The Study is about the Compensatory Strategies, which are the processes
or strategies that operate on the conceptual and linguistic knowledge as the
alternative ways to make the conversation going when their linguistic weaknesses
make them difficult to communicate their intended meanings (Poulisse, 1990, pp.
192-193). The writer does this study by comparing the types of Compensatory
Strategies used by the good and the poor students of Speaking VI and Speaking II
of the English Department, Petra Christian University. The writer then also
compares the types of Compensatory Strategies used between the good students of
speaking VI and the good students of Speaking II, and the poor students of
Speaking VI and the poor students of Speaking II. The writer does this study by
asking the subjects to retell the Indonesian folk story, titled Sangkuriang, in
English. Finally, the writer finds out that the good students of Speaking VI use
more Conceptual Strategies and use fewer Linguistic Strategies than the poor
students of Speaking VI do. In addition, the good students of Speaking II also use
more Conceptual Strategies and use fewer Linguistic Strategies than the poor
students of Speaking II while the poor students of Speaking II almost use
Conceptual and Linguistic strategies equally. Then both the good students of
Speaking VI and Speaking II use more Conceptual Strategies than both the poor
students of Speaking VI and Speaking II do. However, the students of Speaking II
tend to use Borrowing Strategy while the students of Speaking VI tend to use
Literal translation Strategy. These differences possibly mean that different
quantity of linguistic knowledge; different characteristics of learning that the good
and the poor students have, and different distance of their L1 with L2 between the
high semester and low semester students have may cause differences in the use of
Compensatory Strategies.