Institutional Repository | Satya Wacana Christian University: Communication Strategies Used by Young Learners in a Bilingual Classroom

Communication Strategies Used by Young Learners in a Bilingual Classroom
Agam Syahrial

Abstract
Many primary schools nowadays offer an early English exposure for children.
However, the status of English remains a foreign language in Indonesia so that English is
not used on daily basis.As a consequence, young learners encounter difficulties in
communicating, or interacting with their teacher in English. Therefore, they will employ
communication strategies to compensate their inadequacy in English.This study
investigates what compensating communication strategies that four third grade students
of Bethany School used to compensate their inadequacy or “missing knowledge” in
English as a foreign language communication.Video recorded interactions between four
students and their teacher during lesson were identified using observational protocol
derived from a typology of compensatory strategies proposed by Dornyei (1995) cited in
Zhang (2007) and Tarone (1977) cited in Nimer (2012).The results showed that the
participants used six out of seven compensatory strategies to compensate their
inadequacy in English during their conversation with the teacher.This study concludes by
suggesting several practical recommendations for teachers of young learners in Englishonly or bilingual approaches classroom.
Key words: communication strategies ,compensating, third grade students, speaking
English.