THE INVESTIGATION OF CLASSROOM COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES USED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT LECTURERS

This case study is aimed at finding out the types of classroom communication strategies employed by English department lecturers during their teaching. In this study, three lecturers participated (HQ, RR, and SW in pseudonyms). They were lecturers for academic English, critical speaking, and advanced reading classes. The instruments of this study were videotapes, observation guides, field notes, and interview guides. After the data collection process, the data were analyzed using coding analysis and interactive analysis. The results showed that the most employed direct strategies were circumlocution and codeswitching. HQ used circumlocution 54 times and code-switching 51 times; RR used circumlocution 21 times and code-switching 32 times. The major use of indirect strategies was comprehension check, which was used 47 times by RR, 28 times by HQ, and 9 times by SW. Last, for the interactional strategy, filler was the most used strategy. RR used it 19 times, HQ used it 46 times, and SW used it 26 times. It is suggested that lecturers are expected to balance these three strategies to maintain good teacher-student communication. However, for adult learners (college students), it is found that lecturers mostly use circumlocution during the lecture.

From the preliminary study conducted in December 2020, the problem was found by both teachers and learners. The researcher conducted a semi-structured interview with one of the lecturers at the English Department, STKIP Bina Bangsa Getsempena, Aceh. It was found that the teachers had difficulties communicating in English since they could not find a way to address their students effectively because the students were relatively quiet during class. They doubted the students and themselves, and they admitted that the class was almost not practical after all. One of the potential strategies to minimize this problem is by looking at the communication strategies used during the teaching and learning process. Since this study focused on the communication strategies used by the lecturers, the investigation only magnifies the lecturers' strategies alone.
Generally, most Indonesian English teachers are also second language learners. Like other second language learners, the English teachers will also face some problems during teaching-learning activities. Hence, they will probably apply communication strategies during their teaching. The communication strategies used are various from each teacher. In this research, Dornyei and Scotts's (1997) taxonomy was used as the framework to find out how teachers and students conduct their conversations during English class. According to these situations, the researcher is interested in investigating the communication strategies employed by teachers at English Department classes in STKIP Bina Bangsa Getsempena Banda Aceh.
Several studies have been conducted on the use of communication strategies in a classroom setting. Wei (2011) conducted a study on forty Chinese students. Her study aimed to determine the learners' attitude toward English learning and the dominant frequency of the communication strategies used. The result shows that the student's attitude has some influence on the communication strategies. Besides, Chinese students tend to use more reduction strategies instead of achievement strategies. Second, Maldonado (2015) conducted a study to see the different communication strategies used by EFL learners when they communicate and determine the influence of learners' proficiency and communicative strategies. The results showed a positive relationship between learners' ability and the use of communicative strategies. However, their proficiency did not determine the frequency of the strategy used. Last, Sarab (2004) determined the use of communication strategies in teacher talk in English classrooms. The results were obtained as follows. First, communication strategies are essential in The investigation of classroom communication strategies used by English department lecturers (P. Mareza, S. A. Gani & I. A. Samad) 561 teacher talk. Second, meaning negotiation is also core to the teacher's talk in the teaching and learning process. Third, both native and nonnative speakers employed classroom communication strategies. Fourth, the communication strategies' function is varied according to the teaching goal and the classroom activities.
From the previous studies mentioned above, it can be seen that the research on the use of communicative strategies employed in teaching higher education students is still limited. So, this current study intends to fill that gap. Moreover, this study's novelty is using the different frameworks of communicative strategies, as suggested by Dornyei and Scotts (1997).

