| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 102 === The study aims to present and analyze the use of meaning negotiation strategies among college juniors in southern Taiwan on negotiating grammar teaching methods in the pair written conversations. Specifically, the negotiation strategies and the ways students interacted with one another were examined. In addition, the student responses to meaning negotiation strategies, explicit and implicit grammar teaching, and the pair written conversations were collected and analyzed.
The participants of the study were 32 third year English-majors from National Kaohsiung Normal University. After attending a lecture on the theories of implicit and explicit grammar teaching methods, the students were encouraged to form into pairs by themselves to do the pair written conversations. Next, working with their partner, they completed their pair written conversations. Finally, after completing the pair written conversations, the participants were required to answer the post-study questionnaire. The negotiation strategies utilized by the students in the pair written conversations were analyzed qualitatively to explore how the strategies were applied to achieve negotiation goals. Furthermore, the data regarding the student responses to meaning negotiation strategies, explicit and implicit grammar teaching, and the pair written conversations were explored by descriptive statistics. In addition, the data from the responses to the open-ended question were sampled, analyzed, and discussed qualitatively.
Based on the quantitative and qualitative data, the major findings of the study are summarized as follows:
1.Through the analysis of the frequency of the negotiation strategies, it was found that all of the five negotiation strategies were employed to bridge communication breakdowns in the pair written conversations. Students tended to adopt clarification request, elaboration, and simplification to state or elucidate the preceding utterances, but they seldom utilized confirmation check and comprehension check in their pair written conversations. More specifically, simplification served as the sign post to eliminate redundant information, to begin the talk, and to change the topic of the conversations. Elaboration helped continue their conversations and make the pair written conversations more fluent and accurate. Finally, clarification request was used to seek explanation for preceding issues.
2.The majority of the students responded positively to employing the negotiation strategies in the pair written conversations. They used the strategies to negotiate with others and kept their conversations going. In addition, they expressed that adapting the negotiation strategies helped them convey their thoughts clearly.
3.The students preferred implicit grammar teaching to explicit grammar teaching. Most of them regarded the nature of implicit grammar teaching as learner-centered, which helped the students develop their generalization ability by inducing the grammar rules.
4.The majority of the students agreed that they benefited from the pair written conversations. From the pair written conversations, the students had some opportunities to discuss the target issues with one another and then clarify their thoughts about the issues.
According to the results of the study, some pedagogical implications are offered. First, TEFL professors can investigate students’ perceptions of teaching English grammar so as to realize what is needed to be modified in the curriculum and materials design for student teachers. Next, EFL teachers can incorporate a variety of negotiation strategies into English conversation instruction to enhance students’ interactional and negotiating skills. Finally, EFL teachers can utilize the pair written conversations for students to practice using the target language in classroom interaction before engaging in real communication. In this way, it facilitates students’ language development and enhances their communication skills.
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