METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 83 BEYOND WORDS Vol. 10 No.2 November 2022 Graduate School, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya Metacognitive Strategies of English Department Students in Virtual Speaking Assessment Christina Waso Odung Little Sun Primary School Surabaya Surabaya Article History Abstract Submitted: 30-4-2021 Reviewed: 22-6-2022 Accepted: 21-11-2022 Keywords: Metacognitive strategies, stimulated recall, virtual speaking assesment DOI: https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3171 Metacognitive strategies are learners’ strategies to think or organize their learning. There have been a lot of studies conducted on this subject area in which most of them quantitatively found that there were differences in the frequency of using metacognitive strategies among different achievers. This study is specially presented to depict how students deploy their metacognitive strategies especially in facing and executing a language assessment, performing a persuasive speech virtually. The assessment should be conducted virtually in an English Education study program in Indonesia due to the Covid-19 outbreak. There were 11 participants from a speaking class of a department from different levels of achievements taking part in the study. The high, middle, and low achievers joined a stimulated recall interview to pour everything in their mind when they were preparing for the persuasive speech assessment, executing it, and evaluating it. Based on the investigation done through stimulated recall interview, the study reveals that there are differences among high, middle, and low achievers in preparing for the final test and in executing it, in which the high performing achievers prepared more comprehensively in the preparation which affected to their performance. The study also confirms that higher achievers have more responsibilities and confidence compared to the low achievers in preparing for their task performances. Introduction Learners who have metacognitive strategies are those who regulate over their learning in thinking about what/ how they should learn, how the performance should go on, and how it should be done better. There have been a number of experimental studies conducted in applying the metacognitive strategy for different purposes of language learning in ESL and EFL the results of which show positive impact from the approach to the success of the language learning (Alfangca & Tamah, 2017; Birjandi & Rahimi, 2012; Cer, 2019; Rahimirad, 2014; Wichadee, 2011). Those studies confirm that https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v10i2.3171 84 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT when students are taught howthey should learn to accomplish language skills, their awareness increased as well as the result of their learning. Considering that having metacognition is important especially for language learners, this study is directed to explore whether EFL students who prepare themselves as English teachers have such awareness in their learning particularly in speaking class. Besides experimental studies which show the positive impact of deploying metacognitive in learning (Wichadee, 2011; Birjandi & Rahimi, 2012; Rahimirad, 2014; Cer, 2019), there are also a number of quantitative studies which prove that there are differences in the frequency of applying metacognitive strategies by different achievers (Yang, 2009, and Alamri 2018). However, those studies did not fully depict how the learners deployed their metacognitive strategies in learning. In other words, how students regulated their learning was not explained in detail. This led the writer to conduct a qualitative study to depict how learners use their metacognitive strategy. Moreover, a qualitative study particularly on metacognitive strategy in speaking so far is still limited. It is stated that lack of research on the use of language learning strategy in speaking skill is noticed (Yunus, 2014). So far, there has been limited number of studies regarding the deployment of metacognitive studies in speaking class in Indonesia, for example a study by Dewi, Kahfi and Kurniawati (2017). In addition, there is no metacognitive studies in the English department under study. This present study investigated how a group of second year students in an English Department in Indonesia deployed their metacognitive strategies in facing, executing, and evaluating their persuasive speech performance which should be done virtually as the final semester assessment. Regarding the background of the study, this study is done to answer the question of how students of different speaking achievement based on their performance of the final assessment deployed their metacognitive strategies in performing the speaking assessment. Literature Review Metacognition is the ability to understand and realizing the world, self- regulating and monitoring thoughts, evaluating the thoughts, revising the goals, motivating, developing strategies and heuristics for a better version of oneself who can adapt with the situation, and understanding others to gain self- understanding (Hacker, Dunloski, & Graesser, 2009). Livingston (1997) shows metacognitive strategies as sequential processes in regulating over a cognitive activities, and to ensure that the goal of a particular task has been met. These processes exist in planning for, monitoring, and evaluating for a language learning or task (Livingston, 1997, and O’Molley & Chamot, 1990). Students having metacognitive strategies are guided thoroughly not only to accomplish a learning but also to be consciously aware of their own strategies, styles, strength, weaknesses, and feeling of any aspect existing before, during, and after a language task takes place in learning process. Moreover, the deployment of students’ metacognitive strategies is not limited to any learning model or circumstance. When the students have metacognition, they regulate their thinking and choose which most appropriate strategy METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 85 can go along well with their capability or condition. The choice of the strategies is influenced by some things such as students’ awareness itself, gender, ethnicity, learning style, readiness, task involved and self-motivation (Oxford 1990 as cited in Razak. et.al, 2012). Metacognitive strategies enable learners to be active in the learning process, especially to find the best strategy to practice and reinforce what have been learned (Chari et al., 2010 as cited in Rahimi & Katal 2012). Based on the theories, metacognitive strategy can be understood as the hub of other learning strategies that students decide to use for the best learning outcome. Successful students in virtual learning are those who are able regulate their thinking and action in such circumstances. This statement is supported by the characteristics of successful students in virtual learning as described by the Illinois Online Network (2006) in Palloff and Pratt (2007). Those characteristics include open-mindedness about sharing experiences as part of the learning process; ability to communicate through writing (online chatting); having self-motivation and discipline; willing to “speak up” if problems arise; ability to meet the minimum requirements for the program; acceptance of critical thinking and decision making as part of the learning process, have access to a computer and internet connection; ability to think of ideas thoroughly before responding; and, feeling that high-quality learning can take place without going to a traditional classroom (Online Network, 2006, in Palloff & Pratt, 2007) Students who are well-prepared for a language assessment can make themselves readier and more confident to face it. There are actually some specific advantages gained from a well-planned task particularly for oral proficiency task such as increasing the accuracy of some grammatical features like grammars and articles (Wigglesworth 1997, in Wigglesworth & Elder 2010). Besides increasing the accuracy, there are also other benefits from a well-planned oral proficiency test performance such as enhancing the fluency and complexity of the speech performance (Foster, 1996; Foster & Skehan, 1996; Mehnert, 1998; Ortega, 1999; Skehan & Foster, 1997; Wendel, 1997; Yuan & Ellis 2003, in Wigglesworth & Elder, 2010), and also mitigating error in the speech (Ellis, 1997 & Mehnert, 1998 as cited in Wigglesworth & Elder, 2010). O’Molley and Chamot (1990) classify metacognitive strategies into three sub categories: planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Planning is the preparation for a language task where learners preview the main ideas and concepts of the task by scanning what the task is about (advance organizer), focusing on