Developing Strategy Use and Language Performance through Implicit Strategy Training

Abstract

More studies advocate explicit strategy training and a few studies agree that training strategies should be integrated in language learning. The present study reports on the implementation of an implicit strategy training for metacognitive strategies in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) setting in Indonesia. In the study which involved 37 senior high school students, strategies were measured using a questionnaire based on a seven - point Likert scale comprising of metacognitive strategies for the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. To find out the effect of implicit learning strategy training on students’ learning strategy use, a paired sample t-test was used to compare the data taken from the students’ learning strategy questionnaire. An English proficiency test was also administered for the purpose of the identification of the students’ proficiency in English before and after the treatment, and to correlate them with the use of metacognitive strategies. The findings indicate that there was a trend towards students using metacognitive strategies of the four language skills more frequently after they were trained to use such strategies implicitly. In particular, the study reveals that the language learners significantly improved their use of metacognitive strategies in writing, and the use of metacognitive strategies in writing was significantly correlated to students’ writing performance. The study suggests that language learners could improve their language performance through the improvement of strategy use in implicit strategy training.