The Impact of Using Asking for Clarification and Circumlocution Speaking Strategies on Enhancing the Speaking Skill of EFL Students

This study mainly aimed at investigating the impact of teaching the asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies on enhancing students’ speaking ability. In addition, it investigated the impact of teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies on students’ use of other speaking strategies. Finally, it aimed at finding the correlation between language proficiency and students’ use of the taught speaking strategies. Sixty-two 10th graders at Noba Secondary School for Girls, a government high school, Palestine, participated in the study. Their native language is Arabic. They were divided into an experimental group comprised of thirty-one students and a control group consisted of thirty-one students. The experimental group had training on using two speaking strategies, namely asking for clarification and circumlocution which lasted over a semester. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data which were collected through pre and post questionnaires and pre and post tests showed that the use of asking for clarification strategy enhanced students’ speaking skill. However, students’ speaking skill was not enhanced through the use of circumlocution strategy. In addition, there were no significant differences between the experimental and control group in their use of different speaking strategies after teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies. However, message reduction and alteration strategies and social-affective strategies were reported to be the most significantly used strategies by the experimental group. Furthermore, the results showed that there was a strong correlation between learners’ proficiency level and their strategy use. Finally, the study came with a number of recommendations.


Introduction and Background
For decades, Grammar Translation method and vocabulary drills have been prevalent in EFL classrooms. Later, a considerable number of studies showed that knowledge of syntax is not enough for developing communication skill. This led to the rise of the approach that focuses more on communication; the communicative approach. It is not only to express one's self, but also to get others comprehend. Since the main goal of communication is to transfer information, this transference should be clear. Unfortunately, speakers, especially foreign learners may not get their message across to the interlocutor. Students may be good in writing, reading and listening, but they may not speak for two minutes without having linguistic difficulties which prevent them from conveying their communicative goal. EFL learners' inefficiency to communicate in English is due to several reasons. It could be because of meagerness of vocabulary to express ideas, shyness or absence of confidence, unavailability of environment to practice the language, or lack of some strategies that help to maintain a conversation (Nguyet & Mai, 2012). Specifically, Palestinian learners have little chance to practice speaking (Farrah, 2011). Speaking skill is neglected, although the Palestinian curriculum is based on the communicative approach which considers interaction the main aim of language learning. However, educators are looking for ways that help learners overcome such difficulties. So, language strategy use may be a possible solution. That is, learners can use speaking strategies to keep the flow of their conversations and the training on using these strategies may make them as a part of their repertoire to use them later in other situations. Many scholars advocate the use of speaking strategies such as (Ugla, Adnan, & Abidin, 2013a;Nguyet & Mai, 2012;Alibakhshi & Padiz, 2011;Tavakoli, Dastjerdi, & Esteki, 2011;Tian, 2011;Nakatani, 2010;Khamwan, 2007;Lam, 2006;Campillo, 2006;Kendall, Jarvie, & Doll et al., 2005). For example, Ugla, Adnan and Abidin (2013a) suggested incorporating speaking strategies into the English education program at the various levels to improve the learners speaking ability.
sometimes unable to communicate their thoughts because they do not have access to the required word or expression due to failure in the memory or any other reasons such as fatigue and linguistic deficiency (Tovakoli, Dastjerdi, & Esteki, 2011). Hence, "if the students know some communication strategies, their reactions will be different. Even if they do not know exactly what to say, they will try to find ways to get close to the answer" (Ogane, 1998, p. 1). The use of speaking strategies makes them feel secured that they try to keep their conversation. It is believed that more emphasis on teaching speaking strategies helps learners manage communication problems inside and outside the classroom by providing them with the necessary strategies that help them overcome linguistic difficulties (Ogane, 1998).

Purpose of the Study
The current study attempts to serve a number of purposes. They are as follows: 1) To investigate the impact of using asking for clarification on enhancing10 th grade students' speaking ability.
2) To investigate the impact of using circumlocution on enhancing 10 th grade students' speaking ability.
3) To investigate the impact of speaking strategy-training on students' use of some speaking strategies. 4) To investigate whether there is a correlation between learners' language proficiency level and the use of the taught speaking strategies among the10 th grade students.

