Abstract
This study was intended to explore the relationship of gender, perceived language ability with communication strategy use by tourism-oriented EFL learners studying at the universities in the Southwest China to improve and maintain their oral communication in English. The Communication Strategy Questionnaire was used for data collection, and the quantitative method such as Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square tests were employed for data analysis. The results demonstrated that although the gender and perceived language ability had minor relationship with students’ overall use of communication strategy, the gender and the perceived language ability showed their significant variations in the students’ choice of individual communication strategies.
Highlights
In the modern society, people are highly aware of the importance of English since they need it for communication in the ‘global village’
This study was intended to explore the relationship of gender, perceived language ability with communication strategy use by tourism-oriented EFL learners studying at the universities in the Southwest China to improve and maintain their oral communication in English
The term ‘communication strategies’ for the present investigation refers to knowledge or ability used by tourism-oriented EFL learners to cope with oral communication problems due to their inadequate linguistic knowledge and sociocultural knowledge in an oral communication in English as well as learning techniques employed by the students in an oral interaction in order to improve, and maintain their oral communication in English
Summary
People are highly aware of the importance of English since they need it for communication in the ‘global village’. Crystal (2003) described that the rise of English as a global language plays an irreplaceable role in the modern society. According to China Daily (2004), the World Tourism Organization (WTO) predicted that China would be the world's largest tourist destination by the year 2020 and English would play a more important role in the development of the world's tourism industry. Feng (2011) claimed that with the rapid development of tourism industry, China needs millions of English-speaking people to work in a variety of tourism fields, including hotels, travel agencies and tour guides, etc. The tourism-oriented EFL teaching should be reformed to meet the needs of the developing society
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
