Communication Strategies Used by EFL Learners with Different English Achievements in Oral Communication

This article aims to identify the communication strategies used by the learners with low and high English achievement in classroom oral communication and to describe the difference of the frequency of using communication strategies from low and high achievement learners. This research used a descriptive research. The researcher used a case-study design because the present research concentrated on communication strategies used by the learners with low and high English achievement in a specific setting. The 30 learners of the eleventh-grade learners at SMA Negeri 1 Malang was selected as research subject. The result showed that the learners employed 14 communication strategies. The mostly used by the learners was time-gaining strategy and followed by self-repetition, self-repair, appeal for help, code-switching, circumlocution, approximation, use of all-purpose word, other-repetition, message abandonment, other correction, topic avoidance, use of non-linguistic mean, and literal translation. This research also found that the learners with low English achievement used communication strategies more frequently than the learners with high achievement.


INTRODUCTION
In English language learning, teaching speaking aims to enable the learners to use the language for communication. According to Harmer (2012:116), there are a variety of classroom activities which provide the learners to retrieve and use the target language, such as interview, discussion, telling stories, and role-play. The teachers need to provide the learning through these activities in order to encourage the learners to be able to communicate using the target language. Therefore, the teachers should encourage the learners to use the target language for communication in the classroom.
However, the language learners need to have a complete understanding of communicative competence in order to be able to communicate effectively. According to Cravotta (2007), if the learners want to communicate effectively, they need to have an adequate understanding of communicative competencies. There are four communicative competencies that should be learned by the language learners, namely grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence (Brown, 2000:247). The learners need to know how to convey the ideas comprehensively and recognize the way how to overcome their problems in communication. Therefore, by knowing and learning these communicative

Typology of Communication Strategies
There are several typologies of communication strategies. The researcher displays three typologies of communication strategies which are recognizable among the researchers. They are conscious strategy, problem-oriented strategy, and productoriented strategy. The description of the typologies is presented in the following subtopic.  issues the typology of communication strategies based on the interactional perspective. The Tarone's taxonomy of communication strategies is described as a consciousness because it perceived as the effort which is made by the speakers and the interlocutors to agree on a meaning when there is a problem in their communication. Tarone also explains that communication strategies are used by the speakers to overcome the problems in communication consciously because of their deficiency in the target language. Since these strategies reflect the learners' attempts to IJOTL-TL, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2019p-ISSN: 2502-2326e-ISSN: 2502- b. Message abandonment: the learner begins to refer to an object but gives up because it is too difficult.

Paraphrase
a. Approximation: the learner uses an item known to be incorrect but which shares some semantic features in common with the correct item (e.g.' worm' for 'silkworm').
b. Word coinage: the learner makes up a new word (e.g. "person worm" to describe a picture of an animated caterpillar).
c. Circumlocution: the learner describes the characteristics of the object instead of using the appropriate TL item(s).

Conscious transfer
a. Literal translation: the learner translates the word for word from the native language (e.g. "He invites him to drink" in place of "They toast one another").
b. Language switch: the learner inserts words from another language (e.g. 'balon' for 'balloon' c. Appeal for assistance: the learner consults some authority -a native speaker, a dictionary. d. Mime: the learner uses a non-verbal device to refer to an object or event (e.g. clapping hands to indicate 'applause'). Dornyei (1995) classifies the types of communication strategies based on the problem-oriented perspective. In the Dornyei's typology, the types of communication strategies are distinguished from how the speakers involved in handling the problems in communication. In this taxonomy, the communication strategies refer to the speakers' strategy which is used when they encounter some problems in their communication. Similar to the previously, the communication problems are caused by the deficiency of the target language. Then, Dornyei (1995:58) classifies communication strategies into three strategies. They are avoidance strategies, compensatory strategies, and timegaining strategy. IJOTL-TL, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2019p-ISSN: 2502-2326e-ISSN: 2502- Avoidance strategy involves an alteration, a reduction, or a complete abandonment of an intended message. Compensatory strategy offers some alternative plans for the speakers to carry out their intended meaning by manipulating the language. Whereas time-gaining strategy is not used to compensate any linguistic deficiencies, but to gain more time to keep the communication still open when the speakers face difficulties. Altogether there are twelve strategies in this typology of communication strategies. The classification of the communication strategies in this typology is explained below.

