Definitions of Tasks Learning Materials

First, it is authenticity. Candlin and Edelhoff 1982 cited in Nunan, 2004: 53 state that authenticity involves much more than simply selecting texts from the outside arena of language teaching, and that the processes should also be authentic. Second, it is the learners’ focuses. They are basically concerned with skill getting or skill using. In skill using, they apply these skills to communicative interaction. Third, it is focused on the learners developing accuracy and fluency. Brumfit 1984 cited in Nunan, 2004: 56 states that accuracy and fluency are not opposites, but are complementary.  Teacher and Learner Roles Roles are the part in which a learner and a teacher are expected to play in a learning task like the social and interpersonal relationship among the participants. Richards and Rodgers 1986 cited in Nunan, 2004:64 state that tasks will show assumptions about giving an achievement to a learner, so that the learner make to the learning process. Furthermore, a learner who knows his own preferred learning style and then apply on one’s own learning strategies will make one become a better learner.  Settings Setting is the classroom arrangements specified in the task. It requires consideration of whether the task is to be partly outside or inside the classroom. There are two different aspects of the learning situations. They are mode and an environment. Learning mode refers to the learners’ operating on an individual or group basis. Meanwhile, environment refers to where the learning actually takes place. It might be a conventional classroom in a school or language centre, a community class, a workplace setting, a self-access centre, or a multi- media language centre.

4. Writing in Junior High School

a. Learner Characteristics

The age of SMP or junior high school students is around 12 to 15 years old, so they are categorized as teens. According to Brown 2001: 91, teens are the age of transition, confusion, self-consciousness, growing, and changing bodies and minds. Teens are in between childhood and adulthood, therefore teaching them requires special consideration. In line with Brown, Harmer 2007: 83 states that adolescence is an age stage of the search for an identity and a need for self-esteem; they need to have positive feeling about themselves and feel valued. Furthermore, Brown 2001: 92 states the learner characters of teenagers. 1 Around the age of twelve, the intellectual capacity adds abstract operational thought. 2 Their attention spans are lengthening, but teenagers are still easily distracted with many diversions in their life, then the attention can be shortened. 3 Their essential nature of appealing to all five senses lessens.