Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 101 LEARNING THROUGH LEARNERS: INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING STRATEGIES EXPERIENCES Ira Yuliani Department of English Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Kuningan, Indonesia E-mail: ira_yuliani30@ymail.com Fahrus Zaman Fadhly Department of English Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Kuningan, Indonesia Email: fahrus.zaman.fadhly@uniku.ac.id APA Citation: Yulianti, I. & Fadhly, F. Z., (2020). Learning through learners: Indonesian EFL Learners’ Writing Strategies Experiences. Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction, 3(2), 101-110. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25134/ijli.v3i2.3680 Received: 09-05-2020 Accepted: 01-07-2020 Published: 01-10-2020 INTRODUCTION Writing is a productive skill, where people actually should produce language themselves through written text (Harmer, 2007). Some people assume writing as an enjoyable activity in which they can express ideas, thoughts and feeling into various media by using their knowledge that has been learned. It is in line with Elbow as cited in Brown (2007) that “writing is a transaction with words whereby you free yourself from what you presently think, feel, and perceive.” It means that people can enjoy themselves, have wonderful imagination, and can put their thoughts into words freely. However, some people including learners do not have same assumption on writing. In fact, there are still many learners feel frustrated in that activity. The result of one study entitled Problems in writing for scholarly publication in English: the case of Hongkong investigated by Flowerdew (1999) showed that the learner s w ho have less facility of expression and less rich vocabulary feel frustrated and take longer time t o write. In the same way, Nunan (2001) thought that writing is not only a kind of hands on behavior but also a kind of intelligence. Nunan said that in this process, students may gradually cultivate their thinking abilities, including their divergent thinking, logical thinking, imaginary thinking, etc. Thus, it drives an assumption that writing is a complex process as what Ghaith (2002) stated that writing is a complex process that allows writers to explore thoughts and ideas , and make them visible and concrete. Flower & Hayes (1981) also viewed writing as a complex cognitive skill, including a decision-making and a problem-solving activity. Besides, Zamel as cited in Alnufaie (2015, p.408) also assumed “writing is as creative process by which writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they attempt to approximate meaning.” Many writers often do Abstract: This research focuses on writing strategies of EFL learners in writing English text. It attemp t e d to address the following problems i.e. the most frequent writing strategies used and the differences writin g strategies used by male and female students. The data collected from questionnaires and in t erv ie w we re analyzed qualitatively based on Oxford (1990) language learnin g theories. It was found that there were s ix categories of writing strategies used by the students in English text; memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensations strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies. The result revealed that compensation strategies (18,7%) were the most frequent strategies used by b ot h ma le and female students in writing English text. It was also found that the female respondents used more varied writing strategies (70,9%) compared to the male ones but the male students was the highest user of affective strategies (66,2%). As the final points, the compensations strategies seem as the best help strategies used in writing English text that can overcome students’ limitation and the use of writing strategies depend on the students’ choice. Hopefully, the next researchers who are interested in obse rvin g writing strategies can explore deeper and wider, especially in writing specific genre. Key words: language learning strategies, EFL learners, writing strategies mailto:ira_yuliani30@ymail.com https://doi.org/10.25134/ijli.v3i2.3680 Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 102 not know what they want to write beforehand and many ideas are only revealed when the writer has already started to write. Then they moved backwards to revise and change words or structures before moving forwards and they repeated on doing this until they are satisfied with the final result. Concerning to those activities in writing, one of the important factors that appear to play an important role in writing skill development is by using learning strategies. According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990, p.1), “learning strategies are illustrated as special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information.” Oxford (1990) also defined that strategies are learning techniques, behaviors, problem-solving or study skills w hic h make learning more effective and efficient. Oxford (1990) divided language learning strategies into two main categories i.e. direct and indirect strategies. “Direct strategies are the strategies used directly in dealing with a new language and require mental processing of the language” (Oxford, 1990, p.37). The direct strategies are also divided into three types; memory strategy (helps the learner to store new information in their memory and retrieve it later on), cognitive strategy (allows students to comprehend and produce language in different ways), and compensation strategy (used to compensate and help them to employ the language). As opposed to direct strategy, “the indirect strategies provide indirect support for language learning through