is to achieve a certain level of communicative competence in the areas of grammatical, socio linguistic, strategic competence and discourse competence

Thai Nguyen university (TNU) is known as one of the three regional universities in Vietnam, and a unique university in the Northern Mountainous

Area of Vietnam Since its establishment in 1994, TNU has become one

of Vietnam’s leading regional Universities It is a conglomeration of colleges which were established earlier as separate institutions of learning The unification of these colleges into a university system continues the long history of Thai Nguyen being a centre of learning in the region For 20 years, TNU has grown and blossomed in the performance of its functions with a vision to move towards the future

with dynamism in the pursuit of excellence TNU has seven universites with more than twenty thousand students coming from different remote provinces in the North of Vietnam Under the program of the national foreign languae 2020 project, TNU also becomes one of the centres for human resource development for foreign language studies and has to face alot of difficulties and challenges in improving quality of English teaching and learning to enhance the language proficiency of the students Those difficulties come from both teachers and students, and sometimes from some other factors such as, government’s policy on English in school education or facilities for English teaching and learning

First of all, it can be seen clearly that for most of students in Thai Nguyen university who are hailed from rural areas, English is always a really difficult subject and they do not often like English lessons Although they have different back ground knowledge and different level

of learning, they are arranged to learn English in large and mixed ability classes, normally with 60 or even up to 80 students in a class More over, according to the policy of the Vietnamese Ministry of education and training, even though English has become a compulsory subject at secondary and high schools and has been one of three main subjects beside maths and literature, students have no competence for a simple

conversation in English because students learn basic grammar at school level for the purpose of passing only in the tests and in the examinations and not to face any real life situations They pay more attention on other subjects for entrance exammination to enter universities Therefore, based on the researcher’s observation and as

an English teacher teaching the subject for several years, most of the students encounter difficulties along grammar and vocabulary as well as their inability to use varied communication strategies

For the English teachers, it is also very difficult to teach as well as to improve the English proficiency of their students These students have a lot of difficulties in learning English including their different background knowledge, different learning styles, different learning speeds and a variation in motivation According to the national foreign language 2020 project, all students who graduate from university have to get B1 level in six levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) However, to help students to get English proficiency according to the reqirement of the MoET is not a simple duty for the teachers, especially for the teachers in Thai Nguyen university where most all students have poor background knowledge of language and lack competency on all aspects of language such as, strategic, lexical, syntactic and discource

Because of the above mentioned reasons, the reseacher decided

to carry out this study “Strategic, Lexical and Syntactic Competencies in English of Freshman Students in Thai Nguyen University Basis for a proposed drill exercises” Through this study, student problems along these areas would be identified and remedied through drill exercises designed to enhance their strategic lexical and syntactic competencies

Statement of the Problem

This study assessed the Strategic, Lexical and Syntactic

Competencies in English of Freshman Students in Thai Nguyen University

This addressed the following research questions:

1 What are the strategic competencies of Freshman students?

2 What is the level of students’ lexical competence relative to:

2.1: Vocabulary;

2.2: Idioms;

2.3: Word formation; and 2.4: Antonyms/synonyms?

3 What is the level of students’ syntactic competence in terms of:

3.1: Subject verb agreement 3.2: Verb tenses

3.3: Direct and indirect speech 3.4: Phrases and clause

Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study

This study covered the responses of 382 freshman students selected randomly from five different universities in Thai Nguyen as well

as the responses of 57 English teachers who have experience in teaching freshman students The responses of the students to the validated lexical and syntactic questionnaire were gathered and statistically analyzed The study was conducted in an urbanized setting covering a period of six months from July to December 2013 The students and teachers demographic background were not included in this study nor the identity of the respondents be gathered Stratification

of the students and teacher respondents was not be done nor their gender was considered The respondents included freshmen students who are currently enrolled in an English course in the University The

teacher respondents also include those who are currently teaching freshman English courses

Significance of the Study

This study is significant in at least three levels namely the students, the teachers and the administrators