Research Questions
Thus, the present study investigates the following research questions: 1) What's the impact of using asking for clarification on enhancing 10 th grade students' speaking ability?
2) What is the impact of using circumlocution on enhancing10 th grade students' speaking ability?
3) What is the impact of speaking-strategy training on students' use of some speaking strategies?
4) To what extent there is a correlation between the language proficiency level and learners' use of the taught speaking strategies among the 10 th grade students?
The researchers based their speaking tests on previous studies (Nakatani, 2012(Nakatani, , 2010Lam, 2006;Lam & Wong, 2000;Paribakht, 1986). The tests were accepted by two instructors with minor grammatical modifications in task one and three. The tests that were used to collect the data were two speaking tasks.
The first task was three-conversation task which was primarily dedicated to elicit the use of asking for clarification strategy. The other one was a description of ten pictures which was used to elicit the use of circumlocution.

Speaking Pre-Tests
The pre-tests were administered to guarantee that the two groups had the same speaking competence.
The pre-tests consisted of two tasks: The first task was three-conversation tasks (See Appendix 2). Whereas, the second task was a description of ten pictures which was used in many studies such as (Nakatani, 2012;Nakatani, 2005;Lam, 2004;Berry-Bravo, 1993) (See Appendix 3). In the former task, the researchers designed problem-solving tasks to elicit the use of clarification requests strategy. The first task was about their delayed flight in which students in pairs asked and talked about the reasons that made the flight be delayed and tried to find a solution for this emergency with the officer. The second task is that a witness of an accident. The students give a description of the accident doer, victim and place to the police officer. Third task is an interview between a well-known character and a reporter.
For example, the character will be asked about things he or she did to be admired. Also, things he should do or have done. Each pair of the same level was given five minutes to prepare the role play.
After that, the students, conversations were video-taped.
However, the second part of the pre-test was a description of ten pictures (See Appendix 3) which was taken from everyday real life. The pictures were divided into abstract names, concrete objects and verbs.
The ten pictures exemplified the following actions: Saw the wood and plough the earth, whereas, the word "depression" represents abstract nouns. On the other hand, pictures such as a ladle nail clipper, bucket, fire extinguisher and earrings represent concrete nouns. This task was written due to time limitation. Students were given ten minutes to complete the task individually.

Speaking Post-Test
After the treatment, a post-test was conducted on the experimental and control group to investigate the impact of training on learners' oral production. The participants did the same tasks they did in the pre-test. A transcription was made for learners' speech. The aim of this transcription is to analyze learners' speech in terms of fluency, vocabulary, grammar and the use of speaking strategies to see if there is any improvement of learners' oral production after strategy training. Two raters, who were the researchers themselves and an English teacher who has BA degree in teaching English, independently assessed the tests to guarantee reliability of evaluation. After comparing the two ratings which were nearly the same, the mean of the scores was considered.

Validity of the Instruments
The researchers investigated the validity of their instruments through submitting them to experienced EFL instructors who gave their comments which the researchers took them in consideration. Based on Published by SCHOLINK INC. the referees' comments' the instruments were revised.

Reliability of the Instruments
To find out the reliability of the post questionnaire that was used in this study in order to investigate the students' use of speaking strategies, the Cronbach's Alpha reliability was calculated and the results showed that the questionnaire that was used in this study was reliable with 0.75, which indicates an acceptable degree of internal consistency. Accordingly, the questionnaire is considered as a reliable instrument.

Overview
This chapter presents the results of the study. The results of the questionnaire are discussed in light of the learners' perceptions before and after implementing the study. The following section presents the findings and discussions related to the research questions of the study. The results of the questionnaire are presented first, and then they are followed by the results of the post test.

