METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES APPLIED BY
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF UNIMED
IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By
CICI HANDAYANI Registration Number 809112023
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POST GRADUATE SCHOOL
ABSTRACT
Handayani, Cici. Registration Number. 809112023. Metacognitive Strategies Applied By English Department Students of UNIMED in Listening Comprehension. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study program. Postgraduate School, State University of Medan (UNIMED). 2013
This research was aimed at finding out (1) the degree of metacognitive strategies applied by English Department students of UNIMED in listening comprehension (2) the difficulties of application metacognitive strategies by English Department students of UNIMED in listening comprehension. The study was conducted in English Department of UNIMED Medan. It was applied to 28 students in forth semester. Since the study was aqualitative research, the data were analyzed quantitatively by means of observation, questionnaire, Think Aloud Protocols (TAP) and interview. The questions in questionnaire and interview are based on Chammot’s and O’Malley’s as experts in metacognitive strategies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Bismillaahirrohmaanirrohiim. In the name of Allah, the most gracious and most merciful.
May greetings are shaded to our prophet Muhammad, his family and the noble friends. In the
completion of this thesis, Alhamdulillah, there are some people who have given their
contribution to the writer to execute her thesis but not all names can be spelled out. However, the
followings should be mentioned.
First of all, the writer wants to convey her deep gratitude to Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing,
M.Pd and Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S as her advisers for their valuable time in giving the
encouragement, comments, ideas, suggestion and constructive criticism that were really helpful
in the process of completing this thesis.
The writer also likes to thank to Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, Dr Anni Holila
Pulungan, M.Hum, Prof. Dr D.P Tampubolon and Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed as reviewers and
examiners for their valuable feedbacks.
The endless thanks to her husband, Wawan Budianto, ST for his very special love,
attention, care, support and encouragement that given to her for the success of her study. And
then, to her beautiful twin daughters, Rinjani Anila Savana and Kaimana Jyoti Aruna as her
special deep spirit in her life, may this thesis can be a motivation for them to do their education
in the future.
The writer also wishes to thank to her parents, brothers, and sister for their patience, full
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... i
ABSTRACT………... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS……….. iv
LIST OF TABLES………. vii
LIST OF FIGURES………... viii
LIST OF APPENDICES……… ix
I. Introduction 1.1The Background of the Research ……… 1
1.2The Research Problems………... 5
1.3The Objectives of the Research……….. 6
1.4The Scope of the Research………... 6
1.5The Significance of the Research ……… 6
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1. The Concept of Listening Comprehension……… 8
2.2 Learning Strategies……….. 12
2.2.1 Classification Learning Strategies……….. 18
2.2.2 Relationship between Learning and Metacognitive Strategies…….. 20
2.3 Metacognitive Strategies………. 21
2.3.1 The Concept of Metacognition and Metacognitive strategies……... 22
2.3.3 Classifications of Metacognitive Strategies………... 27
2.4 Think Aloud Protocols………. 31
2.4.1 The Concept of Think Aloud Protocols……….. 31
2.4.2 The Procedure of Think Aloud Protocols………... 32
2.5 The Relevant Studies………... . 36
2.6 Conceptual Framework………. 38
III. REASEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1. Research Design……….... 41
3.2. The Subjects of the Research………. 42
3.3. Instrument of Data Collection………... 42
3.4 Data of The Research……….. 44
3.5The Procedure of Data Collection……… 47
3.6The Technique of Data Analysis……… 48
3.6.1 Transcription………... 48
3.6.2 Data Reduction……… 49
3.6.3 Data Analysis………... 50
3.7 The Trustworthiness of The Study……… 50
IV. DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Description of the Data……….. 53
4.2 Data Analysis………. 55
4.2.1.1 Planning……….... 55
4.2.1.2 Monitoring……… 62
4.2.1.3 Evaluation……… 92
4.2.2 The Difficulties of Application Metacognitive Strategies………….. 99
4.3 Research Finding……….. 121
4.4 Discussion ……… 123
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions………... 126
5.2 Suggestions………... 127
REFERENCES………... 128
List of Tables
Tables Page
Table 3.1 Classification of Metacognitive Strategies ... 28
Table 4.1 Recapitulation of questionnaire data for planning strategies .... 57
Table 4.2 Interview data of background information ... 59
Table 4.3 Interview data of planning strategies ... 60
Table 4.4 Recapitulation of questionnaire data for monitoring strategies . 63
Table 4.5 Interview data of monitoring strategies ... 64
Table 4.6 The recapitulation data of the TAP analysis ... 91
Table 4.7 Recapitulation of questionnaire data for monitoring strategies … 93
Table 4.8 Interview data of evaluation strategies………... 94
Table 4.9 Interview data of evaluation strategies………... 99
List of Figures
Figure Page
Figure 2.1 LLS Taxonomy ... 19
Figure 2.2 Classification of Metacognitive Strategies ... 27
Figure 4.1.TAP in observation 1, observation 2 and listening ... 54
List of Appendixes
Appendix Page
Appendix 1. Student Volunteer Statement……… 132
Appendix 2. The Description of TAP Achievement by the Subjects … 133
Appendix 3. Questionnaire about Metacognitive Strategies …………. 135
Appendix 4. The Questionnaire Data………... …. 137
Appendix 5. Total Application of MCS in Questionnaire per Subject …. 151
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Research
English is a foreign language in Indonesia but it plays important role. Many
education institutions give a lot of attention to English and it is taught since kinder
garden. Mastering English, as a world-wide language, is believed it can help the
students a lot for their future.
