Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Graduate Studies for Education - Department of Curriculum and Methods of Teaching

The study aimed at investigating the differences in the frequency and type of the communication strategies (CSs) used by EFL first secondary stage students and the problems both more proficient and less proficient students encountered in their oral communication. The research design in this study was descriptive corelational. The participants included thirty two EFL first secondary stage students at a governmental language school in Cairo. The researcher used an English proficiency test; the Preliminary English Test (PET) to identify the participants' language proficiency levels, a speaking test based on four speaking tasks to elicit the students' use of CSs, and interviews to identify the real reasons of students' using CSs during their speaking tasks. The results indicated that the students used eighteen strategies out of the nineteen types of communication strategies categorized. The most frequently employed communication strategy was "pause filler and hesitation devices" and the least frequently used strategy was "restructuring". The study revealed that differences in proficiency levels were not influential in the use of English communication strategies. The communication problems identified were related to three aspects: listening, speaking, and memory. Thus, the researcher proposed a remedial approach for improving secondary school students{u2019} English oral communication performance

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