Exploring Direct and Indirect Strategis in Communication: The Case for ESL Learners

Abstract

There are many forms of communication. The sender can choose different forms of communication to send different messages for different reasons. Whatever form of communication, one thing remains important-communication strategies. The use of appropriate communication strategies ensures that the information is conveyed. The sender (of the information) needs to negotiate meaning so that that message gets understood. Do learners use different categories of communication strategies? This study is done to explore perception of learners on their use of communication strategies. Specifically, this study is done to explore how learners perceive the use of direct and indirect communication strategies. This study si also done to investigate if there is a relationship between direct and indirect communication strategies. The instrument used is a survey with three sections. The first section is the demographic profile. The second and their sections are about direct and indirect communication strategies respectively. This study has shown that learners resort to a variety of communication strategies to get their message across. The use of direct and indirect communication strategies give an impact to how the message is received. The findings bear interesting pedagogical implications in the teaching of oral communication in the language classroom.