The significance of English in Indonesia is evident in four major domains.
First, proficiency in English is a means of obtaining better and well-paid job. Second,
English is used in Indonesia as a tool for studying especially at the higher education
level. Third, English is utilized in Indonesia to access to recreation and entertainment
through media such as newspapers, magazines, movies, some television programs,
and radio programs. At last, English is used to gain access to knowledge and
information through computer-mediated communication such as e-mail, chat,
information source from World Wide Web. It seems, English is no more seen as
luxurious one but it is a high demand necessity.
English is a foreign language in Indonesia. There are four skills in English
learnt by students. They are listening, reading, writing and speaking. Listening is so
important for the beginners in acquiring English, that’s why listening gets the first
rank of ability that must be mastered out of four skills. When English becomes
2
good communication especially in conversation, students must be good either in
listening or speaking. When someone can listen well, she can get the message, when
she get the message and understand it, she can give the good response and it means
good communication occurs. Listening is also often tested. In TOEFL there are fifty
questions in listening. Mendelson (1994) says that the importance of listening in our
life through the percentage of listening in communication. He mentions listening
takes up 40-50%; speaking, 25-30%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9% of the
total communication time spent.
Listening has been taught officially since primary school in Indonesia. This
long time period makes university students should have good listening
comprehension. They should understand movies with English without the bahasa
Indonesia translation on the screen. They should be able to get good scores in
listening section of the test. But many of them feel lost when they are listening their
lecturers speak in English or listening native speaker through the tape. They feel it is
almost impossible to understand what is being heard at the moment.
Most of listening activities focus on the product of listening, every activity
becomes a test of the learners’ listening ability. Although scholars have warned
against using listening activities as a disguised form of testing (Sheerin, 1987), this
practice is in fact quite commonplace in many language classrooms even till this day.
Unfortunately, most often people suppose that listening comprehension is a
passive activity, but contrarily, it is an "active process" because the listeners must
3
grammatical structures, get the meaning of language input and other prosodic proof
from the text, and they must save the information gathered long enough in their mind
to interpret the context in which the communication takes place. Even the students
listen the same script, it does not mean either they would get the same information or
have the same interpretation. It explains the different scores in listening test of the
students. They listen to the same script (spoken language), catch the spoken language
by the ears, send it to the brain and be processed. What makes different result of
listening is actually the different process in their head or mind.
Listeners may become anxious because they have not ‘done well’ and may
fear that they would be negatively evaluated by their teachers and peers. They work
on improving their listening but many of them do not really know where to start other
than to ‘practice harder’ on their own. They are unable to take control of their
learning and do not know how to direct their extensive listening activities to achieve
their learning goals. When they encounter problems, they also do not know how best
to cope with them other than to ‘listen harder’. Thus, many studies try to explore the causes of the difficulties in students’ listening ability. One of the causes is that
students’ lack of learning strategies or that they cannot use learning strategies. They
do not have certain listening strategy to get maximum result.
In having good listening comprehension, the students need to know the
strategy. As English is not mother tongue for Indonesian people, learning strategies is
needed to make learning process of target language (English) more successful and
4
apply learning strategy appropriately. Rubin (1987) states that learning strategies are
the strategies that can contribute to the development of the language system in
essence they are employed when learners try to develop linguistics and
sociolinguistics competence in target language. Oxford (1990) mentions learning
strategies as specific actions taken by the leaner to make learning easier, faster, more
enjoyable, more self directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situation.