Classroom Communicative Strategies
Communication strategies are a crucial part of the competencebased language education system and essential techniques for any fluent speaker of a (foreign) language within and without the language classroom (Houston, 2006). The lack of communication competence has been raised by many lecturers, particularly lecturers in Aceh (Samad, 2016). To be competent, the students are required to introduce the generic structure of a particular event sufficiently (Samad & Adnan, 2018). To make it happen, the students need to be taught by an appropriate approach, for example, the genre approach (Samad & Adnan, 2017). They are required for adding to the fluency of any speaker of a second or foreign language when the speaker is facing difficulties in verbal communication. In addition, they are both teachable and highly adaptable to the different study situations within and without a language classroom.
As cited by Houston (2006), Tarone in 1984 classified communication strategies into five main categories and several subcategories, which add up the following list. First, it is a paraphrase. Paraphrasing includes three subcategories which are an approximation, word coinage, and circumlocution. The approximation uses of such native Language (L1) vocabulary items or structures that the language learner is aware of are incorrect but share certain semantic features with the desired item. Thus, it will satisfy the speaker's intention. Word coinage is when the learner makes up a new word on the spot to communicate the desired concept. Last not the least, circumlocution is when the learner describes the significant characteristics or elements of an object, action, or person instead of using the target language equivalent. The second is transfer. The transfer has two subcategories that are: literal translation and language switch. The former is when the learner is translating words from L1 to L2, while the latter is when the learner uses the L1 term without translating it into L2. Third, it is the appeal for assistance. This term refers to the learner asking for the correct term or structures from an external source of information: most likely a teacher or a fellow student. There are two subtypes, namely mime and avoidance. Mime is related to the speaker using non-verbal strategies substituting an expression. Meanwhile, avoidance relates to the avoiding strategy used by both interlocutors. Avoidance consists of two subcategories which are topic avoidance and message abandonment. Topic avoidance is when the language learner is omitting concepts for which their vocabulary is lacking at the time of speaking. Message abandonment is when the language user begins to talk about an idea but cannot continue doing so due to a lack of phrases and expressions thus ending up stopping in the middle of an utterance.
The other taxonomy is as suggested by Dornyei and Scotts (1997). This taxonomy is elaborated as shown in the following. First, Direct Strategies. This includes message reduction, approximation, circumlocution, code-switching, mime, self-repetition, and otherrepetition. Message reduction is to leave the message in the middle of a conversation because there are language problems. The approximation uses another term which considered resemblance. For example, using the word 'sail boat' for 'ship.' Circumlocution is to describe the characteristics of an object to clarify the meaning during communication. Moreover, code-switching uses the native language in the middle of the English conversation or vice versa. Mime is an action to reinforce the definition of a word so that the listeners can convey the message being delivered. Self-repetition is to repeat what an individual had said earlier to find another resembling word. Furthermore, another repetition is repeating other (the interlocutor) to make mutual understanding between both parties.
The second strategy category is indirect strategy. This strategy appeal for help, which is asking the partner to continue the conversation; comprehension check, which is to confirm the interlocutor's understanding; own-accuracy check is analyzing a sentence and correcting it in an excellent grammatical rule; asking for repetition, which is asking the interlocutor to repeat what has been said; and guessing which is to predict what the interlocutor is going to say next.
The investigation of classroom communication strategies used by English department lecturers (P. Mareza, S. A. Gani & I. A. Samad) 563 The last category is using fillers and feigning understanding. Using fillers is employing short gambits to pause a conversation, and feigning understanding means admitting to the interlocutor that one does not understand the messages being delivered.

