Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

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Box 6.3 Different approaches to L2 communication
strategies
Socially motivated strategies for solving mutual lack of understanding (Tarone,
1980):
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paraphrase (approximation, word coinage, circumlocution)
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falling back on L1 translation, language switch, appeal for assistance, mime
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avoidance
Psychologically motivated strategies for solving the individual’s L2 problems of
expression (Faerch and Kasper, 1984):
1 Achievement strategies:
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cooperative strategies (similar to list above)
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non-cooperative strategies
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codeswitching
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foreignerization
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interlanguage strategies (substitution, generalization, description, exem-
plification, word coining, restructuring)
2 Avoidance strategies:
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formal (phonological, morphological, grammatical)
●
functional (actional, propositional, modal)
Compensatory strategies to make up for a lack of vocabulary (Poulisse, 1990).
Archistrategies:
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conceptual analytic (breaks down the meaning of the word)
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conceptual holistic (tries for a word that is closest overall in meaning)
●
linguistic morphological creativity (makes up a new word by adding an
appropriate ending)
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linguistic transfer (uses a word from the first language instead)
Box 6.4 Communication strategies and language teaching
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Communication strategies are a natural part of conversational interaction
that people fall back on when they have difficulty in getting things 
across.
●
Students mostly fall back on the first language strategies, so teaching 
can heighten students’ awareness of which of their natural strategies are
useful in a second language.
teachers can treat them as ways of discovering and teaching the vocabulary the
students lack. There is further discussion of the teaching of strategies in general in
the next section.

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