the task only (directed attention), plannig for and rehearsing particular linguistic components (functional planning), deciding what to attend in doing the task (selective attention), and understanding the external or internal condition whether they can help to prepare for the task (self-management). In monitoring, a learner is consciously aware of what should be done when a task is ongoing by checking his/her own comprehension or accuracy on the language task to get a maximal outcome (self-monitoring). In evaluation, after the language task, a learner checks the outcome of his/her own language task performance based on the standard (self- evaluation). A study about foreign language learners’ metacognitive beliefs and strategies which was done by Wang, Spencer, and Xing (2009) investigated the effects of second- year university students’ metacognitive beliefs and strategies on learning Chinese as 86 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT a Foreign Language (CFL). The participants were English-speaking students in Chinese classes at beginners’ level. At the end of a semester when the research was done, or after the learners learned each of the skills during the semester, they gave responses about their beliefs and metacognitive strategies in learning Chinese. The study shows that those who were confident with their ability or had metacognitive beliefs about themselves in learning the language and taking responsibility in planning their learning did well in achievement tests. Based on the study, there are positive association between students’ confidence and the achievement test results, in which successful students are found to have confidence in their abilities. The study also shows that learners who had higher metacognitive strategies got better result from the achievement test but the study did not show students’ result in a particular skill of the language. Even though the present study had a narrow scope, i.e only speaking competence, this is expected to give deeper understanding about the metacognitive process since it will use stimulated recall protocol to reveal the process. The second related study was conducted by Lam in 2008 to investigate metacognitive strategy by ESL learners when planning and preparing for an upcoming English oral group task and to propose using stimulated recall (SR) as an innovative method to access learners’ strategic thoughts or inner voices. There was intervention by the researcher to the participants before the discussion was conducted. The participants had been taught metacognitive strategies for 20 weeks and got guiding handout to have a cognition of what to plan and prepare for the task. The participants were 8 secondary Hongkong students who were engaged in an English group discussion task. Before the task began, they were given time to prepare for the task. And after the task, each student participated in an SR (Stimulated Recall) interview to recall the thought processes they had during the group preparation. The study, a qualitative analysis on the thought processes, revealed that students used different type of metacognitive strategies to do local and global planning prior to the task proper. It was also found that students monitored to turn taking pattern during the discussion process. Their inner voices in this research were investigated through an SR interview. The above study has similarity with the present study. The method to inspect students’ metacognitive strategies in facing a speaking task employed stimulated recall (SR). However, the previous research was conducted based on the task of group discussion and there was an intervention given, while in this research the SR was based on persuasive speaking and there was no intervention given to the students. Research Method The method used in this study was Stimulated Recall (SR). It is a method used to prompt interviewee to recall thoughts he/she had while performing a task or participating in an event (Gass and Mackey, 2000). The design of this study was qualitative research to depict students’ metacognitive strategies in conducting the speaking assessment virtually. The setting, participants, data collection, and the data analysis in this research are described as the following. Setting The research was conducted at an English department of a Catholic university in Surabaya, Indonesia. For special METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 87 circumstances due to the Covid -19 outbreak, all the classes should be conducted virtually as well as the administration of the final assessment of a speaking class where the data were taken. The final assessment was done through Zoom platform in which each student was given a chance to deliver a persuasive speech in front of three lecturers. There were eleven participants. Four of them were high achievers, four others were middle achievers and the rest three were low achievers. The differences were based on their performance on the Speaking assessment itself, scored by the lecturers. Participants There were eleven participants of the class took part in the stimulated recall (SR) interview. Four of them were high achievers, the other four were middle achievers and the rest three were low achievers. The differences were based on their performance on the Speaking assessment itself, scored by the class lecturer. Data Collection After the students performed their speaking task as the final project via Zoom, the researcher interviewed the participants by using the method of Stimulated recall (Gass & Mackey, 2000), individually via Zoom. The stimuli given can be in the form of audiotapes, videotapes, or written products that are used to reactivate or refresh recollection of cognitive processes so that they can be accurately recalled and verbalized (Gass & Mackey, 2000). In this research, the stimuli given were a printed instruction sheet and assessment rubric of the final project, and the video recordings of the students’ performance in the final exam. The questions of the interviewer were based on the protocol (Gass & Mackey, 2000) as presented below: “Before watching the video, I am going to ask you some questions regarding how you prepared your speech. I want you to answer everything honestly. I am really interested in what you were thinking of when you decided to do this and that. Everything you said should be the one you did or thought during preparing for the final speaking test. What I’d like you to do first is telling me what was in your mind at the time when you get the instruction (showing the printed instruction sheet) from the lecturer about the final project? What did you do after that?” After that, the interviewer displayed the printed grading rubric and asked what they did about the rubric. The questions were created based on the participants’ responses from their understanding toward the prior questions delivered by the interviewer. The questions were delivered for pointing out a case/ situation regarding to metacognitive strategy that was mentioned by the participants as their answers. For the investigation, the questions were delivered in the forms: “What did you think …?”, “What did you do…?”, “What happened when…?”, “How did you feel when/about…?”, “Why did you make/decide…?”. The questions were delivered to dig out/ clarify the participants’ cognition of the reason why they something. Not all of the statements were followed by further questions during the interview. If their responses were that they could not remember, they were not pursued to dig out for deeper answer. This was not let to happen since their answer might be based on what they thought at the time the question was addressed, or what their perception was. When they said they did not remember, the reaction to their responses was by uttering backchannelling cues or nonresponses such as “Oh, hm, great, good, I see, uh-huh, ok”. 