A Survey Study Of High School International Students' Use Of English Speaking Strategies

Speaking strategies,as one of the most dynamic factors affecting learner's ability,have great influence on students' speaking ability.To learn and use speaking strategies can be beneficial for language learners to carry out effective conversations.Though the study of learning strategy has been a hot topic for a long time,English speaking strategies have not been paid much attention to,especially when the subjects are High School International Students.In order to fill up this gap,this paper uses both questionnaire and interview to explore the status quo of speaking strategies used by High School nternational Students.It aims to explore the following questions:1)What are the overall tendencies of English speaking strategy employed by High School International Students?2)What are the differences in terms of speaking strategy use between higher achievers and lower achievers?3)Is there any correlation between speaking strategy use and oral English proficiency?If yes,what is the relationship?Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted in the study.Senior two High School International Students from Yangzhou High School,Liyang High School and Yangzhou New Oriental Foreign Language School are selected as the research subjects.The quantitative research mainly involves a self-designed questionnaire which is adapted from Oxford's(1990)Strategies Inventory for Language Learning(SILL)according to real situation of High School International Students,including six aspects,that is,Memory speaking strategies,Compensation speaking strategies,Metacognitive speaking strategies,Cognitive speaking strategies,Affective speaking strategies and Social speaking strategies.The questionnaires are handed out to 90 senior two High School International Students on February 20th,2017 and finally 80 questionnaires are found valid.Then,SPSS 18.0 is used to analyze the data from the questionnaire.In terms of the qualitative research,10 students are selected from those whose questionnaires are considered valid.The interview is also done in Chinese so as to avoid linguistic barrier in communication and ensure the validity and truthfulness of the interview.Afterwards,the results are transcribed into English and carefully analyzed.The results of detailed analysis of the quantitative and qualitative analysis reveal the following findings.Firstly,High School International Students employ English speaking strategies at a medium level in general.Besides,of the six broad categories,Memory speaking strategies come the first,followed by Compensation speaking strategies,Metacognitive speaking strategies,Cognitive speaking strategies,Affective speaking strategies.Social speaking strategies turn out to be the least frequently used strategies.Besides,Creating mental linkages are perceived to be the most favored Memory speaking strategies and Receiving and sending messages is the most preferred Cognitive speaking strategies.In terms of Compensation speaking strategies,Overcoming limitations 2 is the least favored strategy.In the Metacognitive category,Centering your learning 2 is students' favorite strategy and Taking your emotional temperature 2 is the least welcomed Affective speaking strategies.Empathizing with others is the most popular Social speaking strategies adopted by students.Secondly,there are differences between higher achievers and lower achievers' use of speaking strategies.General speaking,higher achievers employ all the six broad categories more frequently than lower achievers and the differences in Cognitive speaking strategies and Metacognitive speaking strategies are significant(p=.000).In contrast,there is no significant difference in terms of Memory speaking strategies and Compensation speaking strategies.In addition,high and low achievers show much difference in Practicing 2 and Practicing 5 within the cognitive category.As to the Metacognitive category,the two groups differentiate significantly in all the specific strategies(p<.05)except in Arranging and planning 2.As for Affective and Social strategies,the difference is significant(p<.05)especially in Encouraging yourself 2 and Asking questions 1(p=.000).Thirdly,Cognitive speaking strategies,Compensation speaking strategies,Metacognitive speaking strategies.Affective speaking strategies and Social speaking strategies are positively correlated with students' English proficiency at the.01 level.In contrast,there is no significant correlation between Memory speaking strategies and High School International Students'English proficiency.Besides,all the specific speaking strategies under Memory speaking strategies,Metacognitive speaking strategies,Affective speaking strategies and Social speaking strategies are positively related to students' English proficiency while some speaking strategies under the compensation and cognitive category(Analyzing and reasoning1,Analyzing and reasoning2,Overcoming limitations 2,Overcoming limitations 4)are negatively related.Based on the findings of this study,some pedagogical implications are presented.To begin with,teachers should pay attention to the cultivation of the students' consciousness of strategy use in class.In addition,teachers should put forward more specific requirements and guidance on the speaking strategies whose correlation to English proficiency is high.Last but not least,we should insist on strategy training to help students become more efficient oral English learners as the development of effective strategies is a long-term task.