Communication Strategies and Foreign Language Speech Production

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between communication strategies use and foreign language (L2) oral production. Thirty participants were assigned to a pre-intermediate, an intermediate or an advanced group. Their oral fluency was assessed by means of speech rate (Lennon, 1990). L2 speech production was elicited by means of three narrative tasks in three different sessions. Data analysis revealed that the relationship between communication strategies use and L2 oral fluency, as measured by speech rate, is not statistically significant in any of the three proficiency levels. The analysis also revealed that speech rate, alone, is not enough to examine the relationship between communication strategies use and L2 speech production. To explain the few instances of significant statistical correlations between speech rate and types of communication strategies, it is suggested that due to the multitude of factors affecting L2 oral fluency, other aspects of speech production need to be taken into consideration. In addition, the nature of tasks and their cognitive demands might have contributed to learners' apparently limited oral improvement across sessions.