88 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT When the discussion of planning stage was done, the video started to be played. The discussion toward the students’ performance (monitoring stage) was done during the play of the video. The interviewer informed the participants first about what they would do: “What we’re going to do now is watching your persuasive speech video. I will play the video and we will watch it together”. The participants were freed to express everything toward their own speech performance, when their video was being played. When they kept quiet, the interviewer was the one who pointed at some parts and asked the students about what they were thinking at the time or why they emphasized their intonation, and why they moved their hands, etc. When the interview by using the stimulation of video display was done, there was still one more stage to be investigated (evaluating stage). The questions delivered were: “What did you feel after finishing your video?”, “Was there anything you thought you could do better in the performance?” Data Analysis The interviews with all of the participants were recorded and then transcribed for the data analysis. There were some steps done in analyzing the data: First, the interview transcripts of a particular group of the students (based on their level of performance) were read from beginning for each of the stages (preparation, monitoring, and evaluation). It was done to find the metacognitive strategies deployed by them. Second, if it was found a new strategy used by the first student in his/ her answer was based on the question delivered (in the transcript), the student’s description about using the strategy was highlighted with a specific colour as the mark. For example, the response which shows a particular strategy written in a sentence or more by one student/ the first student in the original transcript. Third, the student’s response was translated into English if the original answers were in Indonesian since some of the students had interview in English and some in Indonesian. After being translated, the response was copied to a new page for the data analysis. That particular response was entitled as a particular strategy. It was possible that the typical strategy was done by two or more students, so the same code was applicable for all the typical responses by different students. For example, strategy a: Response of student 1 that has been translated into English. Response of student 2 that has been translated into English. The first until third strategies were repeated continuously for finding a new strategy applied by the students. The new strategy was coded differently from the previous one. For example: strategy b: Response of student 1 that has been translated into English. Response of student 2 that has been translated into English. It was possible that an only strategy was done by 3 or less students, and all of the strategies found were displayed. After all the responses that had been translated were gathered, they were validated by a validator. The data that had been validated were analysed, commented, and also classified into metacognitive strategy classification of O’Molley and Chamot (1990). METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 89 Findings The display of the findings is grouped into level of the achievements. Those are high achievers, middle achievers, and low achievers. Metacognitive Strategies Deployed by the High Achievers There were 4 high achievers taking part in the interview: S.A (Student A), S.B (Student B), S.C (Student C), and S.D (Student D). Their deployement of metacognitive strategies are presented below: In Preparing for the Task The data analysis showed various metacognitive strategies deployed by the high achievers in the preparation. Those are: Reading the problem sheet (Advanced organizer). When they got the problem sheet from the lecturers, all of them read the instructions of Speaking C final project independently, and thoroughly tried to understand it. They did not ask help from anybody else or google translate to help them understand the instruction. One of the students even did a double check just to make sure whether she had comprehended the instruction. S. A said, “I was a type of person who tried to figure out things on my own first. I read it first, did double check. For the direction itself, I didn’t find anything confusing”. Reading the “excellent” criteria of the rubric (Advanced organizer). After reading the problem sheet, they read the scoring rubric. Unpredictably, all of the four high achievers read the grading rubric thoroughly especially on the “excellent criteria”. They noticed the points there helped them effectively to develop their speeches and also to practice how they would perform the speeches later. S.A told, “I tried to read it. There were scoring aspects stated there. By reading it, my practice could refer to those aspects in accordance with the ‘excellent’ ”. They referred to the points in the excellent part in developing the content of their speeches. Student B got to know that there were minimum number of sources that must be needed, and S.C inserted new facts in her content after reading thoroughly that particular indicators in the rubric. On the other hand, after reading the rubric, S.D felt surer to choose a particular subtopic to deliver in her persuasive speech. S.D conveyed, “In the rubric, there was written aspects about problem and solution. Then, when I looked at the topic, I thought about what the problem was, what the solution was, and how to persuade my audience so I could make a good one”. S.D did not directly choose the subtopic after reading the problem sheet, instead after reading the rubric. When she read the subtopic again, she considered the criteria in the rubrics she had read which benefitted her in developing that particular chosen topic. From their statements, it was clearly shown that those high achievers were aware about the use of the rubric clearly, they were helped very much by the rubric in developing the speech and they admitted it. Toward the question whether the speaking rubric helped in creating the speech, one student confidently answered “Yes, it helped me very much”. Deciding the best topic to deliver (Directed attention). In deciding the topic to deliver, some of the students were at first confused to choose the best one between two different topics that each of them was interested in. There were four big topics: Health, Education, Technology, and Environment. And under each of the big 90 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT topics, there were three or four subtopics delivered in statements. The students were required to choose only one statement of a particular big topic to deliver. Although they got confused at first, they decided a topic that they were interested based on their own consideration. S. A told, “I was confused to choose between education and technology. I was interested in education. The subtopics in Education was harder. So, I chose Technology instead. I chose gadgets for kids, and I was not confused in choosing the subtopic among the 3 subtopics”. S.A thought the unchosen topic, Education, was hard for her although at first, she was really interested in it, then she decided to choose the one that fit with her capability, technology. The same with S.C, she thought the unchosen subtopic that at first was interesting to her was too political so then she subconsciously decided to avoid it. S.C stated, “ I happened thinking about abortion but I thought it was too political. I was afraid of not mastering it, so if later I was asked question, I wondered whether I would be confused. So, I would choose the one that I understood, in which later if there be a question, I could answer”. Those students decided the best topic for them to deliver since they knew their capability especially how their delivery would be like later when they performed the speech and when they had to answer the question from the lecturers. One student, S.B, did not get confused in choosing the best topic, moreover, she realized why she should choose the topic. Another student also felt the same in deciding the topic to deliver. S. B said, “I just chose directly the first topic because I really liked that. I thought the first topic was such an important issue, and I needed people to be aware of that issue”. I was similar with S.A who said, “I felt that I had this urge to inform other people that letting kids be exposed to gadgets in such early age was not good for them”. Those students felt that they were called to persuade others through the speeches besides presenting them as the final project. Finding information from many sources (Functional planning). In developing the speeches, all of the students found new more information for the content of their speeches. S. A presented, “I tried to find more information from the internet and looked for additional researches to make it more convincing to the audience. … . I googled, watched YouTube videos, and TikTok videos related to the topic”. While student S.C said, “I searched from lots of sources. I searched for the materials that I had to deliver and I compiled from those sources. I did not look at only one source but I looked for many sources instead, and I chose the best one that I had to deliver. I also searched for lots of facts”. From those statements, the students had procedural knowledge of what they should do to make their content meaningful with new fresh information which contained supporting facts. They tried to find the information from different website or even from social media. Making an outline after reviewing about it first (Functional planning). Since an outline