The Use of Games to Foster Fluency among ESL Learners

This study focused on five particular Communication Strategies (CSs) namely: Paraphrase, approximation, hesitation, reduction, borrowed words and invented, or anglicised. The aim was to investigate the link between the use of approvable and positive CS-types and the impact of ESL students’ beliefs about CSs in a game-activity. It aims to promote students fluency based on positive CSs. The study used a series of videoed and transcribed task-observations based on ‘Spot the Differences’ information-gap activities. In addition, the views and beliefs of 6 teachers and 6 students were sampled using structured interviews. The results interestingly revealed that hesitation was one of the most approved and positive strategies. The teacher interviews revealed that the more experienced teachers focused attention on fluency and helping student to 'keep going', and using all types of CSs while less experienced tutors focused attention on both fluency and vocabulary learning in communication tasks. Less experienced teachers also uttered that hesitation and reduction strategies should not to be encouraged and it is better that teacher tell the word if student needs it or paraphrase them. The observation also highlighted that there is a relation between the teacher's inner beliefs and the student's fluency level. Data from the videoed observations revealed that body language was an important element in communicating meaning. The results also revealed what strategies these teachers encourage students to use in a communication activity. That are mostly avoided because of their misconception about a communication activity. Analysis of CSs also showed the link between teacher and students beliefs about approvable CSs and their level of achieved fluency.

In addition, despite the significant amount of educational research and the growing interest in CSs, there is a lack of practical research on the negative or positive effects of CSs in a fluency activity. According to Willems (1987) article, CSs are divided in to two kinds: positive (achievement/compensatory) or negative (reduction strategies). So for example in one of its subcategories which is Message abandonment, learner avoids using the word by changing the topic, e.g. 'Let's talk about how the other part of the 'filtering machine' works' rather than talking about that part of the machine. But Faerch and Kasper categorize it as a positive CS type. In language classrooms, learners are producing CSs. On the other hand, the main objective of language learning is to be the learners' ability to communicate in real-world situations, which in turn requires serious attention to be paid to various types of CSs (Willems, 1987). However, this investigation and the outcome advise that a general plan is required to affect a fundamental change in the teacher's and student's belief. Given such a necessity, the present study is intended to provide a clear picture of the strategies that teachers and students need to know in fostering fluency. This study clearly shows how this belief affects the students and teachers' perspective on the game. It also highlights the beliefs on CSs that play an affective role in promoting fluency through a game-activity.
Goals might be powerful motivators. Learners who do set appropriate goals and beliefs seem to sustain their learning (here, fluency) (Ames, 1992and Dweck, 1991, cited in Clark, 2007. Games, of course, are linked with goals, and require specific beliefs and strategies. Research has sought to investigate the root of goal-setting. It appears that the learner's thoughts, beliefs and efforts have been the fundamental contributing factors to goal-setting (Kanfer, 1992).
We should be aware of disapproval or approval factors within the student's speech act, and within the teacher's and student's own beliefs (Mowrer, 1960, cited in Clark, 2007. There should be an in-depth observation and investigation into these factors so that we can come to a definite conclusion on how games foster fluency when a student is doubtful or has a misconception about using appropriate CS type. Thus this is important to reveal what type of strategies are considered as positive and the impact of teacher's belief on students and also the effect of student's previous beliefs on their success or failure in communicating and fostering fluency.

Purpose of the Study
The research's goal as discussed earlier is to categorize effective CSs based on student's productivity and experienced teachers beliefs that made the students fluent. Therefore, we developed four main questions:


What types of CSs the students at intermediate level use when engaged in information-gap activity?
 Does teacher and student's self-belief, have an influence on students use of CSs?
 Is hesitation a positive or negative strategy?
 Is reduction a positive or negative strategy?

Participants
Six students participated in this study. They were students from pre-sessional classes all from University of Essex. The participants in this study represented adult intermediate level international students who were studying English to improve their English before starting a degree. They are between 18-24 years old. Overall, they had an IELTS score of 5.0-5.5. The teacher participants were the class tutors of the student participants. Teachers who were interviewed were from the same university and taught pre-sessional students. They were all British, native speakers of English. One was male and the rest were female. Teacher A and B have 3 years teaching experience. Teacher C has 4 years of experience. Teacher D taught English for 7-8 years. While Teacher E and F have 10 years and 20 years teaching experience, respectively.