Teacher Talk
Teacher talk can interact with language models inside and outside the classroom to develop their understanding (Usman, et al. 2018). Without teacher talk showing how English has to be used in an everyday context, the students will be challenged to expect communicative interest. In addition, teacher talk plays a vital role in classroom teaching organization and students' language learning in second language acquisition due to its function as an instrument of implementing teaching plans. Teachers need to be confident in delivering the teaching materials. Although for some teachers, confidence can seem to be a problem. Some teachers also lack confidence due to the limited vocabulary and incorrect pronunciation (Maulidar, Gani, and Samad, 2019).
There are several characteristics of teacher talk based on Thornbury and Slade (2006): (1) The use of referential questions, where the teacher asks the class about something, e.g., What did you do on the weekend? This is in contrast to typical display questions, e.g., comprehension questions on a reading text in which the teacher already has the answer and the teacher only asks the questions to measure students' understanding.
(2) Content feedback by the teacher. This strategy is where the teachers 'response to student contributions focuses on the content of what the student says rather than the form, e.g., grammar correctness or pronunciation. (3) The use of speech modifications, hesitations, and rephrasing in the teachers 'talk, e.g., when explaining, asking questions, and giving instructions. (4) Attempts to negotiate meaning with the students, e.g., through requests for clarification and repetition and giving opportunities for the students to interrupt the teacher and vice versa. Based on the explanation above, teacher talk plays an essential role in teaching-learning activities, and it is why the researcher chose teacher talk to be the object of this research. Furthermore, teacher talks in a language classroom tend to show the changes resulting from the language used by the teachers during their teacher talk (Harmer, 2007). The results are that the teachers will give a slow impression, send the confirmation toward the students with more pauses to ensure the continuation and toward the classification of errors, and the disposals of mistakes so that the messages can be well-understood by the students. Then, The importance of vocabulary choice. Teachers choose relatively simple vocabulary for young students. Later, the teacher should keep the pace and not babble during their teaching. Next, the pronunciation, as well as the declaratory, must be clear. Finally, the teachers can employ more repetition to make the students understand the information (Brown, 2007).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research was conducted using qualitative research. Creswell (2014) explains that qualitative research is an approach used to explore and understand the meaning of individual or social ascribe to a social or human problem. One of the critical elements of collecting data is to observe participants' behaviors during their engagement in activities. For this research, the writer focused on communication strategies used by the lecturers in the classroom at STKIP Bina Bangsa Getsempena. According to Flick (2013), qualitative data analysis can describe a phenomenon in greater detail that focuses on the case and its unique features that link them. Qualitative data analysis is also applied to discover and clarify issues in the field.

Research Subject and Object
The subjects of this study are English department lecturers at STKIP Bina Bangsa Getsempena in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The object of this study was the spoken discourse produced by these lecturers during their teaching in the classroom.

Research Instrument
Three instruments were utilized in this research: an observation guide, field notes, and interview guide. The observation guide is necessary for the researcher to conduct observation in this field. The observation sheet gave the researcher a guideline about specific aspects or issues of classroom events. Later, field notes were used during observation and interviews with the teacher. Classroom research investigates teachers and students or their interaction and includes all classroom information such as using gestures by teachers, nodding by students, and other information that supports data collection. Field notes also help the researcher to make a cross-check with the data taken from the video recording. Last, the interview guide was used to collect the data from the participants. The interview guide was the secondary data for The investigation of classroom communication strategies used by English department lecturers (P. Mareza, S. A. Gani & I. A. Samad) 565 this study to complete data from observation and to get additional information related to communication strategies used by the lecturers.

Technique of Data collection
The procedure of data collection in this research was done as narrated below. First, the researcher asked for permission to observe the ongoing class at the Bina Bangsa Getsempena college, namely English for specific purposes, advanced reading, and critical speaking classes. Later, the researcher collected the data from January 4th, 2020, until January 5th, 2020. The process during the data collection was similar to all three classes. Initially, the researcher joined the classroom as the class started, and the researcher videotaped the teaching and learning process. The teachers' talks, along with the student talks in the classroom, were all videotaped. Besides, the researcher also used observation, field notes, and interviews to enrich the data collection. All classes were observed for one meeting each.

Technique of data analysis
After the data were collected, they were analyzed using two types of analysis, namely coding analysis and interactive analysis. These two data analysis models were used since coding analysis does not employ data display. So, the interactive analysis model needed to be utilized. As suggested by Wertz, et al. (2011), coding analysis has five stages: parting the data, re-identifying the data, giving codes to data, tabulating the data based on its category, and drawing conclusions tabulation. Since there is no data display in this model, another model was used.  suggest that Interactive analysis should be used to provide data display. These three steps in this model are data reduction, data display, and data verification. In the data reduction phase, the researcher reduced the data not relevant to the research questions. In reducing the data, the researcher only chose all data concerning classroom communication strategies employed by the lecturers at STKIP Bina Bangsa Getsempena. Later, in the data display, all data that have been reduced and tabulated are displayed. Finally, it is data verification. It is the phase where the conclusions are taken based on the results of the previous steps.

