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2. Cognitive Strategy
Oxford 1990 states that cognitive strategies are used to enable learners to understand and produce new language. For example, using formulas and patterns, focusing
on the main idea of a message, analyzing expression, and taking notes. Figure 2 confirms that the strategies in this category were used by 91 of
students with different frequencies. This amount was the highest percentage of the strategy use among the sixstrategy categories. There were only 9 of the students who did not use
cognitive strategy.
Figure 2. Average Use of Cognitive Strategies
From the six items in this category, there was one strategy that was used by all of the students. It was Q9 which stated,
“I watch English spoken TV shows or movies.” This might indicate the students’ interest toward English culture. They made use of the media that
contained the information about English. Besides, TV shows and movies provided universal information and entertainment that was one of the student’s needs as humans. Simply, this
strategy was easy, enjoyable, and useful to meet the students’ needs for learning English.
Never 9
Rarely 44
Often 31
Always 16
13 While Q10 which stated,
“I read English books for pleasure” was the strategy in this category that got the highest percentage for the option
never
. Twelve students or about 23 did not use this strategy at all. This reveals that these twelve students read English
textbook if they had the tasks related to the textbook. It shows that the students ’ way of
learning depended on the interest, whether they liked reading or not. Therefore, it seems that in the case of item 10, the students may not have had any interest in reading, and hence they
barely used this strategy to learn English. The complete finding shows that cognitive strategies were used by almost all of
the students. It was widely known that cognitive strategies are crucial in language learning, especially in learning foreign language. Instead of focusing on memorization, it emphasizes
on deeper processing and usage of the language Biggs, 1988, as cited in Lan, 2005. This statement supported the idea that the students in this study were interested in English culture,
since they showed their interest in using the language. They observed and tried to apply what they had learned into a context. The biggest difficulty that limited them to use it in daily
communication was that the fact that they lived in EFL setting where it was hard to practice the language.
3. Compensation Strategy
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