Systematic Video Recording of Information-Gap Task
In this study, we video recorded students during the task-based activity. The aim was to notice consciously and very detailed observation of the participant's behavior in a natural setting. In this study, observation took place among pairs working on the information-gap activity and after class hours. They were seating in pairs. Each volunteer in pair work had a separate picture. The partner had a similar picture with a few differences on each of them. Each pair had 20-25 minutes to communicate and spot the differences. Focus was on individuals and in pair activity. The video recording and analysis of CSs were related to individual students rather than the whole class. Participants were volunteers coming from the six-mentioned teacher's classes. They were also took part in interview section. The sights, sounds, gestures and mimes of students while doing an activity, even their silence, led us to know what type of CSs was used. In fact, it was a systematic observation, and aimed to produce www.ccsenet.org/ies International Education Studies Vol. 6, No. 4;2013 qualitative data, which were pre-coded and were ready to analyze. Observation was used by accompanying with other methods of data collection to triangulate or provide additional evidence for a research study; therefore, teacher and student interviews were also done.

Interviews
We utilized semi-structured interviews that were a number of questions written as the main research questions, while adding prompts to have freedom to ask additional questions if needed. The teacher interview questions are as follows: Teacher Interview Questions 1) How long have you been teaching English?
2) What is your point of view about using hesitation? (such as hmmm, eee) 3) Do you teach them hesitation devices? ( such as: well, you know, I see) 4) Do your students know how kind of communication strategies they are not allowed to use? (such as hesitation-mother tongue sentences -mother tongue words -saying I do not know.) 5) Do you think they know which one of the above mentioned strategies they are not allowed to use? 6) What is your opinion about using 'I don't know' in an 'Information gap' activity? 7) What is your opinion about changing the topic if students do not know the exact word? 8) Do you teach them Communication Strategies?/ (prompt: Do you believe in teachability of Communication activities?)-paraphrase, approximation, Non-linguistic means, reduction strategies, smurfing) 9) Are there anything else you would like to add to this interview section?

Data Analysis
This study was composed of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Systematic observation through video recording while students were doing an activity, was analyzed and all CSs were coded. All student speech was recorded and then were typed, and then each utilized CS type in their speech was highlighted. Then the number of occurrences were calculated and added to the list of specific category. For example, Non-linguistic means were used in a student's speech for 101 times. Then the numbers were mentioned and highlighted to be compared with other strategy and in the attached table. However as far as this research is concerned, I will be using the combination of the most popular terms by my own definitions and based on the purpose and relation to this study. Moreover, List of the CS categories are also attached into Appendix 1. Quantitative part of this study was done through calculating frequency of different types of CSs and then qualitative part was done by analyzing the observed data as well as the interview parts.

Results and Discussion
As mentioned earlier, this study was aimed at designing a specific code system for analysing CSs. The quantitative part in means of frequency is shown in Table 1. It provides a brief overview of the analyses, and the different categories are illustrated in a colour scheme.

Teacher and Student Interviews
In the qualitative part, teachers and students interviews were analyzed. A total number of six teachers were interviewed for this study. All are British speakers of English. The most significant difference between them is their teaching experience: teachers A, B, and C having taught ESL for 3 years, teacher D for 7-8 years, teacher E for 10 years and teacher F having 20 years.
The results indicate that teachers tended to have different views on the balance between promoting CSs and stepping into providing more language. Teacher D, E, and F who are the most experienced have positive comments on hesitation, and paraphrasing. Conversely, teacher A, B, and C are more concerned to teach vocabulary as means of promoting fluency. These teachers are more worried by hesitation, and do not report paraphrasing. Moreover, the following Table gives a summary of a brief student and teacher interviews: With regard to the interviews with the students, however, the results also revealed that SA displayed a positive attitude towards CSs, including Hesitation. SB also had a positive disposition towards CSs-preferring to define a word rather than using 'I don't know'. However, SC tended to focus on learning new words and believed in avoiding hesitation. Similarly, SD and SE maintained that it is better to know the exact word, while SF asserted, 'I try to use the exact word…if I don't know… I apologize…I prefer to say… I don't know ...rather than define words'. She also believes that the goal of a game-activity, especially the goal of a fluency activity, can be achieved if she pays attention to her speech-errors.

