Preparing Metacognitive Learning Strategies to Lower Anxiety in Oral Examination
Retno Salta Ria
Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga
Abstract
This study investigates students’ preparation for their oral examination in Public Speaking Class to cope with anxiety. Lack of preparedness for presentation may cause students anxiety (Barley, 2011). The investigation was concerned with students’ preparation for oral presentation. This study investigated the metacognitive learning strategy, which leads to student’s preparation for oral examination. Semi-structured interviews was assigned to 24 students who have recently taken the Public Speaking Class of Satya Wacana Christian University from Language and Literature Faculty to get the participants’ answers on the following issues: (i) how students see preparation for oral examinations in Public Speaking class; (ii) what do students prepare before doing the oral examinations in the Public Speaking class; (iii) what strategies they used in preparing their oral examinations: (iv) how the strategies were applied in practice; (v) and why they did the strategies. Result indicates that students did the preparations in many ways, which indicate that they use metacognitive learning strategy. Students claimed that it decreased their anxiety and optimized their performance in their oral examination. This study proves that unpreparedness leads to students’ speaking anxiety and preparation includes metacognitive realm of the students to cope with speaking anxiety.
