English Speaking Lecturers’ Performances of Communication Strategies and Their Efforts to Improve Students’ Communicative Competence

Fakhruddin Fakhruddin,Leffi Noviyenty,Ruly Morganna

doi:10.12973/eu-jer.11.2.1047

Abstract

<p style="text-align:justify">Regardless of varied lingua-cultural ideologies enriching the theories of communicative competence (CC), the four CC dimensions (e.g., linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse, and communication strategies (CSs)) still become the main cores of English speaking (ES) classrooms. Of the four dimensions, CSs seem to be the most technical which deserve to be persistently studied. Hence, this study aimed to probe into ES lecturers’ performances of CSs, their efforts to improve students’ CC, and the impacts of their efforts on students’ learning according to students’ perspectives. Two ES lecturers and 10 students at a university in Indonesia were purposively selected to be the participants. They were observed and interviewed according to the study’s purposes. This study uncovered various CSs performed by ES lecturers according to several contexts, such as to understand spoken texts, to understand spoken recorded texts, and to overcome temporary communication difficulties. Various ES lecturers’ efforts were also revealed according to their functions to improve each dimension of CC. Most students perceived the lecturers’ efforts positively due to the impacts on their motivation, self-efficacy, collaborative skills, and metacognition. However, few students echoed negative perceptions about a lecturer’s native-speakerism-endorsed effort due to lingua-cultural issues. Implication, limitation, and recommendation are discussed.</p>

Highlights

In the context of English education in Indonesia, it has been a consensus that the English curricular purpose necessitates teachers and lecturers serving as role models who can assist students in developing their English communicative competence (CC)
The study's findings are presented according to three areas oriented: 1) communication strategies (CSs) performed by English speaking (ES) lecturers, 2) ES lecturers' efforts to help students improve CC, and 3) the impacts of ES lecturers' efforts on students' learning according to students' perspectives
To improve students’ sociolinguistic and discourse competences, the ES lecturers made efforts, such as assigning students to collaborate in groups, teaching students not to focus on grammar while speaking in English, providing specific examples of certain utterances, and using foreign films to encourage students to learn about the cultures of native speakers

Summary

Introduction

In the context of English education in Indonesia, it has been a consensus that the English curricular purpose necessitates teachers and lecturers serving as role models who can assist students in developing their English communicative competence (CC). In the Indonesian context with limited natural English communicative staging due to its socio-cultural factors positioning English as a foreign language (Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat, 2017), the issue vis-à-vis the proper acquisition of English CC, even amid English lecturers, is still questionable. Such an issue is even commonly found in the midst of English teachers or lecturers across many Asian countries (see studies conducted by Kaewnuch, 2019; Nguyen, 2016). The preliminary study uncovered that they were known to have met the standard scale of three domains of English CC within the context of Indonesian culture. The foregoing data triggered us to probe more into their CSs in English communication by looking into their communication performances as the actual pictures of using CSs in the classrooms

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