32 perfect tense, karena V3 jarang dipake sebelumnya jadi aku merasa
tidak familiar .” AL
I also had another problem in memorizing new material quickly. For example I could not remember the V3 from perfect tense, because
V3 was seldom to be used before so I felt unfamiliar. AL
AL explained that she had problem in learning structure. She said that she had difficulty in understanding new material when doing tasks without seeing her
notes. It was confusing for her to choose the right tenses used in sentences. It was difficult for her to memorize all of the material because they were unfamiliar for
her. The second student, DE, also had problem in understanding the material.
She said that Structure has many patterns and its functions which made her confused. She explained that she usually confused to detect the right pattern used
in the error analysis. “Aku suka bingung kalotugas error analysis. Kan gak ada
instruksinya kalo harus pake pattern yang mana sama pas nyocokin ke soalnnya yg susah dimengerti.” DE, day 2
I was confused in the tasks of error analysis. There was no instruction to use what pattern and when match the pattern and the
task which was difficu
lt to be understood.” DE, day 2
Next, the fourth problem faced by the third student, SA, was no willingness to study Structure. SA explained that he had problem in willingness to
study Structure. It was difficult for him to gain willingness to study because he thought that structure was really difficult to be understood. However, he said that
he also did not have willingness to open the book because he said that his book
33 was only a secondhand book from his brother. The appearance of the structure
book was not in a good quality. “Sebelumnya aku enggak niat belajar, aku pikir kok susah amat
Structure buat di pelajari.Boro-boro belajar buat Structure niat buat buka bukunya aja enggak.Buku yang aku punya itu lungsuran dari
kakak tingkat jadi bukunya kucel dan udah gak jelas.SA, day 1
I had no intention to study before, because I thought it was difficult. Not only had no intention to study Structure, but I also had no
intention to open the Structure guideline book. SA, day 1
Then, the last problem was grumble. The student who had problem in grumbling is AL. She explained that she usually grumbled about difficult tasks
before trying to answer it. She also grumbled about her structure class schedule because it was started in the early morning. She said that she was ever absent from
the class because she came late. “Biasanya aku suka mengeluh tentang tugas-tugas sulit yang dikasih
dosen. Terus mbak kelas structure ku itu pagi jadi sering mepet datengnya, pernah aku dateng telat dan aku tidak boleh ikut sama
dosenku.” AL, day 3 I usually grumbled about some difficult tasks from the lecturer.
Then, my structure class was early morning so I often came close to the time. I ever came late and the lecturer told me not to join the
class. AL, day 3
Based on the result of students‟ reflections, all of them said that they found some problems. The problems were poor time management, no willingness,
grumble, lack of memorization, and understanding the material. Walker said that reflection helps students to be more aware in recognizing situation which might
lead them to deeper insights Walker as cited in Boud et al., 1985. In this case, the situation refers to the problem faced by the students and they recognized their
34 own problem in learning Structure. It proves that reflections raise s
tudents‟ awareness of the problems they faced in learning structure.
B. The reflections raise students’ awareness of the importance of problem
solving strategies in learning Structure
This part discusses students‟ awareness of the importance of problem solving strategies in learning Structure. Problem solving strategies is needed by
the students to overcome their problems. Each student has different strategies to solve their own problems. Based on the problems faced by the students, they had
to solve their problems in order to develop their learning. The first problem was poor time management. Here were the problem-solving strategies used by the
students to overcome their learning obstacles. AL said that she had poor time management to study because of her
campus organization schedule. After doing reflection, AL tried to overcome her problem by making agenda to help her in recognizing her study time. She
explained that agenda could help her in managing her study time. She listed her leisure time and tried to study on it. After that, she could take rest after attending
organization in her campus because she had already study Structure. “Aku mulai nulis kegiatan dan waktu luang ku dalam seminggu. Nah
dari situ aku tau kalo hari jumat sama sabtu aku punya waktu buat belajar. Sekarang kalo pulang organisasi aku bisa langsung tidur
karena udah belajar kemarennya.” AL, day 2 I started to list my activities and my leisure time in a week. Then, I
knew that on Friday and Saturday I had time to study. Now, I can take rest after attending organization because I had already studied.”
AL, day 2
35 Then, DE had poor time management because she spent most of her time
to hang out with her friends and did not pay much attention about her tasks and her study time. In the process of the reflection, she found that she was careless
about her study and she decided to solve her problem by managing her time. She tried some strategies to solve it. DE strategy was almost same as AL, she made
agenda. First, she listed all of her activity except basic activity and the detail time. Next, she tried to decrease some useless activity and increase beneficial activity.
She began to decrease her hangout activity and increase her study time. This activity helped her to realize that she had some destructive attitudes and to think
the solution to decrease it. Here is the DE‟s reflection in day 1.