Avoidance or Reduction Strategies
a. Message abandonment: leaving a message unfinished because of language difficulties. b. Topic avoidance: avoiding topic areas or concepts which pose language difficulties.

Achievement or Compensatory Strategies
a. Circumlocution: describing or exemplifying the target object or action b. Approximation: using an alternative term which expresses the meaning of the target lexical item as closely as possible. c. Use of all-purpose words: extending a general, empty lexical item to contexts where specific words are lacking. d. Word-coinage: creating a non-existing L2 word based on a supposed rule. e. Use of non-linguistic means: mime, gesture, facial expression, or sound imitation. f. Literal translation: translating literally a lexical item, an idiom, a compound word or structure from L1 to L2. g. Foreignizing: using a L1 word by adjusting it to L2 phonologically (i.e., with a L2 pronunciation) and/or morphologically. h. Code-switching: using a L1 word with L1 pronunciation or a L3 word with L3 pronunciation in L2. i. Appeal for help: turning to the conversation partner for help either directly or indirectly.

Stalling or Time-gaining Strategies
a. Use of fillers/hesitation devices: using filling words or gambits to fill pauses and to gain time to think. From this taxonomy of communication strategies, it gives the researcher a framework how to formulate the research instrument in order to collect the data. The researcher develops an observation checklist based on this theory. There are twelve types of communication strategies stated in the observation checklist that is used to collect the data from the participants. Therefore, the expected data of this research includes the twelve types of communication strategies as proposed by Dornyei above.

3.
Product-oriented Strategies Additionally, some researchers at Nijmegen University ( in Ellis, 2008 criticized the existing typologies of communication strategies as mainly productoriented. Ellis (2008:507) explains that the Nijmegen researchers found two major Vol. 4,No.  deficits in the existing taxonomy of communication strategies. They find that the first deficit is a failure to distinguish the psychological process from the linguistic product and the second is a failure to consider the linguistic and non-linguistic constraints that influence the choice of communication strategies. Therefore, they develop a taxonomy based on two characteristics, namely conceptual strategy and linguistic strategy. Conceptual strategy manipulates the target concept of the language in order to make it understandable by the interlocutors through available linguistic resources. This strategy covers analytic strategy and holistic strategy. Linguistic strategy covers morphological creativity and transfer. The description of each strategy is explained below.

Conceptual Strategies
• Analytic strategies: specifying characteristic features of the concept (e.g., circumlocution, description, and paraphrase). • Holistic strategies: using a different concept which shares characteristics with the target item (e.g., approximation).

Linguistic or code strategies
• Morphological creativity: creating a new word by applying L2 morphological rules to a L.2 word (e.g., grammatical word coinage). • Transfer: transferring from another language (e.g. borrowing, foreignizing, and literal translation). Based on the typologies of communication strategies presented above it is obvious that there is a similarity among Dornyei's ,Tarone's, and Nijmegen's taxonomies of communication strategies. They present seven types in common, which includes message abandonment, topic avoidance, circumlocution, approximation, word coinage, literal translation, and appealing for help. On the other hand, Dornyei presents more types of communication strategies from Tarone and Nijmegen. Compared to Tarone, Dornyei presents three more types, which are use of all-purpose word, foreignizing, and time-gaining strategies. In addition, Nijmegen presents fewer strategies than Dornyei and Tarone. Nijmegen omits topic avoidance and message abandonment strategies. Therefore, Dornyei's taxonomy proposed more strategies and more details that encourage researchers to use them in the investigation.
For the purpose of this research, the researcher decides to employ the taxonomy of communication strategies proposed by Dornyei (1995). Dornyei suggested that a problem-oriented has become the primary defining criterion for communication strategies. It is in line with Avval (2012) who confirmed that Dornyei's classification of communication strategies is based on the consequence of the communication, either success or abandoned. The rationale for using this taxonomy is that it is built on interrelated strategies in problem resolution and achieving communication goals as the learners use the strategies when they seem to have difficulty in communicating. It is supported by Rustantya (2016) that Dornyei's taxonomy is more appropriate for Indonesian learners who learn English as a foreign language. Moreover, Dornyei's typology gives more complete types of communication strategies which can represent

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This section attempts to answer the problems raised in this research which covers the use of communication strategies used by the learners and the different of frequency of using communication strategies from low and high achievement learners.