The Students Being one of the respondents of this study,

students will largely benefit from the findings of this work as it will establish their current level of lexical and syntactic competencies and thus identify their areas of handicap which will be used as basis for the design of remedial strategies

Teachers They will be provided with a rationale and

understanding as to why the students language performance is such and would instill in them a deep appreciation of the remedial strategies that will be designed This is also important to the students and the teachers as this will generate awareness and sensitivity to the specific lexical and syntactic standards of the English language

Administrators and Policymakers This study is important to

them as they will appreciate the need to institute teaching reforms and insure the implementation of innovative strategies towards the improvement of English language teaching that is geared towards generation of personal benefit

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This chapter presents the relevant conceptual and research literature which have bearing to the present study The literatures included are found substantial to the study and gives the necessary background to understand the present research

Conceptual Literature

The following concepts which focused on competence in the English language, strategic competency, lexical competency, syntactic competency and drill exercises were reviewed to substantiate the study

Competence in the English Language

The state or quality of being adequately or well qualified is referred to as competence It also refers to the cluster of related abilities, commitments, knowledge and skills that enable a person to act effectively in a job or a situation This concept is meaningful as it explains how a competent person applies his abilities in terms of technical skills and other defined traits

One area where the concept of competence can be applied is on language, particularly the English language competence Chomsky (1965) first used the term competence to account for the unconscious

knowledge speakers have of their language and considered it the “ideal” language system that makes it possible for speakers to produce and understand an infinite number of sentences in their language and to distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical sentences This unconscious knowledge was elaborated by Fromkin and Rodman (1981) to constitute as “what someone knows about the languages and the mental representation of the language” Thus, the English language competency is broadly subdivided into two areas, namely, linguistic competence and communicative competence Kroy (1974) stated that competence aside from being referred to as an idealized capacity, is also the ideal speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his or her own language

as well as the “mental reality” which is responsible for all those aspects

of language use which can be characterized as linguistics

Further, the grammar as set of language rules that is represented mentally and manifested based on the individuals’ understanding of acceptable usage in a given idiom defines one’s competence according

to Evans et.al (2006) It also pertains to the innate knowledge of rules rather than knowledge of item relations, as one does not have to be trained to develop competence and will still be able to apply it in an infinite number of unheard examples (Philip et.al, 2010)

Linguistic competence as defined by O’Grady et.al (1993) is the ability that speakers have “to produce and understand an unlimited number of sentences, including many that are novel or familiar” As the language users normally speak a language without a conscious knowledge of the rules governing it, some authors often refer to linguistic competence as grammatical competence Fernandez et al (2011) expound that linguistic competence constitutes knowledge of language that is tacit and implicit which means that people do not have conscious access to the principles and rules that govern the combination of sounds, words and sentences but do recognize when those rules and principles have been violated So that according to Kac (1992), linguistic competence of a human being should accordingly be identified with that of individual’s internalized program for production and recognition

In linguistic or grammatical competence, there are five identified main components namely: phonological, syntactic, semantic, lexical and morphological competencies Jaimes (2006) pointed out that the knowledge speakers have of the sounds and possible sound combinations of a language is termed as phonological competence Here, the speakers are able to recognize the words of their language through simple listening that is the speaker of English would know

whether a word belongs to English or to another language by mere listening Syntactic competence on the other hand is the knowledge the speakers have about the possible syntactic combinations of their language It consists of the ability to determine the meaning of a particular string of words Speakers are knowledgeable of most if not all

of the possible combinations of the English language

In addition, the knowledge speakers have of the meanings of words in their languages is known as semantic competence It consists

of the ability to determine the meaning of a particular syntactic structure This would mean the knowledge regarding the relationship of the word and the reality it represent even if there is no apparent natural connection that exists between them

As regard to lexical competence, it refers to the extensive amount

of words speakers have in their language This would also refer to the knowledge and skill in the use of words in the appropriate context Morphological competence on the other hand refers to their language or word structure The word formation skills of the speakers in this language enable them to create words, for fun or fashion, sounding like English language, but are not necessarily a part of the official lexicon

