Use of Communication Strategies by Engineering Students in Relation to Exposure to Oral Communication in English at a Thai Private Higher Education Institution

Abstract

This study aims to identify which communication strategies (CSs) are most frequently used by Thai engineering students at Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology (TNI), Thailand and to investigate the relationship between CS use and exposure to oral communication in English. An adapted Metcalfe and Noom-Ura’s Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI) (2013) was used to collect quantitative data from 382 first-year and second-year engineering students whose age ranged from 18 to 24 years during the first semester of 2015 academic year at TNI. Stratified random sampling technique was applied. Statistics used for analysing the data were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Pearson product-moment correlation, and Stepwise multiple regression. The results of this study showed that students most frequently employed message reduction and alteration strategies to overcome speaking difficulties and mostly reported negotiation of meaning while listening in order to cope with their listening problems. In addition, CS use was significant correlated with exposure to oral communication in English at p <.01. Additionally, the findings revealed that social-affective and circumlocution strategies were strongly influenced when students experienced oral communication difficulties in English and overcame speaking difficulties inside the classroom whereas fluency-oriented, negotiation for meaning whilst speaking, and accuracy-oriented strategies were strongly influenced by exposure to oral communication when coping with speaking problems outside the classroom. Moreover, only word-oriented strategies were strongly influenced when students were exposed to oral communication and faced with listening difficulties inside the classroom whilst there were not any CS use influencing students when coping with listening problems outside the classroom. The practitioner proposes that this study will provide lecturers with insightful knowledge to find better and more effective communicative methods – CSs and encourage students to employ the strategies intentionally and skillfully in order to cope with difficulties in their future communication and finally be able to orally communicate with native and nonnative speakers confidently.