Communication strategies: are employment of verbal and nonverbal mechanisms for the productive communication of information. Communication strategies are of two types:

1_Compensatory Strategies                    

2_Avoidance Strategies

Compensatory strategies:

Sometimes learners are unable to communicate because they have difficulty in finding the words for expressing their idea. And some learners can not communicate due to their difficulty in comprehension. Sometimes compensatory strategies can help learners to compensate for the lapse of concentration and lack of knowledge. The following are some common compensatory strategies:

1-Circumlocution: Describing or exemplifying the target word or concept.        

Example: “The things you open bottles with” for corkscrew. “I said something which was not true” for the word lie.

2_Approximation: using an alternative word for expressing the meaning of the target word as closely as possible.

Example: “Ship for Sailboat”. “My friend gave (for the word lent) me some money”

3_Use of all-purpose words: Using words such as Thing and Stuff  for the words that you might not know their English equivalent.

4_Prefabricated patterns: Using memorized phrases or sentences for communication. The learner may not know the exact meaning of the words in such phrases or sentences.

Example: Using a sentence like “That is all I can say about somebody/something” or “To sum up” for wrapping up your speech.

5_Use of nonlinguistic signals: Use of mime, gesture, facial expressions or sound imitation for conveying your message.

6_ Asking for help: Asking for aid from your listener either directly (e.g. “What do you call?”, “Would you explain more about your question”, “What do you exactly mean?”) or indirectly (e.g. rising intonation, eye contact)

7_ Use of gap fillers: using beginners/gap fillers to fill pauses and to gain time to think.

Example: Well, Now let’s see, As a matter of fact, you know

There are some other compensatory strategies but I didn’t indicate them because I didn’t find them useful.

Avoidance strategies:

Avoidance strategies can help you to lead the discussion in the 3^rd part of the IELTS speaking test. You can also use them in the 1^st and 2^nd part of the test to avoid making mistakes.

1_ Message abandonment: Leaving a message unfinished because of language difficulties. Sometimes it is difficult for you to convey a message so you had better leave that message unfinished but you should do this in a subtle way that doesn’t call the the listener's attention to it.

2_ Topic avoidance: Avoiding topic areas or concepts that pose language difficulty on you. For example  in the IELTS speaking test,if you know that you can not talk about the cultural issues of your country then you had better avoid this topic. As you might know, in the 3^rd part of the IELTS speaking test most of the questions are based on your answers, so avoid answering in a way that invite questions which you are incapable of answering them.