The Impact of Using Asking for Clarification and Circumlocution Speaking Strategies on Enhancing the Speaking Skill of EFL Students

Abstract

This study mainly aimed at investigating the impact of teaching the asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies on enhancing students’ speaking ability. In addition, it investigated the impact of teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies on students’ use of other speaking strategies. Finally, it aimed at finding the correlation between language proficiency and students’ use of the taught speaking strategies. Sixty-two 10th graders at Noba Secondary School for Girls, a government high school, Palestine, participated in the study. Their native language is Arabic. They were divided into an experimental group comprised of thirty-one students and a control group consisted of thirty-one students. The experimental group had training on using two speaking strategies, namely asking for clarification and circumlocution which lasted over a semester. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data which were collected through pre and post questionnaires and pre and post tests showed that the use of asking for clarification strategy enhanced students’ speaking skill. However, students’ speaking skill was not enhanced through the use of circumlocution strategy. In addition, there were no significant differences between the experimental and control group in their use of different speaking strategies after teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies. However, message reduction and alteration strategies and social-affective strategies were reported to be the most significantly used strategies by the experimental group. Furthermore, the results showed that there was a strong correlation between learners’ proficiency level and their strategy use. Finally, the study came with a number of recommendations.