Question One: What is the Impact of Using Asking for Clarification on Enhancing 10 th Grade
Students' Speaking Skill?
The researchers decided to run a t-test for each strategy separately to see if the learners showed any improvement in their speaking skill due to their use of asking for clarification or circumlocution as shown in Tables 2 and 3. Learners were instructed on the use of asking for clarification requests. They were given a chance to practice using this strategy over one school semester. At the end of the semester, the learners were given three speaking task-tests to both the experimental and the control groups. The results were as seen in Table 2. The Table shows that the experimental group's speaking skill was enhanced due to their use of asking for clarification strategy. Experimental group students were able to keep their conversations on through the use of asking for clarification. This is in accordance with (Teng, 2012c;Nguyet & Mai, 2012;Alibakhshi & Padiz, 2011;Lam & Wong, 2000;Gabrielatos, 1992;Lloyd, 1992).
However, this result contrasts with (Hie & Lin, 2008;Prinyajarn, 2007) who found that the participants slightly negotiate meaning through the use of clarification requests.

Published by SCHOLINK INC.
This strategy is easier for students to use since it does not require high language proficiency. A learner needs just to use a memorized expression such as "What?" "Could you explain?" to indicate misunderstanding or inability to carry on a verbal plan. Their use of such expressions motivates them and helped them to get rid of the feeling of embarrassment which results of not being able to carry on a conversation.
3.2.2 Question Two: What is the Impact of Using Circumlocution on Enhancing 10 th Grade Students' Speaking Skill?
To answer this question, learners were instructed on the use of circumlocution. They were given a chance to practice using this strategy over one school semester. At the end of the semester, the learners were given a picture-description speaking task-test to both the experimental and the control groups. The results were as seen in Table 3. The Table shows that there are no significant differences between the experimental group and control group in their speaking skill due to the use of circumlocution strategy. It is worth mentioning that there is slight improvement of the two groups' scores as a result of using circumlocution after treatment.
However, looking at the mean scores between the two groups, it appears that the experimental groups mean scores are higher than the control groups. This is in accordance with (Prinyajarn, 2007) and (Salomone & Marsal, 1997) who found no significant difference between the groups due to their use of circumlocution. However, this result is in contrast with (Campillo, 2006;Chen, 2006;Jourdan, 2000) who found that teaching circumlocution improved students' speaking skill.
This strategy requires high language proficiency. Since the participants' English proficiency is so weak, they are not able to use this strategy as a means of overcoming linguistic deficiencies. First of all, the researchers examined the impact of teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies on the experimental and control groups' general use of the strategies after treatment.

