Students’ English learning strategies in speaking skill

This research discusses the students’ learning speaking strategies by the students (santri) in the Islamic boarding school of tahfidz Darr Alqalam, Ngaliyan, Semarang. This research is aimed at explaining the students’ learning strategies in speaking skill also the strengths and the weaknesses of the learning strategies used by the students (santri) in the Islamic Boarding School of Tahfidz Darr Alqalam, Ngaliyan, Semarang. In conducting this research, the research used descriptive qualitative research. In collecting the data, the researcher used observation and interview. The data were analyzed by reducing data, display the data and drawing the conclusion. The result of this research shows that: (1) the students applied almost all of the strategies proposed by O’Malley et al including meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and socio-affective strategies in mastering their speaking skill. In metacognitive strategies, the students use four strategies, namely: selective attention, self- management, self- monitoring, and self-evaluation. In cognitive strategies, the students used ten strategies, namely: Resourcing Translation, Repetition, Grouping, Deduction, Imagery, Auditory Representation, Keyword method, Inferencing, Note taking and summarizing. And in socio-affective strategies, the students used two strategies namely: cooperation and question for clarification. (2) The strengths for the students are they got many new vocabularies, they could speak English fluently, they knew how to pronounce the words, and they more confident in speaking English. Beside the strengths the students also have the weakness. They are low in their grammar because they more focus on their speaking and tend to ignore the grammar