Review of Observation and Interviews
The systematic observation of students in this study reveals the fact that students used various types of CSs to convey their meaning. While this revealed to be true, analysis of CSs usage shows that students generally used body language more than other types of strategies and as the most practical strategy among students and from teacher interviews.
The second highly useful strategy is hesitation and among the two types of hesitation, HES-RET was highly used, this conveys the meaning that students used any kind of strategies to convey their meaning to their partner and not to be silenced. In contrary, HES_Fill even though was used less than HES-RET, but still is one of the most used type of CS.
Paraphrasing is the third highly useful strategy; PARA-DESC, approximation, and PARA-DEF are used respectively. Paraphrasing also is described as a very good strategy among teachers, although there are different point of views about it, and will be discussed under the next hypothesis. Reduction strategy is considered as one of the less popular strategies.
Applied linguistics determines development of CSs as an evidence for learner's fluency and conversational skills (Dornyei and Thurrel, 1991). This is clearly seen among half of the students in this study, however the other half do not meet this criteria, and it could be obviously observed in the video-recorded section. The students are namely S3 and S4 from Japan, and student 6 from Saudi Arabia, which their CS usages can be seen in CS analysis section and in the separate bar designed for each group, below: Based on interview with teacher A: ….if they give a list of synonyms they can look around it, and then find the word…. Or if not in that moment I clarify with them did you mean that you are looking for a word that means this? & if they say yes, I will give them more, but if they say no, I will say try to describe this word again. & they go back to same cycle that either they guess on their own or they convince me with the word and I provide them with that.
For Teacher A if student do not know a word describes it or give synonym herself, and do not expect it from the student to do paraphrasing. If students could not guess the meaning, she herself provides students with the word itself in a communication activity. This statement is supported, by Little (1995) that sometimes teachers should focus on the cognitive demands of the communicative tasks our learners need to master rather than their previews perceived learning styles for a successful task performance. However, how to master and lead learners in this success seem to be a 'grey area' that this hypothesis answers.
He also adds this point that: This statement also is supported, when the focus is on communication and not correctness to use CS to convey their meanings (Ellis, 1984). However, it does not give depth knowledge about the method used to lead students to gain the new learning style.
Teacher C, paraphrases and summaries, and gives them the exact word just after describing the word herself. She believes in having cognitive reasoning by students and trying to describe the words by them, but does not emphasize it too much. She also believes that not attempting to try to convey meaning will lead to the lack of opportunity in having fluency. It shows that the last option of teacher D is the first option of the three first teachers. She emphasized on paraphrasing, and explanation of a word rather than an exact word. Her last option might be looking up in dictionary but it happens very rarely. By looking at dictionary, she wants them to see the exact word but also the definition.
Finally, one of the two experienced EFL teacher, teacher E describes that: …Well, I try to get them to say anything about it, just saying something, doesn't need to be perfect. Don't be shy, or something like that.…I guess sometimes when you are doing a game, you just want some language to be produced.
Her ideas convey the meaning that she does not focus on exact word. What she really wants in the game activity is to let them produce speech without being sensitive about perfection. She suggests using some strategies:

…I tell them if you do not know the exact word can you describe the function of it, what is it, in a general class,
to take some objects that they might not know those words in English, such as driver, employers or something, and get them to get the other person to guess it. Someone has a picture of a can opener, and explains it, that it is something to open the things…I ask them just to say anything they know about the object, the color or something. You know help your partner and even you could ask him questions to help them.
It seems that the controvert belief of this teacher from other less experienced teachers arises by experience, and is influenced in her teaching as well. Even though still it is vague how students in this class might learn to be fluent compared to the previews students. But it seems that experience plays a fundamental role. Teachers should be experienced by natural process to promote students fluency or rather to be taught to do it.

I think peoples mind are designed to be story-telling mind. To tell stories, so I think if you can encourage doing narrative that encourages people to be fluent as well. If this is something that personally happened to you then it's deeply meaningful & it's easy, it's easier if you can talk about it to be fluent about something like that. The activities, because they know that subject matter, as the subjects matters itself.
Actually when I am teaching, I use speech bubbles with things: like having spell, how do you say this in English. You know all those kind of words that help them to be more independent, and to find the information themselves… there are some cardboards, and there are bubbles, all around them, how do you spell, how do you … and learn how to use those questions, how do you spell that, how do you define that word. To help them learn how to ask those questions.
To make this argument clear that why some students do not use CS and therefore, have fluency problem, we divided students into two groups. The first group is student 1, 2, 5, which used CS a lot, and student 3, 4, and 6 who did not use CS, in contrary, and to match them with teacher's point of view: All this strategies overlap with the strategies that experienced teacher E and F used to use. As we discussed earlier during teacher discussion section, teachers also are divided in to two, the ones who emphasized teaching exact words and the experienced teachers who in fact believe in just conveying meaning. The last teacher believes in story-telling, and this student also had to use it as a technique.
Student E also adds that:

