The Comparative Analysis of Using Direct vs. Indirect Instruction of Communication Strategies on the Naturalness of Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Oral Performance

Communicative strategies (CS) play a significant role in foreign language acquisition, and theyhave turned into a crucial topic for all foreign language learners and teachers to facilitate learners’oral performance in English. The present study aimed to consider the usefulness of either type ofinstruction (direct and indirect) of communication strategies on the naturalness of Iranianintermediate EFL learners’ oral performance. In this study, ۶۰ students of intermediate level wereselected from a larger population and were divided into two groups based on their performanceson an OPT, EX (Direct strategy instruction) and CONT (Indirect strategy instruction). The pretestsof speaking were administered to both groups. Then, both groups were instructed EFL speakingthrough different methods of communicative strategy instruction, namely direct versus indirectcommunicative strategy instruction. After speaking instruction via different communicativestrategy instruction methods for the groups was completed, two groups received posttest ofspeaking which was intended to measure learners’ oral performance naturalness. The findingsindicated that although both methods of communicative strategy instruction were highly effectivefor improving EFL learners’ oral performance naturalness, a single communicative strategyinstructional method could not be singled out as superior to the other one in improving EFLlearners’ oral performance naturalness, and both of them were almost equally effective forlearners’ oral performance naturalness enhancement. This research suggested some implicationsfor language teachers, teacher trainers, material developers, and curriculum designers.

Keywords:

Communicative strategies , Communicative language teaching , Conversational skills , Strategic-based Instruction , Speaking ability