Communication Strategies Used by the Learners
It was found that the learners used 14 types of communication strategies in their classroom oral communication. In detail, the learners implemented 10 strategies of Dörnyei's (1995) taxonomy and they also employed four other strategies out of the strategies proposed by Dörnyei's (1995). Each strategies are described below.
Topic avoidanceis identified as the speakersimply does not talk about the concept for which the target language item is not known. This strategy was employed only twice by two different learners. The example of this strategy was presented in corpus TA/S15/D3, "I don't know …" The Student 15 rejected to talk about the description about her superpower when she performed an interactive presentation with his group. She used the strategy in this following situation: Student 9 : Can you describe your superpower? Vol. 4,No.  From the data above, it showed that the learner stopped talking because she lacked knowledge about the topic that she chose to describe. Therefore, the speaker said that she did not know and then quiet.

Message abandonment
Corpus MA/S2/D5 was the example of this strategy, "The story is about a family who lives so far away, but they are still …" From the corpus, the Student 2 abandoned his message because he did not know how to express his idea in the target language. The student admitted that he would explain that the characters in that story still had a sensitive feeling with each other, but he did not know how to express it in English at that particular time.

Circumlocution
The use of this strategy was proven by the result of the following interview.
Do you use circumlocution strategy in speaking English? Why? And why not? Yes, because, for example, if I forget the vocabulary or I do not know in English. For me, it is easier to use this. For example, a cutter is something that we use to cut something like paper. (Student 2); From the data above, the learner revealed that he employed circumlocution strategy in his speaking. It was an effort to overcome the communication problem when the learner did not know or forget the intended meaning in the target language.

Approximation
In this research, even though the alternative items that the learners used sounded inappropriate, they seemed to successfully help the audiences to catch the general meaning of what the speaker wanted to say. An utterance, "In the bird island, there is a man bird named Mad, …" which was coded App/S12/D5 was the example of the use of approximation strategy. It revealed that the term man bird was selected by the Student 12 to replace the term male when this term did not exist in her mind at that particular moment.

Use of all-purpose word
The use of this strategy was proven by the result of the following interview.
Do From the data above, the learners revealed that they used certain words repeatedly in their oral communication to replace the intended terms that they forgot or did not know how to express them in the target language

Non-linguistic signals
The implementation of this strategy could be seen from the corpus UNM/S5/D2, "He would be a Spiderman, so he would (moving her hand to imitate a jumping movement) from one city to another". This corpus can be understood through the elaboration of this following excerpt: Teacher : Alright, please tell us what superpower your friend wants to have? Student 5 : My friend, Rafli, would be a Spiderman, so he would (movingher hand to imitate a jumping movement) from one city to another.
From the data above, the speaker tried to use her body language to express her intended message when the target language term did not come into her mind at that time. Therefore, she imitated the movement of the word jump by using her hand in order to make the interlocutors understood what she meant to say.

Literal translation
To know the description of this strategy, corpus LT/S13/D5 was displayed. The utterance stated in this corpus was "I like kids bird because they are funny …" From this data, it was noted that the Student 13 used this strategy when she could not express the ideas properly by using the target language items. The learner's utterance contained English word, but it was not properly used. The Student 13 meant to express that she liked the little birds from that movie, but she forgot the intended language item.

Codeswitching
Corpus CS/S4/D4 was the example of this strategy, "Why the tennis player why the tennis player leave his tunangannya?" From the corpus, it was clearly seen that the word "tunangannya" was definitely not an English word, however, the Student 4 decided to use it because she did not know the intended terms in the target language at that particular time.