…Or I can explain with a phrase. If I do not know the meaning of table, I can explain like, it's a place I can put my stuff, my paper or my pen, in another way….sometimes I use invented words. Sometimes when I don't know what to say I try to invent a word.
In conveying her meaning student E even uses invented words which is quiet weird to be used by students who believe in using the exact word. Student E mentions that: … teachers divide us into groups like making a cross word. You have to speak about the meaning of the word. The other group has to guess the word, but if they can't guess they normally use dictionary. To have some advice how to play the meaning of the word. If they do not know the word you also may do some drawing.
On the contrary, the students who lack fluency to a large extent prefer not to have any attempt to define what they want to convey: ...I will ask the persons, I mean others. Yes. Maybe if I have a dictionary or a dictionary machine, I will give that dictionary to that person so to say look person and give me the word. & what it means….Using synonym. Because you know that it has meaning, or it has a synonym, but easy words.
Student C directly asks the word, or uses dictionary, just he uses synonyms sometimes, even though they might use paraphrasing but not very appropriate ones which can be again seen in analysis section and in appendix.

Student D:
…Yes, teacher more explains about the vocabulary. Yes, to how to use a vocabulary. She tells us the differences between vocabularies, and it's meaning. Just google it….Maybe I check in dictionary or ask someone for word meaning. I do not use any other strategies, I just directly ask them….Teacher told us when we don't know some words, just ask the teacher. Or imagine the words meaning from the sentences. Checking the word, using dictionary is very easy.
Student F, even just and just emphasized that uses exact word, by saying: …I prefer to have exact word….sometimes I made a mistake but I don't like… Her teacher suggests that: you can build up your vocabulary, as much as possible. ..you can then easily communicate with people. www.ccsenet.org/ies International Education Studies Vol. 6, No. 4;2013 According to our arguments, it seems to me that there is a correlation between teachers experience and students fluency. Student 1,2, and 5 show lots of CSs and fluency in their conversation, interview also revealed that their teacher prefer fluency rather than correctness or using exact word in a communication activity. On the contrary, student 3, 4, and 6 believe mostly on using exact words based on influence of their teacher's notion. Table 1 shows that the number of Hesitations used generally is more than other CSs in this study. In both cases all hesitations used are from simple hesitation types such as: [hmmm, aaaa, yeeeeeees, deeeeeeeeesk…] The interview with the teachers shows that all teachers are satisfied with student's hesitation and they call it as natural, common and useful tools.
Teacher C even pointed out that: "I think it' ok. I think when one uses hmmm, that looks someone is thinking…" It is also mentioned that even if students are not able to retrieve words in this level that is fine, because it is the process of their learning.
To support this notion however Dornyei states that: The ability to use fillers and hesitation devices plays an important role in helping a person to remain in the conversation and gain time to think; we have found in the past that teaching fillers brings about an improvement in students' fluency. (1995) However, Canale (1983) specifically listed the 'use of pause fillers among the CSs making up strategic competence. Haastrup and phillipson (1983) included in their taxanomy a set of strategies which they termed 'strategies aimed at solving retrieval problems' (e.g., 'er now I have to think'), Rost (1994) also mentions using conversational fillers to keep the conversation going in his list of communication strategies. However, whether to use this devices instead of simple hesitation devices was always questioned among researchers. The interview with teachers seems to support this view that teachers are not quite sure how to promote this strategies but all of them except one are interested to use them.
Interestingly teacher A mentions that: …." I think hesitation or a pause is something fine because if you substitute those words with Hesitation Devices, I think they might think those phrases are preferable so I think I haven't." It seems that the teacher can substitute those words by clarifying that they are facilitators and could mention that they are not preferable speech devices.
In contrary, Teacher B thinks that: "…. I think if they are using them, they are good signs of fluency. In my experience, I never taught that. But I think its interesting because using hesitation techniques to give you time to think about an answer means you are a very strong learner…" Teacher C adds to this point that: On the other hand, interview with students shows that student A is the only exception to use Hesitation Devices, which using the Hesitation Devices was obviously seen while he was talking to me in the interview section (using hesitation devices such as well), he mentioned that:  Vol. 6, No. 4;2013 Interviewer) So you were taught about them? Or…? Did you have it in your coursework?
No , no I just listen to them in media, movies films, maybe friends. A lovely movie.
The interview with him clarified the fact that he used the hesitation devices, but formal hesitation devices and not the ones for games or informal speech. He mentioned that he learned them by listening to media, movies or friends.
Interestingly, student C was the exception to say that: "…..Hesitation is not good for fluency. I think but we are allowed to use hesitation, its not compulsory." Students C even do not agree to have fluency. And he uses HES_Fill and HES-RET against his belief.
It is significantly useful to mention that all students used HES-Fill and HES-RET in the game activity, and all mentioned in the interview that having hesitation has a good impact; even hesitation as very long pauses is not recommended. However, all of them mentioned that Hesitation Devices were not taught or told by their teachers, but they seem willing to be taught or know them.
As another significant statement, student D also uttered this statement about Hesitation Devices that: "…I never been told such as these words, But I want to use these words because I think when I use these words the conversation become more fluency. But in Japan using these words is not good. So our culture don't use these words, so I can't use these hesitation words. We I mean use hesitation words but people don't use these words such as not a good speaker. It's negative thing in my country." It supports the belief that highlighting cross-cultural differences in CS use might be very significant, as in some languages particular CSs may be seen as indications of bad style (Dornye, 1995) Other students believe that hesitation is a positive communication activity, unless until it is used for very long pauses, which show students, lack of knowledge and should be avoided.
If this is the case that HES-Fill & HES-RET are being used 42 and 68 times respectively as one of the most useful and fundamental communication tool and none of them in the game activity included the Hesitation Devices, then this seems to be an area in which there could be improvement. As students have never focused on using them in an informal setting such as a game activity, it is evidence that students may lack the appropriate hesitation devices to use as strong language learners. Student C also is from a sample of six students and it might mean that some students generally do not believe hesitation as a natural communication tool, so they should be told about it, even though in this analysis he used hesitation naturally and in a number of times.
In addition, for student D, it seems ideal to remember cultural differences as well as other issues.
Therefore, the students who believe that they should use the exact word do not have fluency in a Communication Activity.
Teachers and students believe that having HES_FILL & HES-RET is a good communication strategy, but they are unsure of how to promote Hesitation Devices.
The interview with teachers shows that generally using reduction strategies [I do not know] is seen as an unproductive strategy among students: There is however, a correlation between teacher's belief and students interview answers and what they really did in real conversational setting: Student C: …If I say I don't know, first I try, instead of saying it….

