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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Learning is a process for learners to achieve their goals. On the way to obtain
their goals, learners would find a way which suitable with their characteristics of
learning. There are many kinds of learner characteristics either learning by their own
or learning with others in order to process new information which learners would try
to find the easiest way to understand it. The activities of using learner characteristics
in learning to reach their goals is called learning strategy.
Oxford (1990) defines learning strategies as the specific actions taken by the
learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more
effective and more transferrable to new situations. All learners use learning strategy
either consciously or unconsciously when deal with certain tasks or while processing
new information. Since learning in classroom teacher provides new information and
tasks including with instructions, in this situation students would try to find the
effective way to complete what is required in the instructions. Hismanoglu (2000)
pointed that language learning strategies are good indicators of how learners approach
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For teachers language learning strategy is like a tool used to know about the
student’s motivations, learning characteristics, and their interests. Teacher could
understand and learn what are student’s difficulties and problem. And this learning
strategy would give teacher a guide to solve student’s difficulties and problem for
better teaching.
Due to the importance of learning strategy, research on this area of language
learning strategies has been conducted by many researchers. A study in Taiwan
(Chang et al, 2007) which involved 1758 Taiwanese college EFL learners were
reported using language learning strategies all in medium use level which was 2,89
from 1 to 5 degree. According to the rank order of the frequency of use, the most
frequently used strategy was compensation strategies and followed by memory
strategies, metacognitive strategies, social strategies, cognitive strategies and
affective strategies. However most research in the language learning area (Shmais,
2003; Tseng, 2000: Khalil, 2005) showed that Metacognitive strategies have the
highest frequency of language learning strategy used.
This study was designed to investigate what are the types of language learning
strategies used by EFL learners. The participants were 36 non English major students
from 2012 & 2013 academic year Hubungan International (HI) and General English
(GE) class of Language Training Center (LTC) Satya Wacana Salatiga. Oxford’s
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This study might useful for language learners who want to know about
language learning strategy. This area of learning strategy is considered important for
teaching and learning process. For teachers, it can give pictures of what student’s do
in learning, and it might become reference to help and handle students to make the