It means to get maximum learning result, students are recommended to apply learning
strategies.
There are many kinds of learning strategies. Oxford (1990) mentions six
learning strategies. There are memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation
strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies.
Metacognitive strategies can help learners how to listen, how to manage their
mental processes for listening. It involves of using experience and knowledge in
understanding spoken text that are listened. In knowing metacognitive strategies, it is
hoped the learners would get the messages, can get maximum knowledge and score
when they are doing listening either in daily activities or taking English test.
The way of students in managing their knowledge while they do listening test
would be the interest in this study. It would be seen how further the students apply
the metacognitive strategies in their listening comprehension or the degree of
metacognitive strategies applied by the students (English Department students of
UNIMED) in listening comprehension and the difficulties found in the application of
5
In the application of metacognitive strategies, there is thinking process
happened. To see this thinking process Think Aloud protocols (TAP) would be used.
The students would convey what is in their mind while they do listening test. They
would speak loud by writing down on the paper whatever thought comes to mind
while performing listening at hand.
Listening is always considered as difficult task by students and the listening
task is often focused on the score more than the process. By knowing the application
of metacognitive strategies and the difficulties in applying metacognitive strategies
by the students, it is hoped better listening comprehension can be achieved as it is
known the process happened while the students do listening test, it means the
lecturers and students can do any effort to get improvement in listening
comprehension.
1.2 The Research Problems
The problems in this study are formulated as follows.
1. What are the degrees of metacognitive strategies applied by English Department
Students of UNIMED in listening comprehension?
2. What are the difficulties found in metacognitve strategies applied by English
6
1.3The Objectives of the Research
Related to the research problems above, here are the objectives of the study.
1. To find out the degree of metacognitive strategies applied by English Department
students of UNIMED in listening comprehension
2. To find out the difficulties of application metacognitive strategies by English
Department students of UNIMED in listening comprehension
1.4 The Scope of the Research
The scope of this study is metacognitive strategies and listening
comprehension by university students in English Department of UNIMED
1.5 The Significance of the Research
The results of this research either theoretically or practically are expected to
give contribution to some lecturers, students, education stakeholders and other
researchers. Here are the details.
Theoretically
1. For lecturers, this study can enrich their knowledge about metacognitive strategies
applied in listening comprehension by university students
2. For the students, they can get information and description about the application of
7
3. For education stakeholders, this research would provide valuable information
about metacognitive strategies applied by university students in listening
comprehension
4. For other researcher, the result of this research can be as an enrichment reference
for further similar studies which they are going to conduct in the future.
Practically
1. The result of this research can be used as guidance for the lecturers in encouraging
the students to be independent enough in applying metacognitive strategies in their
listening performance in order to get better result in listening comprehension.
2. It can be used as guidance for the students to get maximum knowledge and score
when they are doing listening either in daily activities or taking English test by
125
Chapter V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
From the analysis of the data and the findings, it can be concluded that:
1. Even the students has learnt English since primary school but still many of
students have problem/ find listening is a difficult lesson. The lecturers and
students pay attention to the product of listening/ score, more than the
process in listening
2. The application of metacognitive strategies by students of English
Department UNIMED is low, the application is around 30% only. The
application of planning, monitoring and evaluation is only based on their
experience in doing listening activities not because of their awareness of the
importance of metacognitive strategies.
3. Monitoring strategies is the highest category of metacognitive strategies
applied by the subjects but it is also the category that is difficult to be applied
by the subjects.
4. The subjects are difficult in applying metacognitive strategies especially
planning and monitoring strategies. They do not get use to have planning as
they do listening naturally, flows like water. It is difficult for them to make
126
to do monitoring as it is not easy to do monitoring and listening to the
speakers at the same time.
5.2 Suggestion
Based on the conclusions stated above, this study has some suggestions to the
university students and education practitioners as follows:
1. It is suggested for students to learn about metacognitive strategies to make
them ready to any listening activities and they can get effective learning
process as listening is part of academic study in English department. It is
suggested to the students to apply meatcognitive strategies as it can maximize
their ability to get information and knowledge as listening cannot be
separated from their daily activities.
2. It is suggested to the English lectures especially who teach listening subject
to lead the subjects have good thinking process management (metacognitive
strategies) to make them being competent in listening.
3. It is suggested to any education stakeholders to take care more in the process
127
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