Appeal for help
Besides the learners asked their peers and the teacher, they also utilized an electronic dictionary. The use of the electronic dictionary only took place when the learners conducted a small group discussion, particularly when their friend to whom they asked could not help them. It was proven by the result the following interview.
Because, if I do not know in English, I tend to directly ask a help to my friend or open a dictionary on my mobile phone. (Student 4); IJOTL-TL, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2019p-ISSN: 2502-2326e-ISSN: 2502- In seeking the teacher's help, the learners tended to use a formal form, for instance, "How to say blablain English?" In contrast, they used less formal request when they sought for their friend's assistance. The example of appealing for peers' help was corpus AH/S12/D2, "If I have much free time, I will er ..oporek? spend my time in the beach". From the data above, the Student 12 applied this strategy to express his ideas during the presentation and group discussion when he really did not know how to express certain items or objects by using the target language. Therefore, he directly asked for help to the peers or the teacher

Stalling/time-gaining
There were a variety of the fillers that employed by the learners in gaining time when speaking, for instance, er, em, a, and ya. Corpus S/S2/D5 represented one of the examples of this strategy, "I thought it will willer.. told us about er.. Jakarta city, but definitely not" The students frequently used the fillers as their effort to gain more time to think about what the next statements that they would to talk or how to say some language items in the target language. Besides, they used this strategy in order to help them when they forgot and tried to recall what they want to express.

Self-repair
According to Dörnyei& Scott (1997), self-repair strategy is making a selfinitiated correction in one's speech. In this research, self-repair strategy happened when the speakers revised their own inappropriate language items, the language structures, and pronunciation that they already produced. The examples of this strategy were presented in the following corpus: 1. SRR/S17/D2 : "I will go to recreational places if I was if I were bored". 2. SRR/S14/D5 : "Because in my opinion is because the /ðə/ /ði/ effect and the light …" As shown in the data 1, the Student 17 also revised his utterance when he produced the language with an incorrect grammar. Based on the data 2, the speaker also revised her pronunciation when she realized that the pronunciation of an article "the" was incorrect

Other correction
Other-correction strategy is the use of audiences' prompt feedback by the speakers to make their planned meaning is understandable and acceptable (Rustantya, 2016). The implementation of this strategy could be seen from the corpus ORR/S14/D1. The Student 14 used this strategy in the following situation: From the excerpt above, it could be noticed that the teacher gave correction directly to the student's utterances in order to avoid misunderstanding the presenter's ideas to the other students. Then, the Student 14 used the teacher's correction to proceed his utterance at that particular moment.

Self-repetition
Self-repetition strategy is repeating a lexical item or a phrase immediately after they were said (Tarone& Yule, 1987). In the repetition, the speakers repeated a part or the whole of the utterance. This strategy had similar function with the use of fillers strategy in which the speakers repeated a word or phrase in order to fill pauses during the conversation. Corpus SRT/S14/D2 represented one of the examples of this strategy, "If I were a superhero, I would like to be a batman because because batman is rich". From the data, it could be noticed that the speaker repeated the word "because" as an effort to gain more time to think what to say next.

Other-repetition
Other-repetition strategy is the speaker's effort to repeat what the interlocutor said to gain more time (Tarone& Yule, 1987). The example of this strategy was presented in corpus ORT/S3/D3, "what is the subject, em I will teach …" This corpus could be understood through following excerpt: Student 4 : What is the subject that you are going to teach? Student 3 : What is the subject, em I will teach international relationship subject because em.. I graduated from international relationship program.
From the data above, it could be noticed that the Student 3 repeated some of the interlocutor's language items before proceeding her utterances to answer the question. This strategy was employed by the students in a specific situation which was asking and answer the question moment. Thus, the students employed this strategy to gain more time or to think about the answer to the question.
With respect to the first research question, the present research findings reveal that there are 14 types of communication strategies used by the learners. This is supported by Popescu & Cohen-Vida (2014) that the learners used a great number of communication strategies in their communication to overcome the target language deficiencies. Sukirlan (2014a) confirmed that communication strategies used by the learners does not indicate that they are failed in the communication. On the contrary, it shows that the learners have problems in expressing their intended meaning and they need to solve the problems. However, this finding can indicate that those strategies are effective for the learners in overcoming their deficiencies about the vocabulary and the grammar knowledge.
The use of communication strategies is intended to solve the communication problems. According to Zulkurnain& Kaur (2014), ommunication strategies are applied becausethe learners lack the target language knowledge, suchas lexical items or those with high achievement. In other words, the learners' language achievement affects the use of communication strategies in their oral communication.
The research findings show that the students with low achievement apply communication strategies more repeatedly than the students with high achievement. This result is supported by Maldonado (2016) who found that the frequency and the type of communication strategies are related with the learners' linguistic competence. Furthermore, the low achievement learners use communication strategies more frequently than the high achievement learners because they face more difficulties in the target language. The same argument is also stated by Mesgarshahr&Abdollahzadeh (2014), and Shtavica (2015) that the low achievement learners use communication strategies more frequently because of their insufficient command of the target language resources. In addition, Tuan & Mai (2015) explain that the lack of linguistic resources is caused by the students are less practice spoken English both inside and outside of the classroom. Therefore, the learners employ the communication strategies differently based on the problems which they have.
However, the low achievement learners use communication strategies more frequently does not mean that they are failed in communicating their ideas, but it shows that they do their positive attempts in solving the problems during communication. This research implies that in teaching and learning English, it is needed for the learners to be consciously aware of the benefits of communication strategies that can help to improve their speaking ability. It is supported by Saeidi&Farshchi (2015) who argued that an explicit instruction on the use of communication strategies can help to improve the learners' speaking skill. In other words, the language teachers can utilize an explicit instruction on the use of communication strategies in the teaching and language learning.

