Teacher-employed Communication Strategies: Investigating Function Type Occurrence in Iranian EFL Context

Communication strategies, as goal-oriented lines of action to obviate breakdowns in the flow of communication, have been the subject of extensive studies in SLA. While student-employed strategies have been duly investigated in the literature, those employed by teachers in the classroom context continue to be inadequately addressed. Moreover, characterizing functions of communication strategies (CSs) rather than their types as a research interest can offer new insights for research. Accordingly, the present study concentrated on the function of CSs employed by 16 teachers across elementary (8) and advanced levels (8) teaching spoken English in private institutes in Tabriz, Iran. A modified version of Jamshidnejad’s (2011) functions of communication strategies was employed as the framework for defining functions. T-test results indicated a significant difference regarding ‘maintaining the flow of conversation’ between elementary and advanced level teachers. As with other function types, no significant differences could be revealed.