Student D: I say [I don't know… but….] to keep conversation going…
Interestingly we can see the correlation between what teachers and students believe are similar and students do believe that using reduction strategies are allowed but because it is not productive they try to try and do their best to convey their meanings by other means. Therefore, mostly they use REDUC-ABAN-SW instead of REDUC-ABAN-0.

Conclusion
www.ccsenet.org/ies Vol. 6, No. 4;2013 Results from this study shows that students and teachers believe that hesitation is a natural and common tool that shows someone is thinking. And even if students are hesitation without retrieval we should let them do it, as it is the process of learning and thinking about how to convey their meanings and should not be interrupted. Students, however, are hesitating many times in their speech, and all teachers and students except one teacher would like to teach and learn hesitation devices, to facilitate students thinking process. Interview with students revealed that teachers are not utilizing them as helpful strategies. One student learned them in media, and movies. One teacher also uses formal hesitation devices in presentation sessions, but how she teaches them was quiet vague. She also mentioned the lack of these devices in their textbooks. One teacher also uses it during game activity and telling how to use it, directly. However, there was no systematic strategy mentioned, through game activity.
The interviews revealed that teacher experience has an impact on student's fluency. Experienced teachers prefer students to be free from vocabulary learning during a communication activity. They use other activities such as story telling, or bubble game that focuses on vocabulary paraphrasing and fluency rather than structure, correctness or learning the exact vocabulary. Student 5 also mentioned using cross word in class as a definition and paraphrasing activity. They never mention vocabulary learning in a fluency activity. This promotes their students fluency, while on the other hand students who believe to learn both vocabulary and fluency, correctness and fluency in the same way , prefer not to make mistakes are under the influence of teachers which believe in teaching exact vocabulary while communication or after communication activity and as a feedback. This teacher seems to avoid the role of paraphrasing and using communication strategies, which is mentioned by experienced teachers.
On the other hand, this study revealed that there is a correlation among all teachers and students about avoidance strategies. It seems that all teachers had an influence on students, and on not using 'I don't know'. If they do not know a word, they try their best, in most of the cases. It also shows that most of the students prefer to communicate rather than just say 'I don't know'. Most of the teachers let their students to communicate freely.
Body language seems to be used as the most useful and fundamental strategy among students, and seems to have a positive impact on conveying meaning, however it seems that there is a correlation between students who lack fluency and the frequency of using body language. Hesitation is the next most useful strategy and later paraphrasing strategies. Students used reduction strategies, and mostly tried to convey their meanings even after that. Foregnizing strategy however, could not be tested based on lack of comparable pairs of students from same L1 country. However, invented and anglicized strategy could be tested and seems that no one used them. Overall, the research revealed a relationship between teacher and students belief on their communication abilities. The more experienced teacher's students were fluent compared to the students who believed that communication strategies such as hesitation devices is better to be avoided.