Communicative competence as emphasized by Canale (1983) involves not only the structural features of language but also its social,

pragmatic and contextual characteristics As it refers to the ability of the speakers to use the different functioning rules of the system of their language, this would constitute the applied component of the language

As an underlying competence system of knowledge and skill required for communication, communicative competence recognizes four areas which include grammatical competence which is concerned with the mastery of the language code, vocabulary and linguistic semantics; socio linguistic competence which is involved in decisions about appropriacy of language to context; discourse competence which refers to the ability to construct and maintain in negotiation, properly coherent talk and text; and strategic competence that involved

in decisions about how to repair breakdowns that occur in communication or to enhance the message Thus, the ability to use language properly in productive and receptive situations for real communication is termed communicative competence

There are three models identified in communicative competence These are the model of Canale and Swain, the model of Bachman and Palmer and the description of components of communicative language competence in the Common European Framework (CEF) In the model

of Canale and Swain, there are three components in the fields of knowledge and skills These are grammatical, socio linguistic and

strategic competence This was later revised where some elements were transferred from socio linguistic competence into discourse competence Grammatical competence on the other hand is equivalent

to that of Chomsky’s linguistic competence It refers to the mastery of the linguistic code either verbal or non verbal which includes vocabulary knowledge as well as knowledge of morphological, syntactic, semantic, phonetic and orthographic rules This competence would enable the speaker to use his knowledge and skills for understanding and expressing the literal meaning of utterances

As regard to socio linguistic competence, it includes knowledge of rules and conventions which underlie the appropriate comprehension and language use in different socio linguistic and socio cultural contexts Discourse competence is referred to as the mastery of rules that determine ways in which forms and meanings are combined to achieve a meaningful unity of spoken or written text Text unity is achieved by cohesion in form and coherence in meaning Cohesion devices are used to achieve cohesion to link individual sentences and utterances to a structural whole Coherence is achieved through repetition, progression, consistency, relevance of ideas etc to enable the organization of meaning to establish a logical relationship between groups of utterances

As for strategic competence, it is the knowledge of verbal and non verbal communication strategies that are recalled to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to insufficient competence in one

or more components of communicative competence This competence

is important in enhancing the effectiveness of communication It differs qualitatively from the other three components of communicative competence as it includes non-cognitive aspects such as self confidence, readiness to take risks etc Its interaction with other components enables learners to deal successfully with a lack of competence in the other fields

Communicative language ability on the other hand was proposed

by Bachman (1996) According to this model language knowledge is composed of two main components These are organizational knowledge and pragmatic knowledge which complement each other in achieving communicatively effective language use Organizational knowledge consisted of abilities involved in the control over formal language structures such as grammatical and textual knowledge Grammatical knowledge in particular includes several independent knowledge areas like knowledge of vocabulary, morphology, syntax, phonology and graphology which enable recognition and production of grammatically correct sentences as well as comprehension of their

prepositional content Textual knowledge promotes comprehension and production of spoken or written texts and covers the knowledge of conventions for combining sentences or utterances into texts that is knowledge of cohesion or ways of masking semantic relationships among two or more sentences in a written text or utterances in a conversation and knowledge of rhetorical organization which is a way of developing narrative texts, descriptions, comparisons, classifications and others or conversational organization such as conventions for initiating, maintaining and closing conversations

Pragmatic knowledge on the other hand which refers to the abilities for creating and interpreting discourse includes two areas of knowledge; namely: the knowledge of pragmatic conventions for expressing acceptable language functions and for interpreting the illocutionary power of utterances or discourse or functional knowledge and knowledge of socio linguistic conventions for creating and interpreting language utterances which are appropriate in a particular context of language use or socio linguistic knowledge

In the model of description of communicative language competence in the CEF (2001), it is intended for the assessment as well

as for learning and teaching of languages In this model, communicative competence is conceived only in terms of knowledge and includes three

basic components such as language competence, sociolinguistic competence and pragmatic competence This model emphasizes that each component of language knowledge must include knowledge of its contents and the ability to apply it; thus for language competence or linguistic competence, the required knowledge and ability would be on the use of language resources to form well structured messages The subcomponents of language competence are lexical, grammatical, semantic, phonological, orthographic competences Sociolinguistic competence involves the possession of knowledge and skills for appropriate language use in a social context It includes the language elements that mark social relationships, rules of appropriate behaviour, and expressions of peoples’ wisdom, differences in register and dialects and stress