focusing, organizing, guiding, checking, coaching, encouraging, and cheering the direct strategies” (Oxford, 1990, p.37). The three sets of indirect strategies are metacognit i v e strategy (used for arranging, planning, and evaluating one’s learning, e.g. over viewing and linking with already known material), af f ective strategy (regulates emotional behaviors and motivation), and social strategy (allows learner interaction with other people in the language learning process). In writing context, writing strategies might include strategies of free writing, planning, creating ideas, discovering meaning, group or pair works, considering audience, purpose, and context of writing revision, drafting, and proofreading (Alnufaie, & Grenfell, 2012). Torrance, Thomas, & Robinson (2000, p. 182) also described writing strategy as “the sequence in which a writer engages in planning, composing, revising and other writing related activities.” This is in line with Sundent (2007), stating that writing strategy is the technique us ed by the writer in order to make them write the ideas and think easily through prewriting, drafting, self-revising, peer revising, editing and publishing. Indeed, in facing those stages , the learner really needs either direct or indirect learning strategies in writing process (Oxford, 1990). All the explanation above ensures us that all people need to use strategies in writing. Thus, in this study, the researcher wants to investigate t he learning strategies used by students that they think the most useful and helpful ones for them in writing English text in order to help those are frustrated in writing English. Besides that, the researcher also wants to know the difference between female and male students in using t hos e strategies because gender can influence the use of strategy in learning process (Hong-Nam & Leavell, 2006). Thus, the research attempted to address the following research questions: 1. What are the most frequent strategies used by EFL learners in writing English text? 2. What are the differences writing strategies used by male and female EFL learners in writing English text? METHOD This study employed qualitative research method. According to Mack et al. (2005, p. 1), “qualitative research is a type of scientific research to understand a given research pr oblem or topic from the perspectives of the local population it involves.” Concerning to the purpose of this study which are finding out the most frequent writing strategies used and the difference writing strategies used by male and female EFL learners, the researcher used case study to make the study more focused on the exploration of phenomena that occurs in individual. Gay, Mills, & Airasian (2012, p. 444) stated “a case study research is a qualitative research approach in which researcher focus on a unit of study known as bounded system.” I n t his study, the researcher explored the students’ writing strategies concerned in English text used by the EFL learners in one senior high school in Kuningan. In determining the participant, the researcher used purposeful sampling. According to Creswell (2012, p. 206), “in purposeful sampling, researcher intentionally selects individuals and sites to learn or understand the central phenomenon.” Lodico, Spaulding and Voegtle Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 103 (2010) added that purposeful sampling involves the selection of participants who have key knowledge or information related to the purpose of the study. Thus, thirty nine students : twenty six female and thirteen male students, were chosen purposefully to be participants in this present study. They are students from one class who have interest in English. Two data collections employed in this study are questionnaire and interview. The students were given a questionnaire in order to gain the data of students’ writing strategies. The questionnaire adapted from Oxford (1990) consists of 40 items which are characterized int o six subcategories of six subscales: memory strategies (items 1 to 5), cognitive strategies (items 6 to 17), compensation strategies (items 18 to 21), metacognitive strategies (items 22 to 28) , affective strategies (items 29 to 35), and social strategies (items 36 to 40). They should fill the questionnaire by giving checklist below intensities column; always, often, sometimes, rare, or never; of each strategy item (enclosed i n appendix). These questionnaires were collected in the day after all questionnaires were contributed. The result of questionnaire was analyzed into three steps: calculating and analyzing the usage percentage of writing strategies, interpreting, and making conclusion using Oxford (1990) theory about language learning strategies: memory strategy, cognitive strategy, compensation strategy, metacognitive strategy, af f ective strategy, and social strategy. The researcher calculated the percentage of each student’s writing strategy. The researcher counted the students’ intensities score in using memory strategy, cognitive strategy, compensation strategy, metacognitive strategy, af f ective strategy, and social strategy. The sum of the weights of all items chosen by the correspondents represent the individual’s total score. Formula of percentage: P = x 100% (Sudjana cited in Muljanto, 2012) Where: P = Percentage of each strategy (%) f = Sum of student’s answer n = Sum of score criteria In interview process, six male and seven female students were interviewed. There were fourteen questions given to the selected respondents in interview process to complete t he data gained from questionnaire. The questions were developed mainly based on the questionnaire, tried to find out not only the reason for choosing certain strategies but also the possibility of using other writing strategies which are not mentioned in the questionnaire. To avoid difficulties faced by interviewee in answering the questions, all the interviews were conducted in Indonesian and they were recorded. The result of interview was analyzed using meaning condensation method. According to Kvale (1996, p.192), “meaning condensation entails an abridgement of the meanings expressed by the interviewees into shorter formulations. Long statements are compressed into briefer statements in which the main sense of what is said is rephrased in a few words.” In this process, the researcher listened to the students’ interview that has been recorded and then started to write the result of interview in brief statements. After that, the researcher translated those statements into English and validated it to the supervisors. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION After calculating and analyzing the percentage of data gained from questionnaires, it can be know n that all respondents used more than one strategy in writing English text. Both male and female students used compensation, social, cognitive, metacognitive, affective, and memory strategies in writing English. It was also found two findings related to the research questions. The most f requent writing strategies used in writing english text Table 1 below illustrates the rank percentage of writing strategies used by all respondents in writing English text. Table 1. The rank of writing strategies usage Rank Strategies Average Percentage 1. Compensation 78,8 18,7% 2. Social 74,4 17,7% 3. Cognitive 70,8 16,8% 4. Metacognitive 67,5 16,0% 5. Affective 65,8 15,6% 6. Memory 64,2 15,2% Total 421,2 100% Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 104 The result showed that the most frequent strategy used by respondents in writing English text is compensation strategy (18,7%), followed by social strategy (17,7%), cognitive strategy (16,8%), metacognitive strategy (16,0%), af f ective strategy (15,6 %) and memory strategy (15,2%). It can be known that the average of all students in using compensation strategies is the highest which is 78,8. In compensation strategy, the students comprehended and wrote English text by choosing their favorite topic, using the similar and understandable words, guessing the unknown words in English, and giving time for checking their writing. The students’ writing strategies percentage calculated from questionnaires shows that the subject mostly used in compensation strategy was choosing f avorite topic and understandable words (28,46%) followed by using a similar English word known (24,39%), making short pause while writing (24,39%) and guessing word (22,76%). The strategy of choosing f avorite topic (28,46%) is the highest score in all strategy used. It means that from thirty-nine students, 28,46% of them chose this strategy with the frequency usage which is 175. The students preferred to choose their favorite topic and use understandable words in writing their text than topic from their teacher. They felt free to explor e their ideas into a sheet of paper if the topic or idea they should write is by their own. “I prefer choosing free topic because it can increase my mood to write. When my mo o d is good, I can explore the idea easily.” (S.39: Female, interview) The different students’ ability in comprehending English also influences students to choose the topic by themselves. “Writing text based on our ideas or topic is better than the topic chosen by the t e ac he r . It makes me eas ier in developing my text regarding my ability on that topic.” (S.20: Female, interview) Next, the strategies of using similar English word known in English and making short pauses while writing got equal percentage; it is 24,4%. The students used similar word in writing English when they cannot express their ideas in certain words. They did this strategy in order to make their written text can be understood by others. “When I didn’t know a certain word, I am used to writing that word in similar meaning. The essential point is what I want to share are understandable for the reader or listener.” (S. 27: Male, interview) In writing process, the students also made short pauses to check what they have written so f ar. Regarding to the purpose of writing i.e. making others understood, the students are used to checking their written text in the writing process. They checked weather the text made was readable then they continue to write when they felt satisfied. “I usually submit my task directly be ca use in writing process I myself usually re-read the paragraph I already have written before continue to the next paragraph. I do that activity to make sure if that paragraph is correct.” (S.19: Male, interview) The last strategy that got fewest percentage on compensation strategy is guessing the word when they did not find the exact word needed, the percentage is 22,76%. Writing is different from other language skills. In writing activity, guessing the word is not the first essential decision because different word will change the meaning. They rather look for the unknown words in dictionary or ask their friends than guess the word needed. There are only few students who guess the unknown word in writing. “In my experience, I am able to use English because I used to play video game, listen to English song, and watch English movie. At that moment, I started to guess the word I lis t e n e d and read. So, when I do not know about the word, I try to explore by guessing and using similar words.” (S. 10: Male, interview) Actually, the researcher assumes that those five strategies on social strategy are related each other. First, the students asked to their friend who they think have more knowledge than them. Then, it can build the cooperation among them. They asked