Results
The following is presented the results of classroom communication strategies employed by three lecturers (RR, HQ, and SW) in their classes. The communication strategies analyzed in this study are the ones proposed by Donyei and Scotts (1997). There are three major principles, they are Direct Strategies including Message Reduction, Approximation, Circumlocution, Code-Switching, Mime, Self-Repetition, and Other-Repetition; Indirect Strategies including Comprehension check, Ownaccuracy check, asking for repetition, guessing; and the third one is Indirect Strategies including using filers, and feigning understanding.

Results of direct strategies
First, the results of Direct Strategies including message reduction, approximation, circumlocution, code-switching, mime, self-repetition, and other-repetition are provided in the table below. Each of the substrategy is given a code based on the term initial. From the table above, each lecturer employs different direct strategies. (RR, HQ, and SW). RR dominantly used code-switching (32 times) and followed by Other-Repetition (29 times). Then, she used circumlocution 21 times, Message Reduction 13 times, and selfrepetition 12 times. She did not use Approximation and Mime strategies at all. Then, the next lecturer is HQ. The table shows that most communication strategies that she used are circumlocution (51 times) and followed by code-switching (51 times). Then, she employed otherrepetition 13 times, message reduction 7 times, and self-repetition 6 times. Meanwhile, she did not employ any strategies for approximation The investigation of classroom communication strategies used by English department lecturers (P. Mareza, S. A. Gani & I. A. Samad) 567 and miming. SW majorly applied code-switching (10 times), then followed by circumlocution (8 times). She employed other repetition 5 times and self-repetition 4 times. She did not utilize message reduction, approximation, and miming at all.
In the following are shown some excerpts taken from RR, HQ, and SW. The data are coded based on the initial term of each sub-type. For example, RR-MR1 is the code for RR class and the data for Message Reduction Number 1.

Excerpt 4:
RR-SR9: yang udah kirim ke telegram, sudah? Ada yang udah kirim ke telegram? 'Have you sent to telegram already? Have you sent to telegram?' Excerpt 5: RR-OR27: semester dua. 'Second semester.' In excerpt 1 above, RR asked her students to continue her sentence. Indeed, then the student continued her sentence by answering smoking. This strategy was employed by RR to keep her students engaged and active during the lesson. In excerpt 2 above, RR explained the characteristics of the main idea. If there is a strategy employed to clarify the features of something, then it is seen as the circumlocution strategy. In this situation, RR explained the general characteristics of the main idea, which is only written in one sentence.
Excerpt 3 above is an excerpt of code-switching data. It can be seen that RR inserted the words advantage and dangerous (which is an English word) into an Indonesian sentence. This process is called code-switching, where RR switched Indonesian to English. In this condition, RR analyzed the text that she read together with her students. The text was about the danger of smoking. Excerpt 4 above shows the strategy of self-repetition performed by RR. This strategy was done when RR asked her students whether they had sent their tasks to Telegram (an online chatting platform that has been lately used as a learning platform). In this condition, the teacher did self-repetition because she wanted an immediate answer from her students. When she came up with the questions, her students looked right and left because they were confused. Then RR initiated to repeat the information to ensure that her students understood the task she was assigned.
In excerpt 5 above, RR asked her students about the year of their study. They answered semester dua 'second semester,' and RR repeated as they said. This strategy was used to show that RR gave a welcoming response to her students and repeating what students said.

