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, Elisabet Pladevall Ballester (secret.) , Roger Gilabert Guerrero (voc.) This study sought to examine EFL learners' strategies and spoken production on different types of oral communication tasks in the classroom. The objectives were to investigate: a) across-task differences in spoken production for high and low proficiency learners, b) across-task differences in strategy use for high and low proficiency learners, c) differences in both spoken production and strategy use between high and low proficiency groups, d) whether strategies learners perceived using reflected the strategies they actually used and e) to what extent a strategy questionnaire could predict spoken production. In this study 48 Catalan and Spanish undergraduates participated with low (N=24) and high (N=24) oral proficiency, as well as four native speakers who acted as benchmarks for spoken production. Participants were recorded on video in pairs performing three oral tasks: a Picture Story, an Art Description and an Information Gap. Tasks were carried out two weeks apart. Immediately after each task learners reported their perceived strategy use (PSU) on a 44 item strategy questionnaire (SQ). Factor analysis grouped PSU into five categories: Interactional, Compensation, Conversation flow maintenance, Planning and Evaluating strategies, which were used to analyze differences in strategy use. In addition, a sub-sample from the high (N=4) and low (N=4) proficiency groups participated in stimulated recall sessions to reflect on their task performance. Across the three tasks according to Friedman-Wilcoxon tests, significant differences in all spoken production measures were found for both proficiency groups, except for speech rate and self repair for the high group. Structural complexity was highest on the Picture Story, lexical complexity was highest on the Art Description and accuracy and fluency were highest on the Information Gap. As for PSU, for the whole sample, 36% of strategies differed. 34% for the high group and 9% for the low group. For the high group most differences were in Interactional and Compensation strategy use, which was higher on the Information Gap. Between low and high proficiency groups according to Mann-Whitney tests, there were significant differences in spoken production. Accuracy, lexical complexity, structural complexity and speech rate were consistently higher for the high group on every task. However, there were few differences in other fluency measures (long pauses, repetition, reformulation and self repair). As for PSU, there were few (18% max.) significant differences between proficiency groups on any one task. In general, the low group used a few more Compensation strategies. To validate the questionnaire PSU was contrasted with actual strategy use (ASU) identified in task performances and stimulated recall comments. The high group were consistent in reporting the extent of use of 63% strategies compared to 48% for the low group. Furthermore, the high group was able to gauge differences in strategy use across the three tasks more accurately. More differences in ASU were found across tasks than revealed by the previous statistical analysis of PSU. Finally, multiple regression analysis with the five strategy categories and nine production measures revealed that the SQ was a weak predictor of accuracy (23%), lexical complexity (36%) and speech rate (31%). On the whole, the more Compensation strategies learners reported using, the less accuracy and lexical complexity they had and the slower their speech rate. Results are discussed in terms of speech processing mechanisms and cognitive and interactional task features, and the following conclusions are made: strategy use and spoken production can be predicted from task characteristics, the task influences strategy use more than proficiency, differences in strategy use may not be observed between proficiency groups, because different proficiency groups may use the same strategies but in different ways, strategy questionnaires are moderate indicators of actual strategy use and the relationship between strategies and spoken production is non-linear.
