Communication strategies used in the writing of answers in biology by ESL first year science students of the University of Botswana

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the communications strategies used in the writing of answers in biology by ESL first year BSc students of the University of Botswana. The researcher examines the four macro-strategies used by the subjects: risk taking, risk avoidance, L2-based strategies and semantic simplification. The results showed that while many ESL students preferred to use L2-based strategies such as circumlocution, generalisation and paraphrase, these strategies did not help the students in their performance because of the restrictive nature of scientific genre which requires the use of specific and precise registers for a given writing task. The study further showed that those students who were prepared to take risks by exploiting their resource expansion strategies, regardless of the correctness of their grammatical constructions, tended to do better while those students who opted for semantic simplification and risk avoidance under-achieved. This supports the empirical observation that the overall writing proficiency of the L2 learners could be greatly enhanced if ESL and EAP teaching paid greater attention to those tasks and activities which enhance their strategic competence.