Nowadays, it is undeniable that the communicative approach plays an important role in
language teaching especially in the context where English is a foreign language and the
ultimate goal of language teaching is to improve the communicative competence of
language learners. Language learners can significantly improve their communicative
competence by developing their ability to use communication strategies (CSs) or
strategies for coping with face-to-face oral communication problems. The present study,
which is exploratory in nature, primarily aimed at investigating how university students
majoring in English for International Communication (EIC) cope with their face-to-face
oral communication problems. The participants were 48 students studying at three
different Rajamangala Universities of Technology in Thailand. A semi-structured
interview was used for data collection. The obtained data were transcribed unfocusedly
verbatim and translated from Thai into English. The translated data were then validated
and analysed. Based on the role of the language learners when engaged in a conversation,
i.e. as the message sender and as the message receiver, the results show two main
categories of strategies for coping with face-to-face oral communication problems. The
two groups of strategies employed for conveying a message to the interlocutor as the
message sender: continuous interaction and discontinuous interaction subcategories and
one group of strategies for understanding the message as the message receiver were
reported.