Results of indirect strategies
Second, the results of Indirect Strategies include comprehension check, own-accuracy check, asking for repetition, and guessing. each of the sub-strategy is given a code based on the initial term. The table above shows that each lecturer used different types of indirection communication strategies. RR dominantly used comprehension check (47 times) and followed by Own-Accuracy Check (12 times). Then, she employed asking for repetition 2 times and guessing 8 times. Then, the next lecturer is HQ. From the table, we can see that most communication strategies that she used are comprehension checks (28 times) and followed by the use of the Own-Accuracy Check (11 times). She used guessing 2 times and asking for repetition 1 time. SW, similar to the other two lecturers, majorly applied comprehension check (9 times) followed by the use of own-accuracy check (3 times). She employed guessing 3 times, and she did not use any strategy of asking for repetition. English department lecturers (P. Mareza,S. A. Gani & I. A. Samad) 569 In the following are shown several excerpts from each lecturer. Each data is coded based on the lecturer's initial name, types of indirect strategy, and amount of data. For example, RR-COC1 is the code for RR class, data Comprehension Check Number 1, and others.

Excerpt 6 RR-COC7: Apa meaning dari hortatory exposition text?
'What is the definition of hortatory exposition text?' In excerpt 6 above, we can see that RR checked her students' comprehension. She asked about the definition of hortatory exposition text'. This strategy was used to make her students active during the class. Then, in excerpt 7, she did an own-accuracy check. In her first sentence, she used the word disuguhkan 'provided,' and then repeated it by changing the word into diinformasikan 'informed.' This strategy was made to ensure that the students did not get any misunderstanding. Later, in excerpt 8, RR repeated her students to make her students repeat the same answer. Moreover, in excerpt 9, she guessed her students' responses when asked about the materials they had not understood yet.

Results of interactional strategies
Third, the results of Interactional Strategies include using Filler and feigning understanding during the classroom interaction. Each of the sub-strategy is given a code based on the term initial. The table above shows the employment of interactional strategies made by lecturers in the three classes. RR dominantly used Fillers (19 times) than Feigning Understanding (9 times). Then, the lecturer HQ also used more often fillers (46 times) than Feigning Understanding (16 times). Similarly, SW also employed more Filler (26 times) than Feigning Understanding (21 times). In other words, fillers are more often used than the strategy of Feigning Understanding in classroom communication strategies. In the following are shown several excerpts from each lecturer. Each data is coded based on the lecturer's initial name, types of indirect strategy, and amount of data. For example, RR-FU1 is the code for RR class, data for Feigning Understanding Number 1, and others.
In the excerpt 10 above, RR used filler emm when she asked her students about the topic of a paragraph. She used this strategy to give her students more time to think about the answer to her question. Then, in excerpt 11, she asked her student why smoking make them dependent. This is not because she did not know the answer, but she only feigned her understanding because she wanted to point out the wrong vocabulary 'dependent', which should be 'addicted'.
The investigation of classroom communication strategies used by English department lecturers (P. Mareza,S. A. Gani & I. A. Samad) 571 In excerpt 12, HQ used the word 'right' to fill her sentence. Indeed, she used this word often. This filler strengthens her intention that she wanted her students to approve her explanation by answering back 'right.' Later, in excerpt 13, she introduced a topic that the class just started to write. she asked this question for her students because she wanted her students to give ideas and supporting details concerning the topic of online shopping.

Results of interviews
In order to strengthen the data, the interview was also conducted in this study. For more apparent interview items, see Appendix 3. Below was shown some excerpts from the lecturers about their classroom communication strategies. There are eight questions in the interview guide. The first question asked is whether there is any topic that the lecturer would avoid explaining to their students. All lecturers state that there is no reason to avoid any topics in teaching.

Excerpt 14 SW-1: I would not avoid explaining a specific topic that was mentioned in the lesson plan.
Then, the second question asked whether the lecturers did any translation during their teaching time. The answer is as shown below.
Excerpt 15 HQ-2: Most of the time, when the topics are hard to understand, I think code-switching is necessary for the EFL classroom, especially English for academic purposes course. It will help the students to understand better.
Then, for the third question asked whether they use fillers or gambits during the teaching time. The answer is as below.

Excerpt 16:
HQ-3 as standard speaking, fillers are pretty common. Usually, when I have a direct conversation with the students or ask them and answer their questions.
The fourth question asked about whether they rephrase or correct themselves when teaching. Moreover, the answer is as in the following.
Excerpt 17: SW-4: Sometimes I like to rephrase some points while explaining the materials. it is useful when the lecturer needs to strengthen the specific substances in lecturing to the students.
The fifth question was whether they gave directions to all students or only to specific students. And their answer is as in the following.