should be compulsorily made by all of the students in the class to be submitted to the class website few days before the examination day, all of the students made theirs. S.C did not seem to have problem in making the outline, she clearly stated about what she put in the outline, introduction, body, and closing. While another student needed to ask help from her friends about METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 91 what the outline was like in order to make sure about it first before making hers. S. D expressed, “When I asked my friends about the outline, they sent me the outline and I looked through it. I tried to make mine like that and I also looked at the rubric. It was stated there that there should be at least 5 sources, so I looked for more sources to put in my outline. Then, I just tried to make mine”. In making the outline, most of the high achievers did not face difficulties. Although S.D was at first a bit confused about how to make a proper outline, she was aware that she needed to ask help from others instead of just making it without knowing whether her work was correct or not. Trying to practice the speech effectively (Self-management). Each of the students differently applied their own practical strategies in the practice. S. A said that she practiced as many times as she could and she recorded her practice by using her phone and set the timer, and she felt pretty confident with her practice. S. B practiced hers around 3 times, and she felt a bit unsettled. However, she was conscious about that. As what she said, she tried her best in the preparation so that she would give her best in the examination. S. C practiced around 10 times and she said she recorded the practices and did the practice in front of her sister because she wanted to see how her performance worked. She also set the time by using timer in every practice, and for that she got a little insecure since she spent like one minute over while she knew the lecturer told them to only have 3-5 minutes for the delivery. She was conscious about the time and also practiced with using gestures. She read in the scoring rubric, there was an aspect about doing gestures in the delivery of the speech to get a good result, so she practiced it. S. D only practiced in a day, before the examination day and she did it so many times in front of her phone and mirror. She memorized her text and recorded her speech to check whether it lasted in 5 minutes or not. She noticed that her speech lasted more than 5 minutes. She was conscious about that so she decided to delete some parts that she thought could be eliminated. She recorded herself by using her phone and also practiced it in front of a mirror. The responses about the practical strategies the high achievers did in their practices show that they had procedural knowledge to conduct the practices as their preparation. They managed their own practices by using the resources they had and they practiced until they felt sure enough so they did the practices many times. Moreover, they were also conscious in imagining how their delivery in the examination later would be like. It was shown by the timer they set, and the practice they did in front of mirrors and phone cameras. Realizing the weaknesses and put them in the practice (Selective attention). When S. A was practicing, she realized about her weaknesses especially on the speed of her delivery and the volume of her voice. That was why she said she kept on practicing, and made sure to speak slower. She tried to prolong her speech which was at first only lasted three minutes into five minutes, not by adding some new information, but by talking slower. The student clearly showed that she was really conscious about her performance in the practice. S.D realized her mistake that she did in in midterm test. She said the scope of her speech was too wide at the time, so she did not want to do the same when she developed her speech for the final test. 92 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT Inserting new terms and learning the pronunciation (Selective attention). Toward the question whether they used new vocabularies in their speeches, all of the students answered “yes”. They inserted some or even more new vocabularies or terms that they found in the internet to the content of their speeches. S. C conveyed, “I knew the word "aside" but I never tried to use it in a sentence… . I often searched lots of words, might be the new words that I didn’t know yet. I searched on Google translate, and I could turn on the audio to listen to the pronunciation”. While S. D stated, “I used many new vocabularies about environment.… I listened to the pronunciation.” Those students inserted new vocabularies in their contents which were found in the sources they used, or simply the vocabularies that they purposely found. These high achievers also made sure about how those words should be pronounced since they would say the words in their speeches for the examination they would join. Feeling confident about the preparation (Self-management). In the preparation, S. A felt pretty confident with what she had prepared so she was ready to join the exam. She realized that ‘practice’ helped her to perform her best. So, at the time she tried to prepare as well as she could. It’s different with S. B. At first, she was quite unsettled about whether she could deliver her speech for the exam confidently when she was still preparing for the exam. However, she was conscious about that, so she tried her best in the preparation until she felt confident. Those two students were aware that the best thing to be able to perform well in the execution, delivering persuasive speech in the final examination, was preparing as best as they could. When they had given their best for the preparation, they felt confident and ready for the execution. Trying to be calm right before the exam began (Self-management). All of the students responded that they were nervous before the exam, in waiting for their turn, and especially when they successfully logged in to Zoom meeting and met the other parties there. However, they realized that they had to deliver their speech since it was their responsibility. So, they were able to calm themselves down and delivered the speech well. One of the students, S.D, told herself, “I just said to myself that I had to do it, so I could be relaxed later.” Besides that, in such a tense moment, one of the students tried to do something to make her more relaxed. S. C expressed, “I got nervous easily. At the time, I thought I had to be more relaxed and while I was waiting for my turn, I listened to music to make me not really nervous.” In Monitoring the Task From the investigation, it was found some metacognitive strategies deployed by the high achievers when they were delivering their speeches. Those are: Doing gestures to be calmer and more convinced (Self-monitoring). In doing the gestures in the delivery of their speeches, each student had special reason why they did that. S. A told, “I did the gestures as a way to make myself calmer and to make my delivery not too monotonous.”. S. B showed, “I subconsciously did gestures to release my stress, and actually to emphasize my speech.” While S. D said “I felt more relaxed when `did the gestures and they were to convince my points as well.” All of the students knew why they needed to do the gesture in the middle of their delivery. They said that doing some gestures helped them to be more relaxed in which they had said previously that they METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 93 were nervous especially right before having their turn. S. B was even aware before the examination to put her phone in a particular position so that she could freely move her hands and can still be recorded. Trying to figure out what has been prepared (Self-monitoring). In the middle of their delivery, all of the students tried to remember what had been prepared. Some students paused at some parts and some other looked at another side because at the time they were figuring out the materials for their delivery. S. A expressed, “I tried to memorize, and recalled it. When I looked at the camera, I didn’t feel really confident because there was a flash on it so I tried to look the other way.” And S. B also expressed, “I tried to recall some materials that I had prepared so that was why I just looked side by side.” Using intonation to emphasize some parts (Self-monitoring). In their delivery, these students did it with good intonation. Interestingly, they had reason why they did that. S. B revealed, “I talked about the statistics and the interesting facts about single use items. I tried to emphasize them with my intonation.” While S. D said, “I tried to persuade my audience, so I used the intonation