An exploration of strategies used by Chinese graduate students in electrical engineering and education: integrating questionnaire, task performance, and post-task recall data

Zhou, Jessie; Huang, Li-Shih

doi:10.1186/s40862-018-0054-2

Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education

Table 5 Coding Scheme

From: An exploration of strategies used by Chinese graduate students in electrical engineering and education: integrating questionnaire, task performance, and post-task recall data

Individual Strategies	Definition
Social-Affective Strategies: Participants’ strategic behaviours or actions to encourage themselves to continue to communicate orally with others
Lowering anxiety	Trying to relax to lower anxiety in speaking
Self-encouragement	Encouraging oneself through positive statement
Empathizing with others	Using rhetorical questions to seek emotional resonance
Asking for assistance	Asking for assistance when encountering difficulties
Turn-yielding—pausing	Pausing to yield a turn
Turn-yielding—signalling	Using a filler to signal the end of turns
Turn-requesting—demanding	Requesting a turn through asking questions
Turn-requesting—raising voice	Raising voice to grab attention in order to take turns
Fluency-Oriented Strategies: Participants’ strategic behaviours or actions to speak more fluently
Using fillers	Using fillers to gain time when encountering problems
Referring to notes for fluency	Referring to notes to speak more fluently
Rehearsing	Mentally rehearsing what to say
Stalling	Pausing for a few seconds to gain some time
Negotiation of Meaning: Participants’ strategic behaviours or actions to interact with interlocutors in order to improve comprehension/comprehensibility
Repeating	Repeating speech to be understood
Exemplifying	Giving examples to make oneself understood
Approximating	Using synonyms to clarify meaning
Analogy	Using an analogy to make oneself understood
Elaborating	Elaborating to clarify meaning
Clarifying stance	Clarifying one’s position when there is misunderstanding
Comprehension checks/seeking clarification	Making comprehension checks through questions
Clarifying meaning	Clarifying meaning when there is misunderstanding
Accuracy Orientated Strategies: Participants’ strategic behaviours or actions to correct expressions when making mistakes
Self-correction for accuracy	Correcting oneself to enhance accuracy
Self-correction for preciseness	Correcting oneself to enhance precision
Referring to notes for accuracy	Referring to notes enhance accuracy
Correcting others	Correcting others’ speech
Chunking	Chunking complicated sentences into simpler and shorter sentences
Message reduction and alteration	Reducing an original message to avoid a communication breakdown
Nonverbal Strategies: Participants’ strategic behaviours or actions to use eye contact, gestures, or facial expressions to give hints or help the listener guess what they want to say
Eye contact	Making eye contact with others to seek agreement or when encountering problems
Gesturing—to indicate meaning	Using gestures to present the meaning of certain words
Gesturing—to indicate problems	Using gestures to indicate that one has encountered difficulties
Gesturing—directing	Pointing or using certain gestures to speak to a specific person
Facial expressions	Using facial expressions to indicate disagreement or difficulties either in understanding or expressing
Message Abandonment Strategies: Participants’ strategic behaviours or actions to give up their attempts to communicate
Avoidance	Giving up trying to express intended meaning, resulting in avoidance
Translation: Participants’ strategic behaviours to translate directly from the first language to the target language
Translating	Translating from Chinese to English

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