Pragmatic competence as the last component of this model – is consist of two subcomponents: discourse competence and functional competence Both these competences include planning competence which refers to sequencing of messages in accordance with interactional and transactional schemata Strategic competence as a component of CEF is involve in the discussion of communicative language use and is conceived as a strategy use in the broadest sense Thus, in this model the emphasis is placed not only on the use of

communication strategies which can help to overcome the lack in a particular area of language knowledge but on the use of all types of communication strategies

Discourse

Discourse can be specified simplistically as “a linguistic unit that comprises more than one sentence” (Fromkin et al 2003) or language production built of a minimum two stretches of speech(Kurcz 2005) According to Blommaert (2005), discourse can be analyzed in at least three dimensions In the first one it is often portrayed as social practice,

“produced, circulated, distributed, consumed in society” This conception of discourse, then, proposes its analysis on the level of sociolinguistic communication with its unique setting to affect specific implementations of discursive routines The focal point in this approach

is the intertextuality of language production, as realized in the relation of

a given text to non-linguistic representations of the society’s schematic concepts in which discourse operates, or in the relation of “the outside

of the text to the text itself” (Fairclough 2003), e.g through linking it “to

an ill-defined penumbra of other texts, what has been saidor written or

at least thought elsewhere” (Fairclough 2003) In this dimension then, dicourse as social practice is dependent upon, not determined by the idiocratic speaking or writing conventions ofa given society

The second dimension of discourse analysis is that of particular discourses as products of specific routines cultivated in a given community, whether professional or social These discourses are realized through the use of concrete linguistic objects, specific texts or text- types (Blommaert 2005), which represent the common ideological, professional or institutional interests of a given microworld ofdiscourse makers as well as its participants These discourses may include political discourse (cf Fairclough 2000), ideological discourse

(cf Van Dijk 1998), economic discourse (c.f Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999), medial discourse, including the representation of women in the media (cf Walsh 1998), as well as institutional discourse representing e.g doctor-patient interaction (cf Wodak 1997a) These domains of discourse construction, however, will not be the subjects of the discussion pursued further in this research

The third dimension of discourse is the individualized rhetoric of the speaker Individual discourse is realized in “the resources which people deploy in relating to one another – keeping separate from one another,cooperating, competing, dominating – and in seeking to change the ways in which they relateto one another” (Fairclough 2003) In this dimension, discourse is then constructed on a more psycholinguistic level, with individual choices undertaken to establish or maintain social

relations As claimed by Blommaert (2005), these choices include semantic relations, as realized in e.g wording or metaphor, grammar, materializing in e.g transitivity, modality or cohesion, achieved through the use of e.g conjunction or schemata, and text structure,that is e.g episode marking or turn-taking systems

The above discussion about discourse has shown that discourse construction is indeed an integrative element of communication And thus, it is really important for stipulating the place of discourse construction in realizing the core of English language instruction, that is, communicative competence

Of many models of communicative competence that attempt to single out all constitutive components, the model by Canale (1983) posits that there are four components that make up communicative competence Two of them, that is grammaticalcompetence and discourse competence, reflect the use of the linguistic system itself The other two, that is sociolinguistic competence and trategic competence, reflect the functional aspects of communication Grammatical competence, probably the easiest to define and the least disputable one, includes lexis, morphology, sentence grammar, semantics, and phonology (Bachman 1990b) Discourse competence, added as an independent component next to sociolinguistic competence in the

earlier model (Canale and Swain 1980), comprises rules of cohesion and coherence Sociolinguistic competence is nowviewed as involving the mastery of the sociocultural code of the language Strategic competence is defined as “the verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns

in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence” (Canale and Swain 1980)

The Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) defines the discourse competence as

