Exploring EFL Students’ Metacognitive Strategies in Speaking Class:
An Indonesian Context
Fauziah Anggraeni Dewi, Erni Haryanti Kahfi and Nia Kurniawati
English Education Department, UIN Sunan Gunung Djati, Jl. A.H Nasution No. 105 Cipadung Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Metacognitive Strategies, Speaking Skills, Indonesian Context, EFL Second Semester Students.
Abstract: The study is intended to investigate metacognitive strategies used by English as Foreign Language (EFL)
students in their Speaking class in the Indonesian context. Specifically, this study aims at revealing the
metacognitive strategies used by the EFL Students and the impacts of using those strategies related to the
students’ improvement in their speaking ability. The study is a case study in which the data are collected
through observations, questionnaires, and documents. It involves fifteen EFL students at the second semester
in a State Islamic University in Indonesia. The findings reveal two points. First, using Oxford's (1990)
metacognitive strategies categories, the EFL students utilized the strategies of overviewing and linking with
their prior knowledge, paying attention, organizing, delaying the speech to focus on listening, identifying the
purpose of a language task, seeking practice opportunities, self-monitoring, and self-evaluating during
learning speaking class. Second, the speaking scores of the EFL students who applied metacognitive strategies
are higher (above 80) than those who did not. These findings indicate that metacognitive strategies help
students learn better. Practically, these results contribute a new insight into Teaching English as Foreign
Language (TEFL) in Indonesian context in which the metacognitive strategies are a new issue.
1 INTRODUCTION
Spoken English is used in almost every sector of life.
It is stated by Yang (2014), “English is fast becoming
the international language of many fields, including
politics, business, and education.” For some activities
in a foreign language classroom, mastering spoken
English is needed to support students in
understanding what teachers said, to deliver
presentations, to finish other tasks, and to interact
with new native English friends. Therefore, getting
involved in a speaking activity for students in a
foreign language class is necessary.
However, for some students, it is not easy to get
involved actively in their classrooms. A number of
researchers stated that several reasons influenced
students to not participate in a speaking activity are
related to their anxiety, such as the feeling of being
afraid in public and shyness, fear of negative
evaluation and speaking inaccurately (Zhiping and
Paramasivam, 2013).
To cope with the problems in their speaking,
students need to apply the appropriate learning
strategies to make their learning speaking easier. It is
stated, "Learners use learning strategies in order to
learn something more successfully” (Lee, 2010).
The present study is focused on metacognitive
strategies related to English as Foreign Language
speaking class at the university level. From several
learning strategies developed by the experts,
metacognitive strategies are chosen because they help
learners to know what to do when they face
difficulties (Ratebi and Amirian, 2013). Besides, the
strategies help them to arrange and plan their
language learning efficiently and effectively (Oxford,
1990).
Specifically, this study attempts to describe a) the
types of metacognitive strategies commonly applied
by EFL students in their speaking class. Furthermore,
this study also tries to reveal b) the impacts of using
those strategies related to the students’ improvement
in their speaking ability.
This study is focused on the metacognitive
strategies developed by Rebecca Oxford (1990) to
describe how students in a speaking class managed
and regulated their learning process in EFL context.
Dewi, F., Kahfi, E. and Kurniawati, N.
Exploring EFL Students’ Metacognitive Strategies in Speaking Class: An Indonesian Context.
DOI: 10.5220/0007163601490152
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 149-152
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
149

2 METACOGNITIVE
STRATEGIES IN SPEAKING
CLASS
The word ‘strategy,' comes from Greek term strategia
meaning generalship or the art of war. It relates to the
word tactics, which are tools to achieve the success
of strategies (Oxford, 1990).
According to Rubin (1975) cited by Griffiths
(2004), language learning strategies are “the
techniques or devices which a learner may use to
acquire knowledge.” Moreover, O’Malley and
Chamot (1990) cited by Zare (2012) also stated that
learning strategies are “special thoughts or deeds that
individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or
retain new information.”
According to Rubin (1975) cited by Griffiths
(2004), language learning strategies are “the
techniques or devices which a learner may use to
acquire knowledge.” O’Malley and Chamot (1990)
cited by Zare (2012) also stated that learning
strategies are “special thoughts or deeds that
individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or
retain new information.”
Experts classified language learning strategies
into different criteria based on their taxonomies of
strategies based on their research findings by
implementing different methods of data collection
(Zare, 2012). For example, Oxford (1990) classified
the learning strategies into two broad categories:
direct strategies and indirect strategies. Direct
strategies help learners to learn target language
directly. On the other hand, indirect strategies support
and manage language learning without contributing
the target language directly.
Specifically, Oxford (1990) categorized
metacognitive strategies into three sets: Centering
Learning - Arranging and Planning Learning and
Evaluating Learning. These three strategies have
eleven branches that can be practiced by students in
their learning process: Overviewing and Linking with
Prior Knowledge, Paying Attention, Delaying Speech
Production to Focus on Listening, Finding Out about
Language Learning, Organizing, Setting Goals and
Objectives, Identifying the Purpose of a Language
Task, Planning for a Language Task, Seeking
Practice Opportunities, Self-Monitoring, and Self-
Evaluating.
3 METHODS
This study used qualitative research method in order
to explore metacognitive strategies used by students
in their speaking class. Specifically, the present study
can be said as a case study for two reasons. First, the
research site and participants are limited. They were
fifteen selected students who can give more
information about metacognitive strategies they used
in learning speaking. The second reason is its
objective that is to “explore and investigate
contemporary real-life phenomenon through detailed
contextual analysis of a limited number of events or
conditions, and their relationships” (Zainal, 2007:1-
2). This study is aimed to investigate how EFL
students regulate their learning process in speaking
class.
In conducting this study, the researcher collected
the data from observations, questionnaires, and
documents. It is in accordance with Fraenkel (2009)
that stated, “There are three techniques commonly
used by qualitative researchers: observation,
interviewing, and document analysis.” For analyzing
the data, the researcher used four steps of qualitative
data analysis such as organizing and preparing the
data, reading through all the data, beginning the
detailed analysis and interpreting the data like what
stated by Creswell (2012).
4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
The purposes of this study were to describe the kinds
of metacognitive strategies commonly applied by
students in speaking class and the impacts of using
those strategies related to the students’ improvement
in their speaking ability. The following section is the
detailed analysis of the two findings of this study.
4.1 Students’ Metacognitive Strategies
To know the strategies commonly used by students in
their speaking class, the researcher used the data from
classroom observation and questionnaires as follows.
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
150

