METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES APPLIED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF UNIMED IN LISTENING COMPREHENSION

This research was aimed at finding out (1) the degree of metacognitive strategies applied by English Department students of UNIMED in listening comprehension (2) the difficulties of application metacognitive strategies by English Department students of UNIMED in listening comprehension. The study was conducted in English Department of UNIMED Medan. It was applied to 28 students in forth semester. Since the study was aqualitative research, the data were analyzed quantitatively by means of observation, questionnaire, Think Aloud Protocols (TAP) and interview. The questions in questionnaire and interview are based on Chammots and O Malleys as experts in metacognitive strategies. The data analysis shows the degree of application metacognitive strategies. The study shows that the students application is low. The students only apply some parts of sub-categories in metacognitive strategies as their habit in doing their listening task. As metacognitive strategies deals with the subjects knowing of what their knowing, the subjects deals more on the product of listening than the process (metacognitive strategies) while they do the listening comprehension. This condition makes them face difficulties in the application of the metacognitive strategies especially planning and monitoring strategies. They do not get use to make plan before listening and they find difficulties in monitoring and listening to the speakers at the same time. They cannot get the messages that are uttered by the speakers and often write down the unuttered ones. They cannot comprehend the listening well, they loss their concentration, and it makes them feel worry, doubt, nervous and other negative feeling. Listening is still a difficult task for them.