them to translate, asked their opinion on what they will write, and they correct their friends’ writing text. The second most frequent strategy used by the students in writing English text is social strategy Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 105 with the percentage is 17,7%. The existence of human as social creature encouraged students t o make interaction among others in writing Englis h class. Thus, this strategy is the second frequent used in writing English text. It is known that strategy of asking f or translating got the highest percentage, it was 22,9%, followed by cooperating with the prof icient user (21,5%), comparing the text with the other students (18,7%), asking the others f or correction (18,5%) and discussing the topic with other students (18,3%). The strategy of asking other students f or translating the unknown words considered to be a helpful way in the process of writing English text. It occurred because not all students are good in English. The students asked others that they think they have more knowledge than them; it can be the teacher or their friends that translate the unknown words in English. “My friend is smarter than me, I always ask him to translate the unknown word.” (S. 7: Male, interview) The students asked for help to their friends because the teacher let them discuss in doing t h e task. Besides, motivation given by teacher (like their written text will be read in front of class ) can force them to write good text. Thus, t he r ole of teacher in this process influences the students’ behavior in writing. “I think reading our text in front of class is th e best helped activities in writing. Yeah, my teacher always asks us to read our text in fro n t of class. She and our friends give commen t b y correcting the mistake. By doing this activity, it is like pressure for us that impulse ourselves t o write well because as usual human we will be embarrassed if our friends laughed a t o ur b a d writing. Besides, this activity also can give t he other students idea, when they listen to students’ presentation it can motivat e t h em t o write the great idea like what the students re a d in front of the class.” (S. 10: Male, interview) The second social strategy used by students is cooperating with prof icient user, the percentage is 21,5%. As what have mentioned above, when the respondents faced difficulty in writing English text, such as the unknown words, unrelated idea, etc. They tended to cooperate with the proficient students or the smarter students. “My seatmate’s language ability is better so when I don’t know some English words, I a s k her” (S.05: Female, interview) After the respondents finished their writing English text, they used the strategies of comparing the text with other students (18,7%) and asking f or correction (18,5%). They are used to doing these strategies in order to limit the writing errors in their texts. “Because of limiting time, I release that sometimes I write in hurry. By asking frie n d ’s correction I think it can decrease the error in writing” (S.10: Male, interview) The percentages of comparing the text with other students (18,7%) and asking f or correct i on (18,5%) illustrated that only few respondents used these strategies. “I rarely asked my friends’ comment, I rather read my text myself to make sure that the idea I want to share is appeared.” (S.20: Female, interview) The last strategy used on social strategy is discussing the topic with others bef ore starting t o write, the percentage is (18,3%). They discus sed with other students in order to give additional ideas about the topic on their text. “Discussing about the topic help me in deciding if what I write is appropriate or lo g ic with the topic chosen” (S.39: Female, interview) “By having discussion, I know whether what I will write relates to the topic and whethe r it is polite to be expressed in my writing or not.” (S.10: Male, interview) The researcher assumed that these five strategies on social strategy are related to each other. First, the students asked to their friend who they think have more knowledge than themselves in which it can build the cooperation among them. They asked them to translate, asked their opinion on what they planned to write, and they corrected their friends’ writing text. The third frequent strategy used by the students in writing English text is cognitive strategy; the percentage is 69,6%. Through cognitive strategy, the students did everything t o Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 106 make their written text good and understandable. Table 1 showed the rank percentage of student s ’ cognitive strategies in writing English. Students compared the text they have made with their draft. In doing this activity, the students also re-read the text to remedy the writing failures such as the poor idea or sentences in the text and reformulated the text when they were not sure about that. “I re-read my text to check the vocabulary, verb, the structure of text, and the coherence of the text. If I found the error, I corrected it before submitting it to my teacher.” (S. 5: Female, interview) Reading and collecting inf ormation about t he topic f rom dif f erent sources (8,78%) also were done by the students in writing. They usually d id this activity before writing the text and it even helped them in generating idea. “By reading a variety of relevant types of text, students can gain important insights both about how they should write and about the subject matter that may become the topic of their writing” (Brown, 2007, p. 347). “If I did not know what to write, I would browse and read many references, internet or books. If there’s something interesting I wou ld set it on my idea.” (S. 39: Female, interview) “When I do