2nd International Virtual TESOL CONFERENCE

Discovering Indonesian Students’ Cognitive Learning Strategy Model: Research in an English Immersion Program

Abstract:

This paper begins by describing Indonesia’s successful and long-running Kampung Inggris Pare as the gigantic English immersion program in Indonesia. The second aim is to investigate students’ strategy models applied to improve speaking skills. Fourteen students selected purposively from six English institutions participated in this qualitative ethnographic study. It involved participant observation for three months and semi-structured interviews. The result found that all participants implemented a similar series of actions to improve speaking skills, called cognitive strategy. They mainly started learning from engaging in social interaction in the immersion environment.  They listened to daily conversation, supported by other input sources, such as youtube, English learning situs, and reading text. The challenging words were then noted to be translated, grouped, defined the meaning, or found the synonym to be understood easily. The students reviewed the vocabulary by relistening or rereading it many times to be stored in memory. Next, students imitated loudly to have better pronunciation. Lastly, students practiced naturalistic or set speaking activities with friends as much as possible. Although the learning is not carried out in the English immersion program environment, EFL students can adopt and apply this model in a broader context.