Question
To see whether there is an impact of speaking strategy training on tenth graders' general use of speaking strategies, a t-test was carried out to find the answers of the post questionnaire between the control and experimental groups. The results are shown in Table 4.  The result of Table 4 shows that there is no a significant difference between the two groups at (α ≤ 0.05) of their use of speaking strategies. Their means are (E = 3.51, C = 3.54), which indicate that teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution do not affect the experimental group general use of speaking strategies. This is in accordance with Nunan (1997). However, this is in contrast to the results of (Melendez, Zarala, & Mendez, 2014;Lin, 2013;Nguyet & Mai, 2012;Teng, 2012c;Kongsom, 2009;Prinyajarn, 2007;Nakatani, 2005) who found that learners' use of speaking strategies was affected by treatment and consequently their use of the strategies increased. That is, after strategy-training students used speaking strategies more frequently than they used before treatment. Treatment aroused their awareness of the existence and importance of these strategies. Consequently, they showed positive attitudes towards the use of these strategies.
Additionally, Table 4 shows a medium use of speaking strategies by EFL Palestinian learners. This is in line with the results of (Ugla, Adnan, & Abidin, 2013b; Al-Shabou, Asassfeh, & Al-Shboul, 2010) and Khalil (2005) who found that Palestinian EFL learners have a medium use of strategies.
Strategy-training did not increase students' reported use of speaking strategies. This might be attributed to cultural factor. That is, Palestinian students rarely use English outside the classroom. Therefore, they have never been in a need to use these strategies in real life situations. They do not appreciate the importance of the use of these strategies as they do not try to speak English outside or inside the classroom.
Then, the researchers investigated the impact of teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies on the experimental group's use of individual speaking strategies compared to the control group. A t-test was carried out to analyze the answers of the students, use of speaking categories after treatment. Table 5 shows the results.  Table 5 shows that after treatment, message reduction and alteration strategies and social-affective strategies were reported to be the most significantly used strategies by the experimental group. It is also worth mentioning that the experimental group showed high use of message reduction and alteration strategies, negotiation for meaning while speaking, social-affective strategies and attempt to think in English strategy after treatment. The least used strategy was message abandonment strategies. This is in accordance with (Nakatani, 2012;Teng, 2012b;Huang, 2010) who found that message reduction and alteration strategies and social-affective strategies as well as negotiation for meaning increased after treatment.
Regarding message reduction and alteration strategies, figures show that there is a significant difference between the groups at (α = 0.029). Their means are (E = 4.42, C = 4.04), which means that the treatment affected the experimental group positively. Their reported use of message reduction and alteration strategies improved. Concerning social-affective strategies, results show that there is a significant difference between them at (α = 0.004). Their means are (E = 3.84, E = 3.52), which means that the treatment affected the experimental group positively in this category. Their reported use of social-affective strategies was enhanced. This is in line with Prinyajarn (2007) who found that the students used more pause fillers (social-affective strategies) than circumlocution. In addition, Gabrielatos (1992) reported that his participants became risk takers (social-affective strategies) after their strategy-training despite of their lexical and grammatical deficiencies. This is also in line with (AL-Shabou, Asassfeh, & Alshboul, 2010;Chuanchaisit & Prapphal, 2009).
Students' increased use of social-affective strategies after strategy training could be related to students becoming more confident to speak. They became more able to control their emotions and consequently they were ready to take risk while speaking English. In addition, teaching English in Palestinian classrooms focuses on accuracy. Teachers always focus on producing accurate language. They are intolerant with students' mistakes. Learners are always afraid of committing mistakes. Hence, they will not risk talking in English, consequently, they will not be put in a situation that requires the use of speaking strategies.
On the other hand, the control group showed high use of message reduction and alteration strategies, code switching, nonverbal strategies, negotiation for meaning while speaking and fluency-oriented strategy. Whereas, the control group reported that the least used strategies were message abandonment strategy and circumlocution strategies with (E = 3.18, C = 3.13) and (E = 3.52, C = 3.13) respectively.
Although there is no significant difference between the control and expereiment groups in their reported use of circumlocution after treatment, it's apparent that the experimental group' reported use of circumlocution slightly improved after treatment. This is in line with Kongsom (2009) who found that students' frequent use of circumlocution incresed after treatment. In addition, the results show that there is no a significant difference of negotiation for meaning while speaking between the two groups although this strategy gets high use by the experimental group. This means that the experimental group has positive attitudes towards the use of this strategy. The result is in line with (Yaman, Irgin, & Kavasoglu, 2013;Teng, 2012b;Nakatani, 2012) who found that learners preferred using negotiation for meaning.

Question Four: What is the Correlation Between Language Proficiency and the Use of the Taught
Speaking Strategies Among the 10 th Grade Students at Noba Secondary School?
To investigate the correlation between learners, proficiency level and speaking strategy use, a t-test was carried out to see the impact of students' proficiency level on the use of speaking strategies as seen in  The Table shows that (R) is (.800a) and this is an indicator that the correlation between intermediate and low students in their use of the taught speaking strategies is strong. The result is in agreement with (Ugla, Adnan, & Abidin, 2013b;Abu Anawas, 2012;Nakatani, 2005;Khalil, 2005;Shmais, 2003;Berry-Bravo, 1993;Paribakht, 1985). However, this result contrasts with (Razmjoo & Ardekani, 2011;Huang, 2010;Khan, 2010, Lam, 2006 who found no clear relationship between strategy use and proficiency level. This is because "external factors such as task or internal factors such as learner's style may also be significant in determining strategy use" (Khan, 2010, p.49).

