Every
student can learn, just not on the same day or the same way (Evans). This quote
shows that every student has their own strategy to learn something. They also
take different interval of time to be able to master their learning. The strategy
they used will determine they succeeds in their learning. Learning strategy
here means “specific actions, behavior, step, or technique used by students to
enhance their own learning” (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992, p.63). Oxford (1990)
has identified six mayor groups of language learning strategies, they are
cognitive strategy, Meta cognitive strategy, memory- related strategy,
compensatory strategy, affective strategy, and social strategy. In the
following paragraph, will be explained all of those strategies.
First
strategy that they can apply to enhance their language learning is cognitive
strategy. This strategy enables the students to manipulate the language that
they’ve known directly. Some activities that include in this strategy such as
repeating, visualizing, making summary, making mind maps, categorizing ideas,
and linking their prior knowledge with the new knowledge they acquire. Students
can repeat some words, terms, or expression that they already knew in order to
memorize the words. When they read some word, they can imagine and visualize
the word in their mind to make the knowledge more concrete and the memory will
last longer rather than just read them. After the lesson finish, the teacher
always asks the students to make some summary that can make the students easier
in reading the lesson again. The benefit of using this strategy is the students
will find out that their experience or prior knowledge related closely to the
new knowledge, so it will make them easier to understand the material.
Second
strategy in language learning strategy is meta cognitive strategy. This
strategy refers to awareness of student’s own knowledge- what they know and
what they don’t know- and students’ ability to understand, control, and
manipulate their cognitive process (Meichenbaum, 1985). In this strategy, the
students should be able to use their prior knowledge to plan their strategy to
approach learning task, take some steps to solve problem, reflect and evaluate
the results, and modify approach. This strategy is really appropriate to be
applied in problem based learning and project based learning, because the
students need to be able to measure their ability, construct and modify their
learning process, and solve the problem using their own strategy. The benefit
of using this strategy is the students will be able to guide, regulate, and
evaluate their own learning, and it will also make them independent learners.
Another
strategy that can enhance students learning is memory related strategy. This
strategy helps the students to link items in target language with another. The
activities in this strategy such as learning and retrieve information in an
orderly string (e.g., acronyms), while other techniques create learning and
retrieval via sounds (e.g., rhyming), images (e.g., a mental picture of the
word itself or the meaning of the word), a combination of sounds and images
(e.g., the keyword method), body movement (e.g., total physical response),
mechanical means (e.g., flashcards), or location (e.g., on a page or
blackboard) (Oxford, 1990). By linking an item to the other in target language,
it will enrich students’ vocabulary mastery. Not only knowing the name, but
also able to use the words in a sentence or daily expression.
Next strategy is compensatory strategy.
This strategy includes guessing from the context in listening and reading;
using synonyms and “talking around” the missing word to aid speaking
and writing; and strictly for speaking, using gestures or pause
words. Compensatory strategy is used to help the learner make up for missing
knowledge. This strategy is really helpful when the students don’t know
completely the whole sentences. The students can understand about the topic
without have to know the entire words meaning. It can be done by guessing from
the known word meaning with the situation or condition of the environment.
After that, there is another strategy
called affective strategy. The activities in this strategy such as identifying
one’s mood and anxiety level, talking about feelings, rewarding oneself
for good performance, and using deep breathing or positive self talk. This
strategy has been proven that it can improve target language proficiency by
Dreyer and Oxford. Besides improving learning, this strategy also used to make
the students more sensitive about the environment around them and also increase
their self esteem. One of the programs for self talk introduced in this
strategy is Neuro Linguistic Program (NLP). In this program students will talk
to themselves saying positive things in target language. It is believed can
improve students speaking and also can reach what they say to themselves.
The last strategy based on Oxford is
Social Strategy. This strategy helps the students to work with others and learn
language and also the culture. The activities focused on some expression that
can be said in some situation, asking for permission, and other expression that
relates to students real life. This social strategy is very easy to be done not
only inside the classroom, but also outside the classroom. Being a member of an
organization became one of the ways to implement social strategy outside the
classroom. It is the easiest strategy to be implemented in learning process.
Based on the explanation above, there
are six main strategies that can be done by the students to enhance their own
language learning. They may choose the best and the most appropriate strategy
for them to be implemented. Choosing the strategy by them selves will make them
more comfortable in learning process and they will not feel forced in doing it.
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