“Solusi yang bisa aku lakuin yaitu mencoba mengatur waktu buat belajar.Aku harus mencoba untuk berlatih untuk dapat pemahaman
yang mumpuni mulai dari sekarang. Aku enggak mau tertinggal sama teman-teman kelasku. Pertama-tama aku niru temen kelasku
yang selalu menulis jadwal kegiatannya di buku agendanya. Aku membuat buku agendaku sendiri dan mulai menulis kegiatan yang
aku lakukan dalam satu hari, lalu aku melihat kalo perbandingan jalan-jalan sama belajar gedean jalan-jalannya. Jadi, aku mulai deh
untuk mengurangi jalan-jalan dan menambah waktu untuk
belajar.”DE The solution which I could do was managing my time to study. I
should try to practice from now to get better understanding. I did not want to be left behind by my classmates. First, I imitated my
classmate who always wrote her activity on her book. I made my report book and started to write my activity all day on it. Then I saw
the percentage of hang out and study, and I found that I spent many time for hang out. Therefore, I began to decrease time for hang out
and increase time for study. DE
Then after doing reflection, DE found her weaknesses namely poor time management. However, she found some ways to solve her problems such as made
report book, wrote activity with the detailed time, and evaluated the activity. She
36 decreased hang out time which she considered as her obstructing activity and she
increased her study time as beneficial activity. It means that her self-awareness of her problem solving skill was enhanced. It could be seen from her changes in
behavior with her action to be better than her past. Moreover, DE said that she had ever been scolded by the lecturer because
she procrastinated her time until she forgot to do the tasks. Then, she decided to change it. She did the exercise first even before the lecturer made it as the
assignment as her. Therefore, when the exercise became the assignment DE had already finished it. Here
is the DE‟s reflection in day 3. “Nah, jadi aku sekarang selalu ngerjain latihan sebelum jadi
tugas.Biar kalo itu jadi tugas aku udah selese duluan.Urusan bener salahnya
belakangan.”DE Therefore, I always did the exercise first even before it became the
assignment. Then, if it became the assignment I had already finished it. The answer was wrong or true it would be thought later. DE
In addition, SA said that he was a lazy person and a procrastinator. He could not manage his time to study. He liked to play games and watch soccer in
night. After doing reflection, he decided to make a change to be a diligent person by studying the material from the lecturer. He recognized that his bad score were
made because of his attitude. Here is SA‟s reflection in day 2.
“Aku adalah tipe orang yang males belajar tapi menginginkan nilai yang tinggi. Tapi setelah aku melakukan refleksi ini pikiranku jadi
terbuka untuk melihat dunia dari segi yang realistis.Setiap ada pengumuman kuis untuk minggu depan, aku mencoba untuk berlatih
setiap hari dengan tujuan agar aku familiar sama tipe-tipe
pertanyaan sesuai topik.” SA I was a lazy person who difficult to study but I wanted high score.
After I did reflection, my mind was opened to see the world in
37 realistic side. If there was an announcement of quiz for next week, I
tried to practice every day in order to make me became familiar with many kinds of questions in the topic. SA
Then, the second and the third problems faced by the students were lack of memorizing ability and difficult in understanding the course. There were two
students who experienced these problems, they were AL and DE. In the process of reflection, AL tried to solve her memorizing problem by removing her obstructive
feeling which was being unfamiliar with new material. She did it by doing some strategies. First, she read in the internet about V3 because she thought that the
example in the book was limited. Then, she tried to listen to western music to find some past participle verbs. When she found those verbs, she put them in her
notebook. AL also tried to solve her problem in understanding material by doing some exercises about perfect tense from internet, book, and material from the
lecturer. Here is the evidence of AL‟s reflection in day 1.
“Solusi yang aku punya adalah baca di internet tentang V3 dan perfect tense.Intinya sih biar aku familiar dan lebih paham tentang
perfect tense karena penjelasannya lebih mudah dimengerti dan juga banyak soal latihan.Aku juga jadi suka dengerin musik Barat dan
mencatat V3 yang aku temui di lirik untuk lebih mengenal dan memahami penggunaannya.Tetapi aku juga tidak lupa untuk belajar
dari buku Betty Azhar dan materi yang diberikan oleh dosen.” The solution that I had is reading from the internet about V3 and
perfect tense. The main part was to make me familiar and understand perfect tense because the explanations were easy to be understood
and there were many tasks. I also like to listen to western music and noted V3 which I found in the lyric to know and understand more the
use of it.
However, I also did not forget to study from Betty Azhar‟s book and lecturer‟s material. AL
38 After doing reflection, AL could find her problems namely understanding
and memorizing the material which were caused by unfamiliar verbs. She also found ways to solve her problems such as studying from internet, book, material
from her lecturer and listening to the western music. It means that her self- awareness of her problem solving was increased. Besides, she also made a
commitment to her action. In addition, DE also had problem in understanding the material. Although
DE had same problem with AL, she had her own strategy to solve her problem. She explained that she usually confused to detect the right pattern used in the error
analysis. Then, she had strategy to overcome her problem. She added her study and practice time. She browsed on the internet to the material which related with
error analysis. “Kayaknya aku harus menambah jam belajar sama latihanku karena
aku masih belum menguasai materi. Aku juga akan cari-cari materi terkait untuk latihan biar pas aku ngerjain error analysis aku
enggak bingung lagi.” DE, day 2 “I thought that I need to add my study time because I did not master
the material yet. I will also search the related material in the internet so that I was not confused to do the error analysis. DE, day 2
AL and DE‟s reflections above showed that they had already used strategy to solve their problem in understanding and memorizing the material.
The next problem was SA explained that he had no willingness to study Structure. In the process of reflection, SA tried to solve his willingness problem.
He did some strategies such as tried to read from the internet to replace his book and watching video about the material to get better understanding and willingness
