A Study of Successful Students on the Use of Metacognitive Reading Strategies in University of Islam Malang

Abstract

Nowadays, the interest of metacognitive study in EFL learning grows rapidly. Since 1970’s, some scholars shed light the metacognition which was linked to four skills in EFL learning. Reading is the essential skill to boost English proficiency for EFL learners. Unfortunately, EFL readers face reading problems such as lack of unknown words, limited prior knowledge, and understanding the text. Metacognitive strategies proved that it can ease and break learners’ reading barriers. However, previous studies still lack of description and deep analysis in the context of personal information regarding to the applied metacognitive strategies. It is because the previous studies had limitation in qualitative approach. As a result, the present study invited successful last semester students in University of Islam Malang in order to analyze their personal use of metacognitive reading strategies in academic reading. Ten invited participants to the interview section are eighth semester students of English Language Education Department, class of 2018, in University of Islam Malang. They are selected through convenience sampling. Those participants met the category as having high scores on Reading I, II, III, IV courses consistently. The researcher carried out only once online semi-structured interviewed due to limited access to the participants. There are 18 interview questions which is adapted from Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS). The present results show that ten successful students utilize different kinds of metacognitive strategies in academic reading. Global strategies are deployed by all participants at pre-reading stage. While at whilst-reading stage, 10 participants applied all types of the strategies; global, problem-solving, and support with different portion. Lastly, at post-reading stage each participant only undertakes a few strategies; global, problem-solving, and support strategies. In general, support strategies are mostly used by the participants. Further, each types of metacognitive reading strategies can not stand as independent strategies. The participant utilizes more than one strategy to face one reading difficulty. If one strategy cannot solve the reading difficulty yet, another strategy can be an alternative to aid the participants’ reading process. In other words, there is interconnection among types of metacognitive reading strategies. Based on the present results, it is addressed to English lecturers and teachers to introduce and guide EFL students in implementing metacognitive reading strategies. Particularly for less successful students, it is suggested to imitate the way of successful students using the strategies. The last suggestion is addressed to future researcher to invite successful students from different level and conduct three times interview sections to maintain the data validity. Key Words: Metacognitive Reading Strategies, Successful Students