Dünyanın dört bir tarafındaki dil öğrenenler veya anadilleri olmayan bir dilde konuşan bireyler herhangi bir kelimeyi ve ya deyimi bu dilde nasıl ifade edeceklerini bilmediklerinde (bu çalışmada - İngilizce) onlar bu sözcüğü farklı stratejiler kullanarak doğru ve etkili bir şekilde ifade edebilirler. İletişimin bu şekli iletişim stratejilerinin bir parçası olarak kabul edilmektedir. İletişim stratejileri başarılı bir şekilde kullanıldığında dil bilgisindeki eksiklikleri gidermeye yardımcı olmakla birlikte bu stratejiler konuşmacının iletişim becerilerinin akıcı olmasına da önemli katkı sağlamaktadır. İletişim stratejilerinin kullanımı Birleşik Devletler ve Büyük Britanya'da 1980'li yıllardan itibaren öğretilmektedir. Ama ne yazık ki, tüm ülkelerdeki öğretmenler iletişim stratejileri eğitiminin öneminin farkında değiller ve bunun yanı sıra yabancı dil öğrenenler sınırlı dil yeterliliklerine sahip oldukları gerçeğine paralel olarak bazı stratejileri öğrenmek için yeterli eğitimi de alamamaktadırlar. Nunan'ın da (1987, s.137) söylediği gibi " İletişimsel dil öğretiminin teori ve uygulamaları konusunda çokça araştırmalar yayınlanmış olsa da, iletişimsel dil uygulamaları konusunda göreceli olarak daha az çalışma yapılmıştır. Nunan'ın bu bildirisine yanıt olarak bu çalışma iletişimsel dil öğretiminde önemli olmasına rağmen henüz çok araştırılmamış bir konuya dikkat çekmektedir. Böylelikle, bu çalışma iletişim stratejilerinin kapsamlarını inceleyerek bu stratejilerin genel iletişim yetkinliklerinin geliştirilmesine nasıl katkı sağladığını ve Azerbaycan'da yabancı dil sınıflarında daha çok hangi iletişim stratejilerinin öğretildiğini incelemektedir

If language learners or non-native speakers all over the world don’t know how to express any word expression in the target language (in this study- in the English language) they can effectively substitute those words using different strategies. This way of communicating is considered as communication strategies. Communication strategies attempt to fill the gaps in the speaker’s linguistic knowledge and significantly define the speaker’s fluency and communication skills. Teaching the use of communication strategies has been studied in the United States and Great Britain since the 1980’s. However, not in all of the countries teachers are aware of the importance of teaching communication strategies, as well as not all the language learners are trained explicitly to use some strategies to express themselves in the face of difficulties and limited linguistic competences. As Nunan (1987, p. 137) has stated, ‘While a great deal has been written on the theory and practice of communicative language teaching, there have been comparatively few studies of actual communicative language practices’. As a response to Nunan’s statement this research study intents to attract attention to the crucial and not yet much investigated issue in the communicative language teaching. So by providing the overview of what communication strategies involve this study aims to investigate how communication strategies can contribute to the development of an overall communicative competence and to examine which communication strategies are taught mostly in the foreign language classrooms in Azerbaijan Lots of research studies have been carried out on how students cope with developing communicative competence while learning the linguistic structures of the target language. However, we have very little informaton about how teachers enable their learners to develop communicative strategies that will help them to get handle with the speaking problems inside and outside the language classroom.Since each language has its own structures and rules of interaction learning to speak a certain foreign language requires a lot of effort, commitment, and developing the necessary awareness. This process becomes especially hard when this learning takes place in a context where the target language is not commonly used in the speech community the learner lives. It is now well-acknowledged that in order to communicate successfully in any foreign language we need to develop not only the necessary linguistic competence but also the appropriate communicative competence. In other words, pronouncing words correctly, using appropriate grammar rules and having an adequate vocabulary is not sufficient to speak a foreign language effectively. We also should know what and how to say something according to different situations, as well as, whom we are speaking to, where we are speaking and what we are speaking about. So by providing the overview of what communication strategies involve this study aims to investigate how communication strategies can contribute to the development of an overall communicative competence and to examine which communication strategies are taught mostly in the foreign language classrooms in Azerbaijan. Data of this study came from two sources, questionnaire sent to the teachers and video-recordings of naturally occurring classroom interactions. Results from the questionnaire indicated that the communication strategy most frequently used in school and university groups was literal translation, asking for confirmation, asking for clarification and circumlocution. The communication strategies that are rarely used are use of fillers, word coinage, message abandonment, topic avoidance (see Table 1). Unfortunately, the questionnaire results and observation notes from the video-recordings approved that although the teachers are aware of communication strategies and its benefits they very rarely teach them explicitly to the learners. And the reason for it they mention the curriculum designed by the language center departments. Findings also displayed that the first-year students at the university feel most vulnerable while communicating in English. This is the issue of the practice. Since throughout their school life there were few opportunities to practice their speaking skills, there is an actual need to improve their strategic competence. Thus, increasing student talking time and decreasing teacher talking time using different speaking activities would be advisable method for foreign language teaching. It would establish a successful atmosphere for developing students’ strategic competence. In spite of the limited scope of this study several conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, language center departments should plan language curriculums more manageable in order to give students more opportunities for interaction and speaking based activities. Language teachers, as well as, should frequently change the seating arrangements to enable students to know each other better which would led to more interaction throughout teaching and learning process. By planning more speaking based activities teachers can facilitate communication among students and develop students’ communication competences. Due to the today’s globalization world, school activities should focus on not only textbook exercises, but also on the development of different types of abilities or performances. Textbooks can be very useful for foreign language learning and for developing students’ linguistic competences, but there is a need for other activities to be able to practice different reallife language competencies. Teachers should also apply more techniques and adapt more materials to the language lesson to attract students’ attention and facilitate their target language learning. Unfortunately, the research scope and data collection instrument didn’t allow examining the effects of communication strategies on the students’ communicative competence. However, it is obvious that the students’ positive attitude to strategy training and their confidence in its beneficial effects on their ability help to get handle with real life communication procedures. It would be advisable to do a detailed research about the effects of communication strategies on the effectiveness of the students’ performance in the target language. Furthermore, a carefully designed syllabus that can be implemented as part of foreign language and literature program could increase the benefits of the strategy use. These recommendations are expected to improve language teaching and learning, and particularly to increase the use of communication strategies in the foreign language classrooms. It is also expected that this study encourages other linguistics researchers to continue examining the use of communication strategies in different contexts.