like that. The students knew in which parts they should emphasize their points and which parts they should talk slower. They had reason why they changed their intonation in their delivery. In Evaluating the Task The data analysis showed typical metacognitive strategies deployed by the high achievers in evaluating their performances. In which they recalled back the performances they had just done. Noticing the weaknesses from performance and delivery (Self- evaluation). After doing the exam, S. A felt a bit upset with her answer toward a question delivered by one of the lecturers. S. A revealed, “The last one was my answer. After the Q n A session, I felt like I could answer more instead of just answering with only one sentence.” S. A felt that she could give more answer instead of delivering it only in one sentence. This particular student also wished that she could look at the camera more instead of looking at other side. S. B noticed that she spoke too fast. S.C noticed that she gave some pauses, and she was upset about it since she had practiced well. While S.D questioned herself why she should cut up some points. Their responses show that they realized about their own performances after delivering their speeches instead of just felt relieved that they had passed it. However, in spite of the lack they found, they were pretty confident with their own performance that they scored themselves with A/A-. Metacognitive Strategies Deployed by the Middle Achievers There were 4 middle achievers toaking part in the interview: S.E (Student E), S.F (Student F), S.G (Student G), and S.H (Student H). How they deployed their metacognitive strategy in the preparation, execution, and evaluation of the persuasive speech as the final test are presented below In Preparing for the Task It was found various metacognitive strategies deployed by the middle achievers in preparing for the task. Those are: Reading the problem (Advance organizer). To understand the instruction of the final test, three of the students, S. E, S. G, and S. H read the problem independently. They also did not find any difficulties in understanding the instruction by only reading it. While S. F needed the help from other parties to help her understood what they were supposed to do based on the instruction. She was confused about whether 94 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT she had to deliver all of the subtopics under a big topic or only one of them. So, she asked the help of google translate and then one of her friends’. This particular student was aware about what she needed to do at the time. Reading the rubric at glance (Advanced organiser). From their responses, three of the four students did not really pay attention on the rubric. S.E did not read the rubric at all. He thought it was only used to grade the students and he did not think at the time when he was preparing for his speech that the rubric would help him in providing strategies in his practice. S. F read the rubric but did not read it thoroughly. She realized that the topic could help but she did not really pay attention on the points of the rubric since she wanted to focus more in developing her topic instead, as she said. S. G read the rubric at glance. When she was developing her speech, she did not reflect on what was written in the rubric. One of the students, S. H, was different with the first three students. He used the rubric as the reference for him to develop his outline. He said that he only read the aspects needed and read the indicators at glance. Yet, it helped him in developing the outline. Most of the middle performers realized that the rubric provided had function, but they did not really pay attention on it when they were developing their speeches. However, it was different with S. H. He subconsciously used the rubric as the reference to help him developing his outline since he found it was difficult to make an outline properly. Considering the best topic to deliver (Directed attention). From the responses, it was found that all the middle achievers were confident in deciding the best topic to deliver. S. E chose technology because he was really interested in it, he even graded that topic as his top-tier among the other topics. That was why when the other students only presented one particular topic, S. E delivered all the sub topics in his delivery. Yet, for this, he did not really understand that they were only required to choose only one subtopic under a big topic to be presented in their speech. S. F considered two different topics to delivered, internet, and education. Yet, she then considered that she had already presented about internet in her previous speech, that was why she chose education instead. She was also sure to choose the subtopic about education, since she had experience on it. At the time she also felt the need to deliver the speech since she wanted to make people realized that both vocational school and senior high school were both important. S. G was not confused in choosing the subtopic for her to deliver since she was directly interested in the subtopic when she read it at first. S. D also chose the best topic for him to deliver, video games based on his experience and knowledge about it. Learning performing Persuasive speech by watching videos (Functional planning). Two of the students, S. E and S. F said that they watched YouTube videos to learn how people performed a good persuasive speech. S. E said, “I had never done a persuasive talk before so I just watched the example from YouTube and tried my best to learn from it.” While S. F stated, “At first, I did not know what persuasive speech was so I watched about it and then I watched about Vocational School.” Those two students were aware that they were not really sure about how to deliver persuasive speech since they never did it in advance. That was why they decided to watch YouTube videos before developing their speech. METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 95 Finding information from the internet (Functional planning). In developing the content of the speech, all of the students found the information or facts from the internet. S. F even watched YouTube video for finding information about the content of her speech. S. G said that at first, she thought about the content based on her experience but then she tried to get more information from the internet. Interestingly, S.H found the information from the internet from a website whose language delivery in English was not difficult for him to understand. When he found a source and got himself confused to understand about the information, he tried to find information from other easier sources. Their responses show that they were aware to find the sources that provided them with information they needed. Making an outline (Functional planning). All of the students were required to make their outline so all the middle achievers also developed theirs. Yet, the way each student understood what to write in the outline and how it should be made was different was different with each other. S.F made her outline in order, but she also made another outline for all of the topics, which meant she did not really understand about only making an outline for a subtopic. S. H got difficulties at first in making his outline, that was why he decided to ask his friend for enlightenment and also to learn about it independently. S.H described, “I thought of making an outline. At first, I didn't think of making it because I was confused. I asked my friends how to make an outline, and looked for it by myself. Then I realized that it could make the speech good and long. So, I made an outline first. The first thought was the problem, a child playing a game was underestimated even though it was for them to develop their skills. So, I looked for exciting games which could make children learn.” From S. H’s explanation, he finally realized that the outline could help him effectively to develop his speech. On the other hand, S. G did not find any difficulties in making the outline, she knew what to put in the outline in order. Regarding this she said, “I made the outline, like putting the point of what I would talk about. First, I would talk about a particular topic then I continued to another point until the final point in order, so they would be connected”. Recognizing self-weaknesses (Select- ive-attention). From S. G’s responses, she realized her weakness which she got from others’ feedback and during her practice, talking fast although she felt she was not. She was conscious about the weakness and when she found that the length of her delivery did not match with the allotted time, so she changed it by trying to speak slower. While in another case, S. H responded that he was aware about the conjunction of his content