not know what to write, I u s u a lly look for references from others” (S. 26: Male, interview) “Imagination comes from the things we know, the more knowledge we have, the easier to create imagination and arrange our mind set. So, getting used to read many books can enrich our knowledge because reading others’ text means we can write our written text. The mo re books are read, the more ideas we get.” (S.10: Male, interview) Writing in foreign language made the students used thinking aloud (8,66%) strategy. I n this strategy, they should think not only how they generate and express their ideas into written text but also how they write them in foreign language. In writing, they usually do free writing to emer ge the idea. “Writing abstractly helps me in generating ideas. I choose idea, think about t h e c o nc ep t, and try to get my body relaxed in order to make me focus ed in writing. Sometimes I put the title first, but also sometimes I write the whole t e xt and then choose the appropriate title b a se d o n what I have already written) (S.07: Male, interview) Regarding the result of questionnaire above, it can be seen that from all cognitive strategy us ed, 8,54% of students commonly write the text directly in English and 7,16% of them write in Indonesia then translate into English. They w ho wrote directly in English feels that this strategy is easier and simpler in writing process. It can help them writing the task fast. “Writing English directly is simpler.” (S.26: Male, interview) Besides, the sentences’ organization of English and Indonesia are quite different. Students felt that writing the text in Indonesia makes them difficult to translate into English. “Writing directly in English is easier and simpler. Writing in Indonesian makes it more complex when I do not know the language structure and how to translate it into English properly.” (S.39: Female, interview) We know that each student’s skill in comprehending English is different. Thus, the students who feel they are not good enough in English need to write the text in Indonesia beforehand. “Writing in Indonesian first, translation process even may be turn into learning process” (R.30: Male, interview) In translating their text, the respondents used dictionary or other sources to translate their written text (8,48%) besides asking to other fiends as what mentioned in social strategies above. The last two cognitive strategies are reading books or good writers’ compositions to improve writing (6,87%) and writing and practice new expression repeatedly (6,57%). As it has already described above, the students usually read many references before writing the text. It means that they read and collect the relevant text when they are going to write even though in their daily activity, they rarely read the books from good Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 107 writer. They also barely do writing or practise new expressions in writing because they only hear and remember those expressions (without practice). The fourth common strategy used by student s in writing English text is metacognitive strategy. It was found that 16,0% of thirty-nine students used this strategy in writing English text. There are some strategies involved in metacognitive strategies. The first is re-reading and correcting the text. This strategy was mostly used by students on metacognitive strategy. This strategy was usually done after the students finished t heir writing. Before submitting their final writing, the students usually re-read and corrected their text until they felt satisfied. They did this in order to minimize the error of their writing. “I usually submit my written text after rea d in g the text and being sure that the id e a I wa n t t o convey is expressed well.” (S.20: Female, interview) The second strategy is checking the coherence and cohesion of the text (15,83%). While students re-reading their text, the students might be checking the coherence and cohesion of the text they made. If there were incoherent words , t hey corrected those errors. The third strategy is making sure that the t ext can be understood by the reader (15,28%). This strategy is done by the students regarding to the purpose of writing. Of course, this strategy is related to the fourth strategy, thinking about the purpose of writing (14,85%) and the fifth strategy, paying more attention to the meaning than to the grammatical correctness (13,21%). They realized that what they have written should be understood by others. Being successful in writing is when their text is readable and understood by others. “Idea is important because it can genera t e t h e concept of what we are going to write. It means nothing when we are good only in grammar without knowing what to write. I also feel I a m successful in writing English text when o t h ers can read and understand my text.” (S.07: Male, interview) The last two cognitive strategies used by the students are creating and organizing an outline f or the whole content (12,45%) and brainstorming or make several list of ideas bef ore writing process (12,34%). It means that only a few students usually make an outline and brainstorm their idea. It can be seen in the interview result. “Reading many references and drafting are t h e activities that I did before writing. When we want to write, we should not be afraid to ma ke mistake and do not only focus on grammar which can make what we want to convey is not expressed well.” (S.39: Female, interview) The reason in making outline or draft before writing is to make students easier in developing the idea. “The reason I write the points first is to organize the text and I only need to elaborate the points.” (S.33: Female, interview) “To explore and make my imaginations appeared, I usually