4.2.The Different Frequency of Using Communication Strategies between The Low and High Achievement Learners
Based on the result of the data analysis, there was a dissimilarity in using communication strategies between the learners with low and high achievement. The following table was presented in order to know the different frequency of communication strategies which were employed by the learners with low and high English achievement in their oral communication. (See Table 2 Table 2suggests that there was a difference in the frequency in using communication strategies between two groups. The learners with low achievement applied communication strategies totally of 67 occasions while the learners with high achievement employed communication strategies 62 times. Learners with low English achievement used communication strategies more frequently than students with high achievement.
In detail, learners with low English achievement used fillers more frequently than learners with high achievement. The low achievement learners used fillers 23 occasions while the learners with high achievement used fillers only 14 times. Additionally, Selfrepetition strategy was the most frequently used by the learners with low achievement which its percentage of frequency was 20.89%. In contrast, the learners with high achievement inclined to use a self-repair strategy with25.81 percentage of the occurrence.
In sum, the frequency in employing communication strategies between the learners with low achievement and those who had high achievement in English was different. In oral communication, learners with low achievement employed communication strategies more frequently than learners with high achievement.

CONCLUSION
Communication strategies mean the speaker's effort to make the communication keeps going on when the speaker has problems in the target language resource. In teaching and learning English as a foreign language, communication strategies are really helpful for learners to overcome their language difficulties. Therefore, they inclined to employ communication strategies to overcome their communication difficulties. From the Dornyei's (1995) taxonomy of communication strategies, the learners use 10 from 12 types of communication strategies. Besides, they employ four other communication strategies out of Dornyei's taxonomy, namely self-repair, other correction, selfrepetition, and other repetition. Thus, in overcoming the communication problems while speaking, the learners use 14 types of communication strategies altogether.
In addition, the researcher concludes that the learners' English achievement influence the frequency of using communication strategies in the learners' communication. It can be seen that the learners with low English achievement use communication strategies more frequently than the learners with high achievement. This research implies that communication strategies is seen as a prominent element in the process of developing the learners' speaking skill; therefore, the language learners need to be consciously aware of the benefits of communication strategies that can affect their speaking ability.

SUGGESTION
For the English language teachers, they should enrich the learners' knowledge about communication strategies because it can help the learners be able to communicate effectively. However, the teachers should select the types of communication strategies which are beneficial in order to develop the learners' speaking ability. In addition, the teachers should help the learners to practice using the selected communication strategies in their oral communication strategies.
For to the learners, communication strategies were helpful for the English language learners to compensate their difficulties in delivering the messages to the listeners. However, some types of communication strategies are suggested to be used by the learners because it is acceptable to improve English speaking skill, such as circumlocution, other correction, and self-repair. Thus, it is crucial for the learners to enrich their knowledge about communication strategies because it could be fruitful for them in developing their speaking ability.