16 can find their own way without always having to be guided by the teacher
through learning tasks, who are creative, who make intelligent guesses, who make their own opportunities for practice, who make errors work for them not
against them, and who use contextual clues as cited in Harmer, 2007, p. 86. In addition, it is suggested that teacher must encourage the students to respond to
texts and situations with their own thoughts and experiences, rather than just by answering questions and doing abstract learning activities Harmer, 2007.
Therefore, according to Harmer 2007, stu dents‟ responses in the learning
activity will depend on how the teacher act and vary their behavior in giving the materials in the learning activity.
2. Metacognitive Learning Strategies
According to Zhang 2013, metacognitive strategy is a strategy to help the students in order to improve and develop their language skills. It is related to the
improvement of writing skills. Metacognitive refers to students‟ ability to be aware of and monitor their own process. It can increase students‟ abilities to
transfer or adapt their learning to new contexts and tasks. It also includes a critical aware
ness of one‟s thinking and learning. People can use metacognitive strategy in the writing activity because it shows how the human brain processes and
produces various ideas and information. Metacognitive refers to metacognition. According to El-Koumy 2004,
metacognition is the conscious awareness of one‟s own cognition and the conscious control of one‟s own learning. Metacognition is one of the important
17 concept and a critical strategy to teach in the classroom. From all the research
over metacognition, it is a learned behaviour that can vastly improve students of all performing levels. Metacognitive has also received a considerable attention by
language teaching theoreticians and researchers alike for three main reasons. The first reason is that metacognitive knowledge develops good thinkers and lifelong
learners who can cope with new situations in this rapidly changing world. The second reason is that integrating metacognitive knowledge into language
instruction develops learners who can take charge of their own learning. The final reason is that a metacognitive knowledge base is essential for effective language
learning. As Devine 1993 puts it, a successful language learner is “one who has ample metacognitive knowledge about the self as learner, about the nature of the
cognitive task at hand and about appropriate strategies for achieving cognitive goals” p. 109, as cited in Reading for understanding: Toward an RD program in
reading comprehension, 2002. According to Oxford 1990, there are three strategy sets in metacognitive
strategies, which include centering student s‟ learning, arranging and planning
student s‟ learning, and evaluating students‟ learning. It refers to awareness of
students‟ knowledge to understand and control students‟ cognitive Meichenbaum, 1985. It includes the knowledge to know when, where and why
to use particular strategies for learning and problem solving. Furthermore, it is also the prior knowledge to plan a strategy for approaching a learning task,
including taking necessary steps solve the problems, reflecting and evaluating the writing as needed. According to Flavell 1987, the metacognitive activities
18 include planning how to approach a learning task, such as using appropriate skills
and strategies to solve problems, monitoring the activities from self-assessing and self-correcting in response to the self-assessment, evaluating the progress from the
learning activities and becoming aware of students‟ learning process. Metacognitive refers to what individuals know about the approaches that
can be used for learning and problem solving as cognitive process Flavell, as cited in Speculations about the nature and development of cognitive process,
1987. In addition, according to Oxford 1990, metacognitive strategy goes beyond cognitive process and provides a way for learner to coordinate their own
learning process. It includes learners‟ knowledge to control their learning, including planning, strategy management, monitoring and evaluating their
progress or goals in the learning activities. Furthermore, there are three categories of metacognitive knowledge, namely person variables, task variables and strategy
variables Flavell, 1987. Person variables refer to learners‟ strengths and weaknesses on processing information in the learning activities. Task variables
are learners‟ knowledge which is related to the process in completing the task. Strategy variables are the strategy that learners use to complete the task, including
the strategy that they use before and after doing the task. Metacognitive strategy has a role in the problem solving activities because
it is associated with the learners‟ strategy to solve the challenges that they have in learning activities. According to Halpern 1996, learners need to apply
metacognitive strategies to monitor their learning process because successful learners apply strategy to transfer their knowledge through the learning process.
19 The strategy that learners use helps them to think whether they understand their
learning topic or not. In the learning process, according to Meichenbaum 1992, students need to be assisted by the teacher in order to help them directing their
learning, including what they have to do to complete their task. As it is known that metacognitive strategy is a process that provides
learners to be successful thinkers, Fogarty 1994 suggests that students must develop a plan before approaching a learning task, monitor their understanding
and evaluate their thinking after completing the task in the learning process. According to Oxford 1990, teachers can help students by allowing them to talk
about their problems in the learning process, including sharing the effective strategies for learners to help students reaching their goals and objective in the
learning activities. Besides, learners can monitor their learning by self-monitoring, for example when they are writing, they make checklists to monitor their own
errors in spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, organization and content Oxford,1990. Moreover, learners can use self-evaluating effectively as the
progress of their own work to know whether they have improved since the last learning or not.
3. Writing Recount texts Using Metacognitive Learning Strategies
Writing is one of the important skills for students. Moreover, there are many media to teach writing for students. One of the media is by using recount
texts. It is a text that tells past experiences or events Hyland, 2008. It can be based on the author‟s personal experiences or historical events. According to
20 Hyland 2002, the purpose of recount texts is to tell a sequence of events so that
it entertains. This idea could guide the teacher to be more creative in using the recount texts as the teaching media for students.
According to Nunan 2003, writing can be defined as product or process that is considered as a complex process because it goes through different stages to
reach its final format. It involves mental processes, thinking and rethinking to produce sentences. The process of writing is a way of looking at writing
instruction which emphasis students‟ writing. According to Harmer 2004, the process of writing includes planning, drafting, editing and producing final version.
Teacher should use different strategies to encourage students to produce a good writing.
Recount texts is a text genre which is used to retell a series of events or experiences in the past for the purpose of informing or entertaining Hyland,
2008. Moreover, there are many strategies that can be used by students and one of them is metacognitive learning strategies that help students to plan, monitor
and evaluate. Since the students have to write about the past event or their experience, the students can apply metacognitive learning strategies to review
their own progress in the form of writing. Englert 2001 confirms that a related area of difficulty is limited
metacognitive knowledge and control. Learners may lack awareness of appropriate strategies, or have difficulty exercising control over implementing and
monitoring them. As a result, this has contributed to evolving trends in the teaching of writing. According to Bereiter and Scardamalia 1987, learners make