use the idea which appeared from brainstorming and then I write the points I planned to elaborate. Then I consider the moral value that I can convey through the text I made.” (S.27: Male, interview) Affective strategies are the fifth common strategies used by the students in writing Englis h text. The percentage is (15,6%). The students used this strategy to regain the idea for their writing by using humor, listening to music, putting my writing aside for a while to reconsider my thoughts with a fresh mind, listening to our body, self-motivating, giving reward and writing down their feelings in a language learning dairy. It can be known that using humor in learning process has the highest percentage of affective strategies, the percentage is (19,04%). It is followed by listening to music (16,26%), putting the writing text aside until having a f resh mind (15,37%), listening to our body (14,70%), motivating myself to keep writing (14,59%), giving myself reward or treat (10,13%) and writing down my f eelings in a language learni ng dairy (9,91%). The results above showed that the respondents like humor in learning process. They believed that relaxation comes from funny things like humor in the classroom. They also believed that listening to music can emerge their idea or topic for their text. “I enjoy writing in relax and quiet condition , for example, listening to music.” Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 108 (S.07: Male, interview) “I usually watch movie, listen to music and reminisce about personal experience to explore and generate my imagination for writing.” (S.27: Male, interview) Affective strategies can form students’ creativity by relaxation or mediation. When the students feel relaxed, they can easily generate and think about the topic/ideas for their writing. “I usually write when I am in good mood. Besides, I usually write the full text and give the title later in order not to limit my ideas ” (S.19: Male, interview) Besides, students also used strategy of putting aside my writing f or a while to reconsider my thoughts with a f resh mind (15,37%), followed by listening to their body (14,70%) while writing their English text. They believed that writing in fresh mind can make them enjoy writing the English text. Thus, they do something they t hink it is useful to make freshen their brain. They als o think that their body condition influences the mood of writing. “If I was confused on what to write, I usually walk around while looking for inspiration or take a nap so I can be relaxed.” (R.10: Male, interview) The respondents also used strategies of motivating myself to keep writing by saying positive statements (14,59%). Sometimes, the students feel hard in doing their writing task, a lot of anxiety might come to each student while writing, especially in English text. Thus, the students need to motivate themselves by saying positive statements such as come on, you can do it and go on. As what has already explained above, motivation can give contributions on the students’ desires to write the task. Giving myself reward or treat when I write English well (10,13%) was also used by the students after they finished their writing. They might express their happiness after finishing their writing task by doing something they like. The last affective strategy which got less percentage is writing down my f eelings in a language learning dairy (9,91%). It means that only few students did this strategy in writing. The reason is they preferred express their feeling orally. “I prefer to share my experience orally.” (S.05: Female, interview) The last strategy used by students in writing English is memory strategy. Only 15,2% of students used this strategy in writing English text. They used this strategy when they dealt with vocabularies that they were familiar with in their writing. First, connecting the writing topic with the background knowledge is the strategy mostly used by the students (24,32%). It can be seen that in writing process, the students tended to connect their writing topic with their background knowledge which might come from their habit in reading different kind of books. “Imagination comes from the things we kn o w, the more knowledge we have, the easier to create imagination and arrange our mind set. So, getting used to read many books can enrich our knowledge because reading others’ text means we can write our written text. The mo re books are read, the more ideas we get.” (S.10: Male, interview) The second strategy that the students frequently used on memory strategy is classif ying words according to their grammatical category (23,85%). Writing English text is related to grammar which is important in writing text. “I believe grammar is important in writing considering it can help the text to be understood well.” (S.36: Female, interview) “Grammar is important in English writing English, it can review my text whether it is already good or not.” (S.33: Female, interview) The third strategy on memory strategy is memorizing and writing new English words (18,6%). In order to enrich their English vocabularies, the students try to memorize and write new English words in their daily life. They write those words and memorize them so it can be used in writing English text. Having rich vocabulary makes them become good in writing. The fourth strategy on memory strategy is placing the new word into a context (17,01%). This strategy is related to the third strategy, when students find new English words, they write not only in word by word, but also put them into a Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 109 context or sentence so they can remember t hose words. The last strategy on memory strategy is revising the compositions by looking back to the last errors