“the ability of a user/learner to arrange sentences in sequence so as to produce coherent stretches of language Thus, Discourse Competence can be seen as the ability to understand, create and develop forms of the language that are longer than sentences (stories, conversations, letters,…) with the appropriate cohesion, coherence and rhetorical organization to combine ideas

Bachman (1990b) also defined discourse competence as the ability

to use (produce and recognize) coherent and cohesive texts inan oral or written form Although Canale and Swain (1980) initially viewed discoursecompetence as part of sociolinguistic competence, which was believed to be composed of both socio-cultural rules of use and rules of discourse, Canale’s (1983) revised definition of discourse competence

views it as an element entirely independent from sociolinguistic competence, comprising “mastery of how to combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres” (Canale 1983) Its distinction from sociolinguistic competence, however, generates some controversies It could be claimed that “unity

of text involves appropriateness and depends on contextual factors such as statusof the participants, purpose of interaction, and norms or conventions of interaction” (Schachter 1990) Discourse competence then could still interfere with the conception of sociolinguistic competence After all, both components involve interaction in specific politeness modes and, therefore, will often call on the same communicative instruments This section has discussed a number of views on discourse competence and its relation to other domains of communication, as well asits place in communicative competence itself

It seems however that, whichever model is chosen for the analysis of discourse competence, separate discourse devices utilized in spoken language production need to be presented, whether in the interactive or intra-active dimension of discourse making

Strategic Competence

This is one of the dimensions or components comprising communicative competence It is that ability to compensate for

communication breakdowns and for imperfect knowledge of rules like coping or survival strategies and further referred to as the mastery of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies in L2 used when attempting to compensate for deficiencies in the grammatical and socio linguistic competence or to enhance the effectiveness of communication Dornyei and Thurrell (1991) defined strategic competence as the ability to get one’s meaning across successfully to communicative partners especially when problems arise in the communicative process while Tarone and Yule (1989) stated that it deals with the ability to select an effective means of performing a communicative act In strategic competence, students feel comfortable and have confidence in using the language for possessing this type of competence their oral communication will be enhanced It determines the learner’s fluency and conversationalists’ skills and this can be developed through communicative strategies

Stern (1992) pointed out that communicative strategies are techniques in coping with difficulties in communicating in an imperfectly known second language These are employed in order to repair breakdowns in spoken communication and to improve effectiveness of communication (Gallagher, 2001) The use of communication strategies as explained by Maleki (2010) is conducive to language

learning and that training along this line should be incorporated in the school syllabi For learners to have language attainment and communicative strategies they must take an active part in actual communication This will help them to have practice and gain new information as to what is appropriate regarding the correct usage of the language

Further, conveying unknown language between communication partners and assisting in maintaining conversational flow are facilitated

by communication strategies It is beneficial to teach communication strategies as it leads to strategic competence in the language The best way to achieve strategic competency is by the use of games focusing

on communication with or without visual support, jigsaws, monologues and other activities that allow for language interaction

The role of communication strategies in teaching and learning English is of importance as learners are provided with sense of security

in the use of second language In addition, communication strategies facilitate learners in times of difficulty in communication thereby achieving their communicative goal

Two types of communication strategies are identified These are avoidance or reduction strategies which include message abandonment and topic avoidance and the other is achievement or compensatory

strategies which include circumlocution, approximation, use of purpose words, word coinage, use of non-linguistic means, literal translation, foreignizing, code switching, appeal for help and use of fillers or hesitation devices

all-At the beginning, Richard (1983) emphasized that stages of communication strategies are very crucial as they are seen as part of communicative competence and identified as “strategic competence” which means “how to cope in an authentic communicative situation as well as how to keep the communicative channel open” (Ellios, 1985) Communicative strategies exist as part of the language user’s communicative competence Since communication strategies are potentially conscious and serve as substitutes for production plans, learners are unable to implement them

There are four aspects to learning the language These are listening, speaking, reading and writing The best way for teaching strategic competence is the above order that constitutes the traditional bottom-up approach to language learning, as it gives an emphasis to writing It provides also the learners the time to process their ideas and language use, before being asked to use it orally to increase learner’s motivation