who write with confidence will be more open to strategies that allow them to express their written voice Tom Romano, 2004: 20 in Holbrook
et al., 2005.
c. Characteristics of Junior High School students
Junior high school students are adolescents whose ages are between 12-15 years. They are characterized by their diversity as they move
through the puberty growth cycle at varying times and rates. Yet as a group they reflect important developmental characteristics that have major
implications for those agencies that seek to serve them. Whereas from intellectuality and social development, Harmer
2007: 83-84 states that adolescence is bound up, after all, with a pronounced search for identity and a need for self-esteem; adolescents
need to feel good about themselves and valued. Moreover, peer approval may be considerably more important for them than the attention of
the teacher. They have a strong need to belong to a group, with peer approval and may be easily to be encouraged. In the class, they may be
disruptive. Beside they need self-esteem and peer approval to provoke from being disruptive, the boredom they feel may also make them cause
discipline problems. In addition, there are some characteristics of adolescents from
Brown 2007:106-107 that can be considerations in teaching them; 1 intellectual capacity that adds abstract operational thoughts around the age
of 12, 2 attention spans are lengthening as a result of intellectual maturation, 3 varieties of sensory input are still important, 4 factor
surrounding ego, self-image, and self-esteem are at their pinnacle, and 5 becoming increasingly adult-like in their ability to make those
occasional diversions from ‘here and now’ nature of immediate communicative contexts to dwell on grammar point or vocabulary item.
In conclusion, adolescents are an age of transition from children to adults. They have different characteristics whether physical, intellectual, or
developmental, those need special attentions. However, that if they are engaged, they have a great capacity to learn, a great potential for
creativity, and a passionate commitment to things which interest them.
d. Teaching writing in Junior High School