Table 1: Data from Observation about Metacognitive
Strategies Used by Students in the Classroom.
Strategies used
How the Strategies Applied
Centering Learning
1. Overviewing Linking
and with already known
material:
 Answering the
question given by the
lecturer,
 Developing speaking
based on experience.
2. Paying Attention:
 Using directed
attention
(concentration) to
the lecturer’s
explanation.
 Using selective
attention to the
correct word order,
vocabulary, and
pronunciation when
answering the
question from the
lecturer.
Arranging and
Planning Learning
Organizing:
Having a notebook.
Table 2: Data from Questionnaires about Metacognitive
Strategies frequently used by Students.
Strategies Used
Number of Students
Seeking Practice Opportunities
4 Students
Paying Attention
3 Students
Self-monitoring
3 Students
Delaying Speech to focus on
Listening
2 Students
Overviewing and Linking with
Already Known Material
1 Student
Identifying the Purpose of a
Language Task
1 Student
Self-evaluating
1 Student
After analyzing the data from classroom
observations and questionnaires, it is revealed that the
students reported commonly used eight of the eleven
metacognitive strategies developed by Oxford (1990)
in their speaking class.
The strategies used are Overviewing and linking
with the already known material, Paying attention,
Organizing, Delaying speech to focus on listening,
Identifying the purpose of a language task, Seeking
practice opportunities, Self-monitoring, and Self-
evaluating. Then, the three rarely used strategies are
Finding out about language learning, Setting goals
and objectives, and Planning a language task.
Meanwhile, if all the eleven strategies were applied,
the students’ speaking proficiency may be higher. As
what had been stated by Rahimi & Katal (2012) that
metacognitive strategies help students to gain higher
achievement and better learning outcome in both face
to face and virtual learning environments.
4.2 The Impacts of Using
Metacognitive Strategies on EFL
Students’ Speaking Ability
To analyze the impact of applying certain strategies
to students’ speaking ability, the present study used
the data from questionnaires and analyzing the
document. The document was students’ achievement
records in speaking class from several meetings in
average.
Table 3: Strategies Used by Students and Their Speaking
Achievements.
Students
Strategies Used
Scores
Student 1
Self-monitoring
A
Student 2
Overviewing and linking with
already known material
B
Student 3
Paying attention
A
Student 4
Self-monitoring
A
Student 5
Seeking practice
opportunities
A
Student 6
Seeking practice
opportunities
A
Student 7
Delaying speech to focus on
listening
A
Student 8
Delaying speech to focus on
listening
A
Student 9
Seeking practice
opportunities
A
Student 10
Identifying the purpose of a
language task
B
Student 11
Self-evaluating
A
Student 12
Paying attention
A
Student 13
Self-monitoring
A
Student 14
Paying attention
A
Student 15
Seeking practice
opportunities
A
The data from Table 3 showed, most students who
used metacognitive strategies in their learning got
scores A, which means more or at least got 80. There
are only two students who got score B or less than 80.
This result is in accordance with Derakhshan et al.
(2016) that stated, “Metacognitive strategies enable
students to achieve high proficiency in speaking skill
Exploring EFL Students’ Metacognitive Strategies in Speaking Class: An Indonesian Context
151

that has the primary goal to make learners able to use
English in communication accurately and fluently."
5 CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, this study found that from the eleven
metacognitive strategies developed by Rebecca
Oxford (1990), there are eight metacognitive
strategies commonly applied by the students in their
speaking class. Later, it also can be concluded that
metacognitive strategies can be said as the right
strategies need to be applied by learners to enhance
their speaking skills since the data about their
achievement record in speaking class showed most
students with these strategies got the high scores
(more than 80).
Therefore, it is essential for students to regulate
and manage their learning process by applying
metacognitive strategies to achieve the better result in
speaking skill and to overcome their difficulties in
learning.
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Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
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