Strategies of Learning English as a Foreign Language by Indonesian Junior High School Students

Abstract

English is a global language and a foreign language in Indonesia used to communicate with people around the world. Furthermore, English communication skill is highlighted as the main goal in learning language. Mostly students commonly faced psychological and linguistic problems during English learning process. Due the complexities of learning languages, the language learners must take an action by implementing several kinds of language learning strategies. Those facts urged the researcher to do a descriptive non-experimental quantitative approach on students’ language learning strategies. This purpose of study is to fiugure out how language learning strategies are used by Indonesian’s junior high school students in learning English as a foreign language. Therefore, the researcher selected the third year students of senior high school especially who take the excellent class with English score around 80-100 as the participants. To collect the data, the researcher used Likert Scale questionnaire well-known as SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) to find out the students’ language learning strategies. The research finding shows various strategies often implemented by the students in learning English. In six language learning strategies¸there found Metacognitive is claimed as the most frequently used by the participant by gaining mean 3.63 which means as high average and usually used in learning English, followed by compensation with 3.36, cognitive with3.34, social 3.14, affective with 2.99, and memory with 2.89 are claimed as the medium average and sometimes used by the participants during the English learning in the class. Analyzing every item spesifically, the high average used by the participants in learning a language found 20 items that include cognitive strategy 30% with 6 characteristic items, metacognitive strategy 25% with 5 characteristic items, compensation strategy 20% with 4 characteristic items, memory strategy 10% with 2 characteristic items, affective strategy 10% with 2 characteristic items, and social strategy 5% with 1 characteristic item. Those 20 statements include memory strategy (creating mental linkages, and structure reviewing), cognitive strategy (creating structure for input or output, and practicing), compensation strategy (using synonym, using linguistic clues, and using gesture), metacognitive strategy (self-evaluating, arranging and planning to improve language learning), affective strategy (using progressive relaxation, deep breathing or mediation), and social strategy (asking for clarification or verification). Those findings sum up that the language learning strategies are not fully implemented by the language learners during the language learning process. It is proven that only several strategies used by the students to assist them to comprehend the language they learn.

Keywords: SILL, English, and Foreign Language