when he was developing it. S. H told, “I wondered when I had used the word “that”, it would be better if the next statements were written in other words than “that”. So, I tried to find the synonym of it.”Moreover, S.H was also aware about his grammar competence that was why he downloaded a grammar checker to check the grammar of his content. Trying to practice the speech effectively (Self-management). S. E practiced delivering his speech about 5 times. In the practice, he talked in front of his phone camera and she set the timer. S. F practiced in three days in advance, beside using her phones to do independent practice around five times, she also did a video call with her classmates. She did it by using Zoom on her laptop since she realized the 96 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT examination would also be done through Zoom. Besides that, S. F also wanted to get feedback from her friends especially about whether she looked nervous or not in her delivery. In her practice, she was also aware about her pronunciation that was why she did it more than 3 times. S. G practiced her speech about three times in front of her mirror and set the timer with her phone. She felt confident enough after practicing since she knew what would be delivered. S.H started to practice three days before the examination day. He tried to speak in order to sound more fluent, and the practice in front of his camera was done a day before the examination day. He also felt ready and confident after the practice. Feeling confident (self-management). S.E was confident to deliver his speech since he thought he had prepared well and he was interested with the topic he would deliver at the time. S.G also felt ready to deliver her speech since after the preparation and practice, she already knew what she would talk about. Another middle performer, S.H also felt the same. He even he said that he was satisfied with his preparation, and he really tried to give his best effort since he realized he was not really good at speaking in English. So, after the practice, he was ready to perform his speech in the examination. Those students felt confident because they believed in what they had prepared and they had tried their best for their own speeches. Trying to be Calm and overcoming the technical situation (Self- management). All of the students were nervous right before the exam began, especially when they got the zoom link invitation, when they were logging in, and when they met the other parties in the online platform. They knew their responsibilities, so although they were nervous, they tried to deliver their speeches well. One of the students, S. F, was in trouble before having her turn to delivering the speech. Her phone could not work in the morning, yet she could find a way to get her zoom link. She tried to contact her friends through other social media and asked their help to ask the link from the host, so some of her friends told to the lecturer and also the host about her problem. Her effort made the host could send link for her through one of her friends. The effort that S.F did shows how well she could think to overcome her condition in such a tense situation. In Monitoring the Task From the investigation, it was found some metacognitive strategies deployed by the middle achievers when they were delivering their speeches and answering the questions. Those are: Doing gestures to make the speech more convincing (Self-monitoring). All the students did some gestures when they were delivering their speeches. They subconsciously did the movements because of their own reasons. S. E said that he did some gestures because he remembered what had been delivered by the lecturer in the class that it was done to ensure the audience. While S. F knew that she did that to explain her speech and make it more convincing. The same as S. G, S.F did it to make the audience get what she meant. Toward the question about it, S. F answered, “I did the gestures because I tried to explain, just to convince it more.” While S. G replied, “I did the gestures to make people understand more, to help them get it.” Trying to remember what should be talked about (Self-monitoring). Based on the response of what S. F thought about when she was rolling up her eyes in the METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 97 middle of delivering her speech, she said she tried to remember what should be talked about. She even got a bit confused about the parts of her own content of the speech. That was why she tried to remember when she was speaking. Trying to think fast and find the answer in English (Self-monitoring). All the students felt the tense they had in Q and A session was higher than the one in the speech delivery session. S. E said that at the time, he tried to dig up his mind to find out what the lecturer asked. S. F found the tense higher because at the time she had to think fast to find the answer and also to think about what the words were like in English to answer the lecturer’s question. While S.H did not find any difficulties in understanding the lecturer’s question and finding the answer. He said he knew what the answer was, but he also got a problem in trying to deliver the answer in English. Besides that, S.G said that the Question-and-Answer session was tenser because she was worried about whether her answer made sense to the lecturers or not. In Evaluating the Task The investigation shows some typical metacognitive strategies deployed by the middle achievers in evaluating their performances. Those are: Recognizing the weaknesses in the delivery (Self-evaluation). After having their turns to deliver their speeches, they thought about their performances. S. E said that he thought about the “fillers” he made in the middle of his speech and he did not really mind of anything else. S.F wondered why the lecturer mistakenly understood about her speech, in which she thought that the vocational school and the regular school were both important, but she got that the lecturer thought Vocational school was better than regular school based on her delivery. S. G noticed two weaknesses she had in her performance: whether her answers made sense; and whether she speak in normal speed. She thought she spoke too fast. The last, S.H wondered about his answers. Those middle performers were aware about their performances, that was why they happened to think about the way they delivered their speeches and answered the questions. However, all of them were pretty confident with the result of their speech in which they scored their performances with A/ A-. Metacognitive Strategies Deployed by the Low Achievers There were 3 low achievers took part in the interview: S.I (Student I), S.J (Student J), and S.K (Student K). How they deployed their metacognitive strategies in the preparation, execution, and evaluation of the persuasive speech as the final test are described below. In Preparing for the Task From the analysis, it was found various metacognitive strategies deployed by the low achievers in preparing for the task. Those are: Reading the problem sheet (Advance organizer). To understand the instruction of the project, all the students read the instruction independently. S. I and S. K understood it only by reading without any help from others, while S. J needed to translate the written instruction to google translate. S.J was aware that she needed to make sure about what she would be doing from the instruction by translating it into Indonesian. Reading the rubric at glance (Advance organizer). After reading the problem sheet, they also looked at the rubric provided. S. I and S. J only read the rubric at glance, not thoroughly although they both 98 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT understood that the rubric would help them. S. J realized that she knew about whether she needed to have some gesture in her speech after she read the rubric at glance. While S.I and S.J did not really pay attention on the rubric, S.K said he needed google translate in understanding the rubric, which means he paid attention more on it compared with the other two students. Deciding the best topic to deliver (Directed attention). In deciding the best topic to deliver, at first, S. I and S.J were confused in choosing the topic between education and technology, but then they both chose technology since they had considered it more relevant to their daily life. While S.K was confused in choosing which subtopic under the topic of Technology to be presented. He then decided to deliver about using cell phone since he found it closed to his daily experience. In choosing the subtopics, all the students were aware that the one they chose should be the one they mastered better in order to have a smooth preparation and delivery. Making the outline/ writing the full content (Functional planning). Before making an outline, S.I at first made a note, she put everything she knew on the note and added with some information from the internet. Then, she revised the note. After that she made her outline to be submitted to the lecturer. S. J made 2 drafts. The first one was the real outline, and the second one was the full text of what she wanted to speak. The one that S.J sent to the lecturer was the full text without knowing whether it was the correct outline form or not. S.J did not really understand about outline, and she also did not ask about it to her friends. S.J felt that the full content she made helped her for her practice. S. K made his outline well. He checked the grammar of his outline in a website to check whether they were already correct or not. He put main ideas in the outline in order and he realized the outline helped him for developing his speech. S.K showed, “It was like a benchmark, about what should be delivered in the persuasive speech. It was for helping me.” From his responses, it shows that S. K was aware that he needed to give his best effort for his outline. He consciously knew what to be put there and the function of it. Finding information from other sources (Functional planning). From their responses, it was found that S.I found more information from the internet particularly about the impacts of gadgets on kids. S. K also found more information for the content of his speech, while S.J purely did not find information from the internet, she used her own knowledge instead. She said, “I made the content by using my own understanding. I just wanted to measure how well I could make the script.” The first two students realized that to enrich the topic they needed to find the information from other sources. They also knew about it from the rubric they had read at glance. Unlike with S. J, she believed with her own capacity that was why she did not develop her speech by finding more sources from the internet instead by using her own understanding. She did not read the rubric thoroughly well which made it clearer that she did not understand about what she was required to do. Watching videos of persuasive speech performance (Functional planning). From their responses about what they were doing in preparing for the examination, it was found that S. I watched video on YouTube while S.J watched a video on Ted talks about how people delivered their persuasive METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 99 speech. These students thought to learn more about how to deliver persuasive speech by copying others’ performances. Inserting new vocabularies in the speech (Selective attention). In making the content of the speech, two of the students decided to use new vocabularies in the content of their speeches. S.I found some new vocabularies to be inserted when she was finding the information, and then she looked for how those should be pronounced from an online dictionary. S. J used a word that she was not really sure about at first. That was why she made sure about it first with her friend. She wanted to know whether she could insert that particular word in the content of her speech. S.J uttered, “I did not use new vocabularies only the word “annoyingly”. I was confused about the using of the word, so I asked my friend whether I could say like ‘….’.” Practicing the speech (Functional planning). After making her outline, S.I practiced to do her speech 3 times in front of a mirror and by setting the timer. She was not really confident with the result of her practice since she only had limited time for it due to the other exams that she had to join in the previous day. S.J practiced the speech 3 times in front of her mirror, she recorded her performances. She also looked at her performance to realize whether her delivery was good or not during the practice. For the practice itself, she felt pretty confident. S.K said that he practiced about two times and the practice was just like memorizing the content. Feeling confident in the preparation (Self-management). Among the three low achievers, only one student, S.J, felt confident with her preparation when she was preparing for it. S. I did not feel so, she wished she could practice more. S.I was aware that at the time she needed more practice but since the time did not permit her, she went to perform her speech with less preparation. S. K realized his preparation was not really good but he felt his performance could still be accepted by the lecturer. And S.J felt confident in preparation since she tried to do her best, but when she came to execute the speech, she felt everything she had prepared disappeared from her mind. S. J revealed, “For the preparation, I felt confident like I was ready. But when I performed it, everything disappeared, just like the one I experienced in the examination. I felt like I had prepared, but when I went on the stage, the prepared materials lost.” The low achievers realized that they needed to prepare well. The confidence felt by each student was different based on what they actually did in their own preparation. One student felt not really confident, not because she was not aware to prepare hers but more because she wished she could practice more. Trying be calm right before the speech began (Self-management). All the three students were nervous right before the exam began especially when they got the zoom link invitation by the host, when they were logging in to the meeting and finally met the lecturer/ lecturers and the host. S. I did not seem having any technical problem. While the other two students needed to go through a difficult situation. S. J was in trouble for connecting her laptop to the Zoom meeting. She said her nervousness got doubled due to the poor bandwidth. Since she was nervous, she uttered a ‘special prayer’ silently and wished there would not be any problem with the internet connection. Then, when she successfully logged, before delivering the speech, she smiled to calm herself down. 100 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT What happened to S.K was at the time he just arrived at home from somewhere. He was tired but he realized that he had to join the exam and tried to be ready for it. The responses show that those students realized the circumstances they faced at the time, yet they knew that they had to their speeches. In Monitoring the Task The study showed some metacognitive strategies deployed by the low achievers when they were delivering their speeches. Those are: Trying to recall the materials that had been prepared (Self-monitoring). In delivering the speech, S.I often paused in the middle of her delivery. Toward this she agreed that she tried to recall the materials she had prepared. She was also confused about what to talk about since she could not deliver the speech in Indonesian. She knew about some particular statements in Indonesian but she realized that she was not allowed to talk in Indonesian by the lecturer at the time. S. K also often gave pauses in his delivery. Once he was quiet for quite long in the middle of his speech and he asked the lecturer whether he could start again from the beginning. For that he said that he got really blank. For the part when he repeated some same words “when you try”, he said at the time he was remembering the continuation of those words based on what he had prepared. S.J also often got stuck in the delivery. She tried to recall the materials in her mind when she gave the pauses. She said that when she got stuck, she tended to make her own sentences instead of the ones she had already prepared. Moreover, she also felt tenser since she was afraid that whether the bandwidth would be off. Those are inner voices from the students when they were in the middle of delivering the speeches. They were nervous and they got blank about what to talk, but they tried to remember what had been prepared. One of the students, S.K even asked the lecturer whether he could start again from the beginning since he thought it would be better for him. Doing gestures to be calmer and to emphasize at the points (Self-monitoring). From the three students, only S.J did the gesturers. She agreed that she did the gesturers to be calmer and to convince her points in the speech. In Evaluating the Task The investigation showed some typical metacognitive strategies deployed by the low achievers in evaluating their performances. How the students deployed the strategies are presented below. Realizing the weaknesses in the delivery (Self-evaluation). After delivering their speeches, all the students were aware about the performance they had just done. They recalled back about the points that they thought were lack in their delivery. S. I uttered, “I should have practiced and prepared more.” While S. J emphasized, “The sadness was because I forgot some sentences, and I did not give right answer for the first question. I was not maximal in my speech. And there were some sentences delivered not in orde.”