Experimental Group Questionnaire Results
Question one: What is the impact of teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution speaking strategies on the experimental group reported use of speaking strategies in general?
After the treatment, the experimental group students were asked to complete the strategy speaking questionnaire again to investigate any differences in their report of use of speaking strategies. A paired-test was carried out to find the answers of the experimental group. The results are shown in Table 7.  Table 3, the overall mean score for the reported speaking strategies in the pre questionnaire was 3.43 (SD = 0.28) while the overall mean score for the reported speaking strategies in the post questionnaire was 3.51 (SD = 0.63). The mean scores in the post-questionnaire indicate that there is no statistically difference between pre and post speaking strategies questionnaire mean scores of speaking strategy use. This means that teaching speaking strategies does not affect the participants' use of speaking strategies generally. This result is in line with Nunan (1997) who found that the effect of strategy training on strategy-use isn't so clear.
To see the impact of teaching speaking strategies on individual speaking categories, a paired test was carried out as shown in Table 8.   Table 8, shows that speaking strategy-instruction affected the experimental group use of negotiation for meaning while speaking (e.g., asking for clarification), social-affective strategy, attempt to think in English and circumlocution significantly. This result is in line with Nakatani (2012) and Nunan (1997) who stated that strategy-instruction improved learners' knowledge of the investigated strategies. This appeared in the current study results in which learners reported use of the under investigation strategies (circumlocution and asking for clarification) improved after training. In addition, the training was beneficial in that it changed the participants' attitudes towards unacceptable strategies such as code switching significantly. The frequency use of this strategy decreased after treatment. The subject had negative attitudes towards this strategy. They were aware of the existence of more useful and acceptable speaking strategies than code switching. This is in line with Alibakhshi and Padiz (2011) who found that learners reduced their use of avoidance and language switch strategies after training to use appeal for assistance and circumlocution. It is worth noting that, in the pre-questionnaire the participants showed medium use of negotiation for meaning, social affective strategy, attempt to think in English and nonverbal strategy which changed after treatment to be a high use. That is, teaching asking for clarification and circumlocution strategies affected the participants use of some strategies positively. The frequency of use of these two strategies increased after the treatment.
This result contrasts with Dornyei (1995) who found that no significant improvement of the quantity of circumlocution after the treatment. Khenoune (2012) also found that circumlocution and appeal for assistance are the least frequently used by Algerian students.

Qualitative Analysis
The qualitative analysis supports the findings of the quantitative analysis. This can be seen in the light of analyzing some extracts of the participants' performance in the tests.

Actual Use of Asking for Clarification
In the pre-test speaking tasks, students did not interact with one another. Most of their ideas were not discussed thoroughly. In addition, the pre-training tasks rarely had any of the taught strategies. This is in line with Melendez, Zarala and Mendez (2014) who found that students did not use any speaking strategies before the treatment (as seen in the following pre-test example).
In the following extract, taken from a pre-training recording, a student had assumed Lubna: Good morning.
Lubna: you with me on the line. I'll ask you some questions.
Lubna: When you are become a president?

Recommendations for future research
1) Other studies should explore any other strategies that help students develop their speaking skill such as approximation.
2) Other studies should build a questionnaire that covers all of the speaking strategies that learners used when communicate to others. In other words, the used questionnaire in the current study focused on small range of speaking strategies, therefore, it is devisable that another questionnaire includes other speaking strategies that the current questionnaire did not pay attention to.
3) A replication of this study with another group of students at the same school or another school in Palestine may provide some more evidence about the impact of speaking strategy instruction. 4) Moreover, as the students in this study were put into pairs of similar proficiency levels to perform the role play task, it would also be interesting for further studies to put the students in mixed proficiency pairs for the role play task so that the different speaking strategies could be elicited. I describe or exemplify the object or action instead of using the appropriate target language item or structure 18 I turn to the interlocutor for help 1 2 3 4 5 Thank you for your collaboration

Appendix 2. Pre and Post Speaking Tasks (Conversation Tasks)
The impact of using asking for clarification and circumlocution on enhancing EFL 10 th grade students' speaking ability.
Task (1) Work in pairs, one student will be a passenger and the other will be the officer in the airport. You have a problem that is your flight was delayed. Tell the officer at the airport about this problem; try to find solutions with the officer for this problem.
Task (2) You are going home from school, you have seen an accident. The driver did not stop. You will be the witness who will give description and details about the accident to the police officer about (the place, the vehicle, the causality and your feelings and opinions towards the accident and the whole situation).
Task (3) Play a role of a famous character such as Yassir Arafat, or Sharoon ). You will have a talk with a TV presenter to tell her about the field you are active in , about your achievements, things you regret that you did and things you think you should have done. Say what you think of the other opponent either Palestinians or Israelis. Task)