Excerpt 18: SW-5:
The entire class got all of the directions of the teachinglearning process. Meanwhile, if one or two students are confused about the previous direction, I will approach them personally and explain it for the second time.
The sixth question asks whether they negotiate meanings with all students or with specific students. The answer can be seen as in the following excerpt.
Excerpt 19: HQ-6: I do it to all students.
The seventh question asks whether the lecturers request all students to repeat/clarify/confirm the teaching information. Their answers are as shown below.
Excerpt 20: HQ-7: Not every time, in any case. However, I will do it for specific essential points to ensure my students understand the topics.
The last question asked whether the lecturer respond to all students or only with certain students. And the answer can be seen in the following excerpt.

Discussions
Two significant points need to be discussed in this section. First, the communication strategy types are operationalized based on Dornyei and Scotts (1997), namely direct, indirect, and interactional strategies. These three types have subtypes, resulting in a total of thirteen kinds. The data found that RR, HQ, and SW used more types of circumlocution and code-switching in terms of direct strategy. As shown in table 4.1, RR employed circumlocution 21 times, HQ employed circumlocution 54, and SW employed circumlocution 8 times. Although it is not the highest usage for SW, circumlocution usage is still high for all lecturers. In addition, the teachers' attitude during class is generally in teaching mode, which means that they eagerly have the intention to transfer all the knowledge they know to their students. This explains why circumlocution is majorly used. As Wei (2011) points out, one's attitude significantly impacts the types of communication strategies employed in the classroom. In contrast, no lecturers used approximation and miming. The approximation is better employed when a teacher teaches vocabulary and games, while there was no vocabulary class among these three subjects. Furthermore, in the explanation for miming, the lecturers chose to state and define all ideas and intentions by verbalization, not miming. This is why the miming strategy was not used at all by these lecturers. Hartani (2012) agrees that mime is excellent for young students. This is because young learner teachers tend to employ more games in their teaching activity, and the game usually generates miming or acting out the words.
Next, for indirect strategies, the most dominant type used was comprehension check. Checking comprehension is the most frequent indirect strategy employed in all classes. RR used this strategy 47 times, HQ employed it 28 times, and SW used it 9 times. Later, concerning the interactional strategies, the most used strategy is filler. RR used it 19 times, HQ used it 46 times, and SW used it 26 times. Meanwhile, the strategy of Feigning Understanding was less used by all lecturers: RR used it 9 times only, HQ used it 16 times, and SW used it 21 times.
Second, the dominant types used by each lecturer. Lecturer RR mostly used direct strategies (circumlocution and code-switching). Then, it is followed by indirect strategies (comprehension check). She only used a low frequency of interactional strategies. Similarly, lecturer HQ mainly used direct strategies (circumlocution and code-switching) but much higher than RR. Then, it is followed by indirect strategies (comprehension check), but much lower than RR, and she used a mostly interactional strategy which is filler. On the other hand, SW dominantly used interactional strategies (fillers and feigning understanding) compared to the other two lecturers. Although these three lecturers have implemented different strategies, it can be said that they used all the strategies needed to keep the educational conversations going. As Houston (2006) supported, all people use communication strategies in every setting, but specifically, teachers would use classroom strategies both inside and outside the classroom.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Based on research question one, two lecturers (RR and HQ) used circumlocution and code-switching, while the lecturer (SW) used more fillers than circumlocution and code-switching. Second, regarding the second research question about the most dominant communication strategies, two lecturers (RR and HQ) used a higher number of these direct strategies, and the lecturer (SW) used more interactional strategies than direct strategies.
For suggestion, there are two domains for suggestion to be addressed: for lecturers, considering that the learning process is the most crucial process for the students, it is recommended that the lecturers/teachers balance the usage of direct, indirect, and interactional strategies. Next, for other future researchers, it is expected that they would continue investigation into the more profound analysis.