. Another regret came from S.K who said, “I repeated some words and the delivery was not smooth.” Those students were aware that they could not perform well in their delivery. S.I realized that she should have practiced more since she only practiced twice. There were some weaknesses each of them noticed about their own performances after they did it which means they were aware of the way they delivered the speech. S.I and S.K realized about their performances so they scored themselves with C+ / B-, however S.J was confident although she felt she could not deliver well in which she scored herself with an A since she felt she did her best in the preparation. METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 101 Discussion The study confirms that there are differences in the deployment of metacognitive strategies among each group of achievers. This study supports the findings of Wang, Spencer, and Xing (2009) that learners who had higher metacognitive strategies got better result from the achievement test particularly in regulating the strategies in the preparation stage. In this study, high achievers regulated their preparation for the final test more comprehensively than the middle achievers. Besides, the middle achievers also prepared for the final test more comprehensively than the low achievers. Most of the previous studies show quantitative result that there is difference in the frequency of using metacognitive strategies by different level of achievers (Yang, 2009; and Alamri, 2018). The present study showed that the deployment of students’ metacognitive strategies was based on the situation they faced in the learning process: their understanding; goal; and need. Each group of achievers in the present study did the metacognitive strategies as proposed by O’Molley and Chamot (1990). However, it happened in each group of the present study that not all of the students had same awareness. It was because their awareness came from their own understanding about the task, their goal of preparing for the task, and their need why they had to do special strategies. Each student in any level of achievement had different situation, that was why how they deployed their metacognitive strategies were different from one another. The gap between the high, middle, and low achievers in the present study was not really on the frequency of metacognitive strategies used, but on the comprehensiveness of metacognitive strategies deployed by the students in each category of metacognitive strategies classification by O’molley and Chamot (1990). This study showed there were advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention, functional planning, self- management, self-monitoring, and self- evaluation deployed by the students from each level of achievement. However, the difference was actually on how each of the strategies was deployed by the students, the comprehensiveness of application in each category. This study reveals that students who show more responsibility and confidence do better in the final test (Wang, Spencer, & Xing, 2009). High achievers were more responsible and confident in terms of developing their speeches and practicing them effectively. They developed the content of the speech substantially based on the points in the grading rubric, and they chose the topics based on their capabilities. The middle achievers were also confident but they were less responsible than the high achievers. They did not really pay attention on the grading rubric although they knew it could help them. The low achievers developed and practiced the speech only by using their background knowledge. They tried to prepare for the task well, yet two of the three low achievers did not pay attention at all to the grading rubric which affected to the way they developed and practiced for the speech. However, another low achiever had better responsible even if it is compared to most of the middle achievers, he paid attention on the grading rubric and developed his speech based on the points there. He was even conscious about his linguistic competence, and it was shown that he got the best score among the three low 102 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT achievers, close to the standard score for the middle achievers. The study also confirms the statement of Chantharanuwong (2018) that a learner who has metacognition means he/she has in- depth thinking in a learning process where task, goals, strategies are interdependently interactive to each other as significant as assessing his/her knowledge that can be controlled upon the learning process. Obviously, the high achievers had higher metacognition compared to the middle and low achievers. Their consciousness made them prepared better for the final test. The basic difference in this study which led to the real gap is actually in the very beginning stage, advance organizer, which led the students to how they should prepare for the task. All the students read the instruction in the problem sheet well, but not the grading rubric which actually provided them with hints of what to prepare and how they should practice. Only high achievers put attention very well on the speaking rubric particularly and purposefully on “Excellent” indicators. They used the “Excellent” indicators as the benchmark for their preparation and practice. That was why their preparation was more substantial than the middle and the low achievers. Most of the middle achievers used their background knowledge in developing for the speech and in practicing how they should deliver their speeches. Besides, the only low achiever who put more attention on the grading rubric got the best mark among the students from the group. It shows that the first steps or strategies which give students enlightenments of how they should learn or prepare for a language task affect their practice and especially their performance very much. In monitoring stage, the higher achievers were more conscious about why they had to do gestures for their delivery, or speak with good intonation. And one of the highest achievers admitted that she did the gestures since that was included in the grading rubric. While the others, and even the lower achievers did gestures to be more relaxed beside to emphasize their points. Only one of the low achievers did gestures. She admitted that she did that to convince her points as well as to be relaxed, while the other two students only spoke without any gestures. In this monitoring stage, all groups of students admitted that when they gave pauses in the middle of their delivery or when they rolled their eyes, they tried to recall the materials they had prepared in advance. In monitoring stage, all the students also noticed the weaknesses they had during their delivery. In the evaluation stage, all the students from each group of achievers recalled back about what they had just done in the exam. They realized their weaknesses. To sum up, in monitoring stage, the higher achievers were more conscious about their performances compared to the low achievers. Last but not least, there was no significant difference among the three group of achievers in evaluating their performances. The reason which show the gap between the high, and the middle and low achievers support the finding of qualitative study done by Lam in 2008 that students use different type of metacognitive strategies to do local and global planning prior to the task. High achievers prepared more comprehensively since they knew what should be put in the content, and how they should do the physical performance properly, compared to the middle and low achievers. METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL SPEAKING ASSESSMENT 103 Conclusion Based on the findings about the metacognitive strategies applied by the high, middle, and low achievers, the study shows that the deployment of students’ metacognitive strategies is based on their own situation such as their understanding about the task, their goal and their need. All of the groups of achievers applied all the metacognitive strategies as proposed by O’Molley and Chamot (1990) in which there are advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention, functional planning, self- management, self-monitoring, and self- evaluation. The difference is in the comprehensiveness of regulating the thinking process and applying the metacognitive strategies in the preparation stage. In monitoring stage, the higher achievers were more conscious about performing as what expected compared to the low achievers. 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