made (16,22%). The percentage illustrated that students rarely used this strategy in writing. In this strategy, the students revised their own text in order to remember the errors made in writing and how to solve those errors. From the first finding above, we can assume that all the respondents tended to employ compensation strategy in their writing, including selecting topic, adjusting or approximating the message, coining word and using a circumlocution or synonym words which in line with Oxford (1990) theory. It means that they prefer to break the limitation in writing English text. It has already known that the position of English in respondents’ country is as a foreign language where they only speak English in English classroom or when they need to speak English in certain time. Thus, perhaps the compensation strategy is the most helpful strategy. The Dif f erence Writing Strategies Used by Male and Female Students After knowing the total percentage of writing strategies used by all respondents, researcher then tried to classify the respondents based on the gender to know the difference of the strategies used in writing English text. Thus, the researcher tried to explain the different strategies used by them. The results of classifying are illustrated in table 2 below. Table 2. Percentage of various writing strategy used between male and female No. Strategy Items Percentage Male Female 1. Memory strategy 63,40% 64,20% 2. Cognitive strategy 67,70% 72,30% 3. Compensation strategy 75,40% 80,60% 4. Metacognitive strategy 65,10% 68,80% 5. Affective strategy 66,20% 65,30% 6. Social strategy 73,20% 74,30% Average 68,50% 70,90% Table 2 illustrated the percentage of overall strategies used by male and female students. It can be seen that female respondents are the m os t frequent user in the overall writing strategies. The percentage of female respondents is (70,9%) while the percentage of male respondents is (68,5%). This is in line with Oxford (1990) that females are reported as the frequent overall strategy user than males in many studies (although sometimes males surpassed females in the use of a particular strategy). This finding als o was reported on the previous study (Belen, 2012 ) that females have a significantly higher frequency of the use of writing strategies compared to males. The reason found in this study is because female respondents wanted to do everything perfectly and had score oriented. “Most of females want to do ev erything perfectly including in English writing and th e y want to achieve good writing score, so they d o their writing task seriously.” (S.24: Female, interview) “Because male just write what they wa n te d t o without any consideration which is contrast with female whose full consideration.” (S.36: Female, interview) “In my opinion, most of female are more motivated to get the best score. They are serious in writing the task, so their writing is well-organized. It is different with male who simply enjoy doing their tasks and does not care about the score, they only wanted to express their thought by their own way.” (S.10: Male, interview) These students’ statements proved why female respondents most frequently used strategy in writing, but this situation was not found in t he use of affective strategies where female respondents are less frequently used the strategies compared to male respondents. The percentage of female respondents in using affective strategies is (65,3%) while the male is (66,2%). Affective strategy is a strategy used in order to raise one’s emotion. While in this condition, affective strategy was used and used in making the students enjoy and have good mood in English writing. From the percentage above, it can be concluded that female respondents are seldom in making themselves enjoy in writing. “Male students tend to be relaxed in doing their task. They like to joke around which is contrast with female students who are serious in d o in g the task.” “S. 30: Male, interview” Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 Volume 3, Issue 2, October 2020 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 110 “I think male students does not like to do things seriously, they prefer to write with things t he y enjoy with.” “S.05: Female, interview” CONCLUSION Based on the data analysis at the eleventh grade students in one senior high schools in Kuningan, some conclusions can be drawn; the eleventh grade students used more than one writing strategy when they wrote English text, the strategies used by the students were memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, af f ective strategies, and social strategies. The present study showed that the most frequently strategy used by the students is the compensation strategy (18,7%). This strategy helps students to break the limitation in writing English text. The strategy of choosing f avorite topic f or their writing (28,46%) which belongs to compensation strategy is the most frequently strategy used by students. It was influenced by the mood or students’ emotion in writing. These findings also showed that there are different percentages of strategy used by male and female. Female used more various writing strategies compared to male. These finding strengthen the previous studies which found t hat female are more frequently users of strategies than male (Oxford, 1990). On the other hand, it was also found that the male respondents reported used affective strategy more frequently than female. REFERENCES Alnufaie, M., & Grenfell, M. (2012). EFL students’ writing strategies in Saudi Arabian ESP writ in g classes: Perspectives on learning strategies in self-access language learning. Studies in Self- Access Learning Journal, 3(4), 407-422. 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